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Translated by William Sidney Walker
THOU spot of earth, where from my bosom | |
| The first weak tones of nature rose; | |
| Where first I cropped the stainless blossom | |
| Of pleasure, yet unmixed with woes; | |
| Where, with my new-born powers delighted, | 5 |
| I tripped beneath a mother’s hand; | |
| In thee the quenchless flame was lighted, | |
| That sparkles for my native land! | |
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| And when in childhood’s quiet morning | |
| Sometimes to distant haunts we rove, | 10 |
| The heart, like bended bow returning, | |
| Springs swifter to its home of love! | |
| Each hill, each dale, that shared our pleasures, | |
| Becomes a heaven in memory; | |
| And even the broken veteran measures | 15 |
| With sprightlier step his haunts of glee. | |
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| Through east, through west, where’er creation | |
| Glows with the cheerful hum of men, | |
| Clear, bright it burns, to earth’s last nation, | |
| The ardor of the citizen! | 20 |
| The son of Greenland’s white expansion | |
| Contemns green corn and laughing vine; | |
| The cot is his embattled mansion, | |
| The rugged rock his Palestine. | |
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| Such was the beacon-light that guided | 25 |
| Our earliest chiefs through war and woe; | |
| Even love itself in fame subsided, | |
| Though love was all their good below: | |
| Thus young Hialte rushed to glory, | |
| And left his mourning maid behind; | 30 |
| He fell,—and Honor round his story, | |
| Dropping with tears, her wreath entwined. | |
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| Such flame, O pastor-chief! impelled thee | |
| To quit the crosier for the blade; | |
| Not even the heaven-loved cloister held thee, | 35 |
| When Denmark called thee to her aid: | |
| No storms could chill, no darkness blind thee, | |
| Ankona saw her thousands bend; | |
| Yet when her suppliant arms entwined thee, | |
| She found a man in Denmark’s friend. | 40 |
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| O’er Norway’s crags, o’er Denmark’s valleys, | |
| Heroic tombs profusely rise, | |
| Memorials of the love that rallies | |
| Nations round kings, and knits their ties. | |
| Sweet is the bond of filial duty, | 45 |
| Sweet is the grasp of friendly hand, | |
| Sweet is the kiss of opening beauty, | |
| But sweeter still our native land. | |
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| Thou monument of truth unfailing! | |
| Sublime, unshaken Frederickshall! | 50 |
| In vain, with peal on peal assailing, | |
| Charles thundered at thy fatal wall; | |
| Beneath thy cliff, in flames ascending, | |
| A sacrifice to virtue blazed, | |
| When patriot bands, serene, unbending, | 55 |
| Consumed the domes their fathers raised. | |
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| O royal town! in memory hallowed | |
| To Denmark’s last and darkest day! | |
| The prize that Sweden’s hunter followed | |
| Behind thy feeble ramparts lay: | 60 |
| But faith, the strength of towers supplying, | |
| Bade Vasa tremble for his name; | |
| While round the rescued Hafnia lying | |
| Expired stern Sweden’s flower and fame. | |
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| Long, long shall Danish maidens sigh | 65 |
| For those who in their battle fell; | |
| And mothers long, with beaming eye, | |
| Of Frederickshall and Hafnia tell! | |
| The child that learns to lisp his mother, | |
| Shall learn to lisp his country’s name; | 70 |
| Shall learn to call her son a brother, | |
| And guard her rights with heart of flame. | |
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| Burn high, burn clear, thou spark unfading, | |
| From Holstein’s oaks to Dofra’s base; | |
| Till each, in war his country aiding, | 75 |
| Remain in peace her strength and grace! | |
| The sons of wisdom shall approve us, | |
| The God of patriots smile from high, | |
| While we, and all the hearts that love us, | |
| Breathe but for Denmark’s liberty. | 80 |
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