Oh, When Will You Stand Forth?

(See Note 59)     Oh, when will you stand forth, who with strength can bring aid,     To strike down the injustice and lies     That my house have beset, and with malice blockade     Every pathway I out for my powers have laid,     And would hidden means find     With deceit and with hate     To set watch on my mind     And defile every plate     In my beautiful home where defenseless we wait?     Oh, when will you stand forth? This detraction through years     For my people has made me an oaf,     Hides my poetry's fount in the fog of its fleers,     So it merely a pool of self-worship appears;     Like a clumsy troll I     Am contemned with affront,     Whom all "cultured" folk fly,     Or yet gather to hunt,     That their hunger of hate at a feast they may blunt.     When I publish a book: "It is half like himself;"     If I speak, 't is for vanity's sake.     What I build in the stage-world of fancy's free elf     Is but formed from my fatuous self.     When for faith I contend     And our land's ancient ways,     When the bridge I defend     From our fathers' great days,     'Tis because my poor breast no king's "Order" displays.     Oh, when will you stand forth, who shall sunder in twain     All this slander so stifling and foul,     And shall sink in the sea all the terror insane     That they have of heart-passion and will-wielding brain, -     And with love shall enfold     A soul's faith wide and deep,     That in want and in cold     Would its morning-watch keep     Undismayed, till the light all the host shall ensweep?     Come, thou Spirit of Norway, God-given of yore     In the stout giant-conquering Thor!     While the lightning thou ridest, thy answer's loud roar     Drowns the din that the dwarfs in defiance outpour;     Thou canst waken with might     All our longings to soar,     Thou canst strengthen in right     What united we swore,     When at Hafur thy standard in honor we bore.     Hail, thou Spirit of Norway! To think but of thee     Makes so small all the small things I felt.     To thy coming I hallow me, wholly to thee,     And I humbly look up to thy face, unto thee,     And I pray for a song     With thy tongue's stirring sound,     That I true may and strong     In the crisis be found,     To rouse heroes for thee on our forefathers' ground.