Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Scotland: Vols. VI–VIII. 1876–79.
St. Olafs Fountain
By Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen (18481895)L
Sinks the sun o’er forests sleeping,
Wondrously in splendor steeping
Glaciers far with cloud-capt spire.
Stands King Olaf, sad and weary;
Loath to view the ruins dreary,
Whereon flames exulting feed.
Not a rustle in the rushes,
Not a breeze to stir the bushes
With its fugitive delight.
Where erewhile the cooling current
Traced its courses, gay and errant,
Glimmers now the sun-bleached sand.
With the low of homeless cattle;
O’er the bloody field of battle
Throws the sun its lurid glare.
Like the far, unceasing dirges
Of the faintly murmuring surges,
From his musing wakes the king;
Peasants, armed with scythes, and brawny
Spearmen, clad in wolf-skins tawny—
Slowly wind the hills along.
To the king his voice uplifted:
“Tossed and vanquished we have drifted,
Saintly king, unto thy shore.
But our gods no more are near us,
Wrathful Thor no more will hear us.
Give us water ere we die!
Hath a balm for each disaster.
We will worship him, O master,
Who our armies put to flight.”
With the power of strong believing,
Swift the king his sword upheaving,
Smote the barren mountain’s brow.
And the mountain’s ancient giant
Roused its echoes, fierce, defiant,
As if mocking Christ the Lord.
Came no bubbling fountain bursting;
And the barren land lay thirsting,
With its heavy doom oppressed.
Chuckling with a cunning, low laugh:
“Now we know, forsooth, King Olaf,
Still is ancient Thor not dead.”
“Slay the wretch!” they shouted wildly.
But the king rebuked them mildly;
Low he knelt upon the ground.
While he prayed with deep contrition:
“Lord, O, save them from perdition;
I am weak, but thou art strong.”
Waked to life the barren mountain;
Upward sprang a bubbling fountain,
Rushing o’er the sun-bleached waste.
But the cross his zeal hath planted
In our land stands bright, undaunted,
Gleaming over dale and fjord.
Mid the drooping alder bushes
Still with joyous cadence gushes,
Fresh, unchanged, from year to year.