Young Men and Women, Strong and Sound
Young men and women, strong and sound,Adorn with beautiful excessOf play and song and flower-dressOur fatherland's ancestral ground.They dream great deeds of ages older,They long to lead to battles bolder.
Young men and women, strong and sound,Our nation's honor are, in whomOur whole life has its better bloom,Rebirth upon our fathers' groundOf them of yore. Anew there flowerThe old in young folks' summer-power.
Young men and women, strong and sound,Can doubly do our deeds and fillWith higher hope for all we will,--Are growth in character's deep ground,To larger life drawn by the spiritThey from our forefathers inherit.
Words in this poem
- yore adv.
- In time long past; in old time; long since. [OE. , yare, , AS. geára;akin to geár a year, E. year. Year.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Young Men and Women, Strong and Sound 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, Young Men and Women, Strong and Sound, in Poems and Songs (1915), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #6619, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/bjornson-poems-and-songs/young-men-and-women-strong-and-sound.html, id L29350.
Form and metre
Young Men and Women, Strong and Sound is 18 lines in 3 stanzas of 6 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABBACC. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%).
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 ABBACC soundA · excessB · dressB · groundA · olderC · bolderC
- 2 ABBACC soundA · whomB · bloomB · groundA · flowerC · powerC
- 3 ABBACC soundA · fillB · willB · groundA · spiritC · inheritC
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Young men and women, strong and sound, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Adorn with beautiful excess | 8 | ˘/·/˘˘˘/ |
| Of play and song and flower-dress | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Our fatherland's ancestral ground. | 8 | //˘·˘/˘· |
| They dream great deeds of ages older, | 9 | ·····/˘/˘ |
| They long to lead to battles bolder. | 9 | ·····/˘/˘ |
| Young men and women, strong and sound, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Our nation's honor are, in whom | 8 | //˘/˘··· |
| Our whole life has its better bloom, | 8 | /····/˘· |
| Rebirth upon our fathers' ground | 8 | ˘/··//˘· |
| Of them of yore. Anew there flower | 9 | ····˘/·/˘ |
| The old in young folks' summer-power. | 9 | ·····/˘/˘ |
| Young men and women, strong and sound, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Can doubly do our deeds and fill | 8 | ·/˘·/··· |
| With higher hope for all we will,-- | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Are growth in character's deep ground, | 8 | ···/˘˘·· |
| To larger life drawn by the spirit | 9 | ·/˘····/˘ |
| They from our forefathers inherit. | 9 | ··//·˘˘/˘ |
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.