Mountain Song
When you will the mountains roamAnd your pack are making,Put therein not much from home,Light shall be your taking!Drag no valley-fetters strongTo those upland spaces,Toss them with a joyous songTo the mountains' bases!
Birds sing Hail! from many a bough,Gone the fools' vain talking,Purer breezes fan your brow,You the heights are walking.Fill your breast and sing with joy!Childhood's mem'ries starting,Nod with blushing cheeks and coy,Bush and heather parting.If you stop and listen long,You will hear upwellingSolitude's unmeasured songTo your ear full swelling;And when now there purls a brook,Now stones roll and tumble,Hear the duty you forsookIn a world-wide rumble.
Fear, but pray, you anxious soul,While your mem'ries meet you!Thus go on; the perfect wholeOn the top shall greet you.Christ, Elijah, Moses, thereWait your high endeavor.Seeing them you'll know no care,Bless your path forever.
Words in this poem
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Mountain Song is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems and Songs, Project Gutenberg ebook #6619, the Arthur Hubbell Palmer translation; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, Mountain Song, in Poems and Songs (1915), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #6619, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/bjornson-poems-and-songs/mountain-song.html, id L29249.
Form and metre
Mountain Song is 32 lines in 3 stanzas. The rhyme scheme is ABABCDCD, complete in 2 of its 3 stanzas. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%).
See other poems in trochaic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ABABCDCD roamA · makingB · homeA · takingB · strongC · spacesD · songC · basesD
- 2 ABABCDCDEFEFGHGH boughA · talkingB · browA · walkingB · joyC · startingD · coyC · partingD · longE · upwellingF · songE · swellingF · brookG · tumbleH · forsookG · rumbleH
- 3 ABABCDCD soulA · youB · wholeA · youB · thereC · endeavorD · careC · foreverD
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| When you will the mountains roam | 7 | ····/˘· |
| And your pack are making, | 6 | ····/˘ |
| Put therein not much from home, | 7 | ······· |
| Light shall be your taking! | 6 | ····/˘ |
| Drag no valley-fetters strong | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| To those upland spaces, | 6 | ··/˘/˘ |
| Toss them with a joyous song | 7 | ····/˘· |
| To the mountains' bases! | 6 | ··/˘/˘ |
| Birds sing Hail! from many a bough, | 8 | ····/˘·· |
| Gone the fools' vain talking, | 6 | ····/˘ |
| Purer breezes fan your brow, | 7 | /˘/˘··· |
| You the heights are walking. | 6 | ····/˘ |
| Fill your breast and sing with joy! | 7 | ······· |
| Childhood's mem'ries starting, | 5 | /··/˘ |
| Nod with blushing cheeks and coy, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Bush and heather parting. | 6 | ··/˘/˘ |
| If you stop and listen long, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| You will hear upwelling | 6 | ······ |
| Solitude's unmeasured song | 8 | /˘····˘· |
| To your ear full swelling; | 6 | ····/˘ |
| And when now there purls a brook, | 7 | ······· |
| Now stones roll and tumble, | 6 | ····/˘ |
| Hear the duty you forsook | 7 | ··/˘·˘/ |
| In a world-wide rumble. | 6 | ····/˘ |
| Fear, but pray, you anxious soul, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| While your mem'ries meet you! | 5 | ····· |
| Thus go on; the perfect whole | 7 | ····˘/· |
| On the top shall greet you. | 6 | ······ |
| Christ, Elijah, Moses, there | 7 | ·˘/˘/˘· |
| Wait your high endeavor. | 6 | ···˘/˘ |
| Seeing them you'll know no care, | 7 | /˘····· |
| Bless your path forever. | 6 | ···˘/˘ |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.