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Home  »  library  »  poem  »  A Sonnet from ‘Norway’s Dawn’

C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

A Sonnet from ‘Norway’s Dawn’

By Johan Sebastian Cammermeyer Welhaven (1807–1873)

Translation of William Morton Payne

OH, like a youth our race with courage bold

Shall yet wax strong behind its mountain rim;

While many an evil giant, fierce and grim,

Shall fall, and lie in death’s embraces cold.

And valorous deeds, like those men did of old,

Shall here once more be praised in song and hymn;

The life renewed of saga-ages dim,

In glowing words shall once again be told.

The word shall turn to act of high emprise;

The thought now hushed shall spring to burning speech

In hall of counsel and the sacred fane.

The noisy shout shall cease, the precept wise

Shall take its place, and, far as sight may reach,

The gleam shall grow into the light again.