Toast for the Men of Eidsvold
'Twas then this land of ours we drewFrom centuries of ice and sorrow,And let it of the sun's warmth borrow,And law and plow brought order new;We dug the wealth in mountain treasured,Our stately ships the oceans measured,And springtime thoughts were free to runAs round the Pole the midnight sun.
And still with God we'll conquer, hold:Each plot reclaimed for harvest-reaping,Each ship our sea takes to its keeping,Each child-soul we to manhood mold,Each spark of thought our life illuming,Each deed to fruit of increase blooming,--A province adds unto our landAnd o'er our freedom guard shall stand.
Words in this poem
- borrow v. t.
- To receive from another as a loan, with the implied or expressed intention of returning the identical article or its equivalent in kind; -- the opposite of lend. [OE. borwen, AS. borgian, fr. borg, borh, pledge; akin to D. borg, G. borg; prob. fr. root of AS. beorgan to protect. Borough.]
- wealth n.
- Weal; welfare; prosperity; good. [OE. welthe, from wele; cf. D. weelde luxury. See Weal prosperity.]
- springtime n.
- The season of spring; springtide.
- 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
Toast for the Men of Eidsvold 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, Toast for the Men of Eidsvold, in Poems and Songs (1915), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #6619, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/bjornson-poems-and-songs/toast-for-the-men-of-eidsvold.html, id L29279.
Form and metre
Toast for the Men of Eidsvold is 16 lines in 2 stanzas of 8 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABBACCDD. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 85%).
See other poems in iambic 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 ABBACCDD drewA · sorrowB · borrowB · newA · treasuredC · measuredC · runD · sunD
- 2 ABBACCDD holdA · reapingB · keepingB · moldA · illumingC · bloomingC · landD · standD
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 iambic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| 'Twas then this land of ours we drew | 8 | ·····/·· |
| From centuries of ice and sorrow, | 9 | ·/˘˘···/˘ |
| And let it of the sun's warmth borrow, | 9 | ·······/· |
| And law and plow brought order new; | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| We dug the wealth in mountain treasured, | 9 | ·····/˘/˘ |
| Our stately ships the oceans measured, | 9 | //˘··/˘/˘ |
| And springtime thoughts were free to run | 8 | ·/······ |
| As round the Pole the midnight sun. | 8 | ·····/·· |
| And still with God we'll conquer, hold: | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Each plot reclaimed for harvest-reaping, | 9 | ··˘/·/˘/˘ |
| Each ship our sea takes to its keeping, | 9 | ··/····/˘ |
| Each child-soul we to manhood mold, | 8 | ·····/·· |
| Each spark of thought our life illuming, | 9 | ····/···· |
| Each deed to fruit of increase blooming,-- | 9 | ·····/·/˘ |
| A province adds unto our land | 8 | ·/˘···/· |
| And o'er our freedom guard shall stand. | 8 | ··//˘··· |
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.