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Translated by John A. Dahl
IF a spot on earth be found | |
| Where, responsive to the alluring | |
| Voice of nature so beguiling, | |
| Grief will cease to be enduring; | |
| Where grim hate will cease reviling; | 5 |
| Where the baleful bent to sinning, | |
| Passions base and soul-immuring, | |
| Are laid powerless and bound | |
| By the mere sight of the winning | |
| Charms of landscape, by the thought | 10 |
| Of His presence who has made | |
| Earth in all her charms arrayed; | |
| And by the delicious feeling | |
| Of the peace the scene ’s revealing, | |
| As if hill and dale had caught | 15 |
| Glories from that place where never | |
| Aught is known of strife and clangor,— | |
| Then that spot must be forever | |
| In fair, beautiful Hardanger. | |
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| If a spot on earth there be | 20 |
| Where the godless, that may stray | |
| Thither, instantly will cower | |
| In profound humility; | |
| Where remorse, awe of God’s anger, | |
| Feel the great Creator’s power, | 25 |
| But no longer are a prey | |
| On the heart’s new-born endeavor,— | |
| Then that spot must be forever | |
| In fair, beautiful Hardanger. | |
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| If a spot on earth there be | 30 |
| Where two foes, each other meeting, | |
| Will exchange a friendly greeting, | |
| Cease their animosity, | |
| Each a hand of truce extending, | |
| Each an arm the other lending, | 35 |
| Conquered by the soothing balm | |
| In the scene’s sweet, holy calm; | |
| Where conceit and vain assurance | |
| Would have but a short endurance; | |
| Where a man, intent on spoil, | 40 |
| Would stop short, ’shamed of approaching, | |
| As if fearful of encroaching | |
| In a consecrated soil;— | |
| Where all nature speaks to thee: | |
| Snow-crowned mountain, e’er appearing | 45 |
| Like a hoary great-grandfather, | |
| Round whom loving children gather; | |
| Sunny glen, with its endearing | |
| Voice so soft and motherly; | |
| Crystal stream, the bosom warming | 50 |
| With its song of days that never | |
| Lose their place in memory,— | |
| O, that spot must be forever | |
| In Hardanger, fair and charming. | |
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| If there be a place so blest, | 55 |
| Where from lovely flower-clad valley | |
| Blue alps rear their silvery crest | |
| Towards heaven majestically; | |
| Where near glaciers you may see | |
| Blossoming the apple-tree, | 60 |
| Whilst wild roses gayly grow | |
| In a patch of lingering snow; | |
| Where a brook begins its song | |
| In a voice first unpretending, | |
| Babbling onwards musically | 65 |
| Through its own sweet little valley, | |
| Then its voice in compass mending, | |
| Rushes eagerly along, | |
| All ambition to be lending | |
| Its charms to the greater valley, | 70 |
| And—like David, of whom Holy | |
| Scripture says he rose to be, | |
| By his harp’s sweet minstrelsy, | |
| Monarch from a shepherd lowly— | |
| Thunders on majestically | 75 |
| Through its fair domain, the valley,— | |
| Ay, where is there such a place? | |
| Grandeur, majesty, and grace | |
| In harmonious combination: | |
| Where from snow-clad mountain-tops | 80 |
| Spread in graceful undulation | |
| Lines of meadow-land and copse; | |
| Where the slopes that like a cord | |
| Bind the mountain to the fjord, | |
| Glide out in soft capes, surrounded | 85 |
| With festoons of green that lave | |
| Their bright fringes in the wave, | |
| Looking as if half-way bounded | |
| In their progress to get o’er | |
| To the other sylvan shore; | 90 |
| And where, from behind the screen | |
| Of a birchwood may be seen | |
| Peeping out a cottage lowly, | |
| The light smoke from it ascending | |
| To the scene the appearance lending | 95 |
| Of an offering sweet and holy,— | |
| O, where find you so much grace, | |
| Such exemption from all clangor, | |
| Such retreats, such harmless ways? | |
| Say, where is there such a place | 100 |
| But in beautiful Hardanger? | |
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