Norwegian Students' Greeting with a Procession to Professor Welhaven
Hear us, O age-laden singer!Streams of your tones are returning,Touching your heart!Spirit of youth is their bringer,Under your window with yearningCalled by your art.Now our soul's echoes aboundingSoar in the blue,In the sun-shimmering blue,High where your silvery song-notes are sounding.
Smile on your labor now lightened,You who in winter perfectedSeeds to be sown!All that your courage has brightened,All that your pity protected,Now it is grown;Over your shoulders upswinging,Folds round your frame,Bringing in roses your name,Joyous the sprite of your poetry bringing.
Onward our life is now marching,Banner-like high thoughts are flying,Lifted to view.One 'mid the foremost o'erarchingLeads where the pathway is lying,--It came from you!Runes of our past with their warningCarved on its shaft,Show us the spring you have quaffed,Leading our land to the light of the morning.
Words in this poem
- bringer n.
- One who brings.
- sprite n.
- A spirit; a soul; a shade; also, an apparition. See Spright. [OE. sprit, F. esprit, fr. L. spiritus. See Spirit, and cf. Sprightly.]
- pathway n.
- A footpath; a beaten track; any path or course. Also used figuratively.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Norwegian Students' Greeting with a Procession to Professor Welhaven 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, Norwegian Students' Greeting with a Procession to Professor Welhaven, in Poems and Songs (1915), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #6619, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/bjornson-poems-and-songs/norwegian-students-greeting-with-a-procession-to-professor-w.html, id L29301.
Form and metre
Norwegian Students' Greeting with a Procession to Professor Welhaven is 30 lines in 3 stanzas of 10 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABCABCDEED. The metre is dactylic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%).
See other poems in dactylic trimeter.
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 ABCABCDEED singerA · returningB · heartC · bringerA · yearningB · artC · aboundingD · blueE · blueE · soundingD
- 2 ABCABCDEED lightenedA · perfectedB · sownC · brightenedA · protectedB · grownC · upswingingD · frameE · nameE · bringingD
- 3 ABCABCDEED marchingA · flyingB · viewC · o'erarchingA · lyingB · youC · warningD · shaftE · quaffedE · morningD
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 dactylic trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Hear us, O age-laden singer! | 8 | ····/˘/˘ |
| Streams of your tones are returning, | 8 | ·····˘/˘ |
| Touching your heart! | 4 | /˘·· |
| Spirit of youth is their bringer, | 8 | /˘····/˘ |
| Under your window with yearning | 8 | ···/˘·/˘ |
| Called by your art. | 4 | ···· |
| Now our soul's echoes abounding | 9 | ·/˘·/˘˘/˘ |
| Soar in the blue, | 4 | ···· |
| In the sun-shimmering blue, | 7 | ···/˘˘· |
| High where your silvery song-notes are sounding. | 10 | ···/˘···/˘ |
| Smile on your labor now lightened, | 8 | ···/˘·/˘ |
| You who in winter perfected | 8 | ···/˘˘/˘ |
| Seeds to be sown! | 4 | ···· |
| All that your courage has brightened, | 8 | ···/˘·/˘ |
| All that your pity protected, | 8 | ···/˘˘/˘ |
| Now it is grown; | 4 | ···· |
| Over your shoulders upswinging, | 8 | ···/˘˘/˘ |
| Folds round your frame, | 4 | ···· |
| Bringing in roses your name, | 7 | /˘·/˘·· |
| Joyous the sprite of your poetry bringing. | 10 | /˘····/˘/˘ |
| Onward our life is now marching, | 9 | /˘/˘···/˘ |
| Banner-like high thoughts are flying, | 8 | /˘····/˘ |
| Lifted to view. | 4 | /˘·· |
| One 'mid the foremost o'erarching | 8 | ···/···· |
| Leads where the pathway is lying,-- | 8 | ···/··/˘ |
| It came from you! | 4 | ···· |
| Runes of our past with their warning | 9 | ··/˘···/˘ |
| Carved on its shaft, | 4 | ···· |
| Show us the spring you have quaffed, | 7 | ······· |
| Leading our land to the light of the morning. | 11 | /˘/······/˘ |
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.