The Pure Norwegian Flag

(Note: That is, without the mark of union with Sweden.)     (See Note 66)             I     Tri-colored flag, and pure,     Thou art our hard-fought cause secure;     Thor's hammer-mark of might     Thou bearest blue in Christian white,     And all our hearts' red blood     To thee streams its full flood.     Thou liftest us high when life's sternest,     Exultant, thou oceanward turnest;     Thy colors of freedom are earnest     That spirit and body shall never know dearth. -     Fare forth o'er the earth!             II     "The pure flag is but pure folly,"      You "wise" men maintain for true.     But the flag is the truth poetic,      The folly is found in you.     In poetry upward soaring,      The nation's immortal soul     With hands invisible carries      The flag toward the future goal.     That soul's every toil and trial,      That soul's every triumph sublime,     Are sounding in songs immortal, -      To their music the flag beats time.     We bear it along surrounded      By mem'ry's melodious choir,     By mild and whispering voices,      By will and stormy desire.     It gives not to others guidance,      Can not a Swedish word say;     It never can flaunt allurement: -      Clear the foreign colors away!          III     The sins and deceits of our nation      Possess in the flag no right;     The flag is the high ideal      In honor's immortal light.     The best of our past achievements,      The best of our present prayers,     It takes in its folds from the fathers      And bears to the sons and heirs;     Bears it all pure and artless,      By tokens that tempt us unmarred,     Is for our will's young manhood      Leader as well as guard.             IV     They say: "As by rings of betrothal      We are by the flag affied!"     But Norway is not betrothd,      She is no one's promised bride.     She shares her abode with no one,      Her bed and her board to none yields,     Her will is her worthy bridegroom,      Herself rules her sea, her fields.     Our brother to eastward honors      This independence of youth.     He knows well that by it only      Our wreath can be won in truth.     When we from the flag are taking      His colors, he knows 't is no whim,     But merely because we are holding      Our honor higher than him.     And none who himself has honor      Will seek him a different friend;     Our life we can for him offer,      But naught of our flag can lend.             V          TO SWEDEN             Respectful I seek a hearing,             With trust in your temper sane,             And plead now our cause before you             In words that are calm and plain:     If, Sweden, you were the smaller,      Were young your freedom's renown,     Had your flag a mark of union      That pressed you still farther down     By saying that you, as little,      Were set at the greater's board     (For this is the mark's real meaning,      By no one on earth ignored),     Yes, if it were you, - and your freedom      Not hallowed by age, but young,     And a century's want and weakness      Still heavy in memory hung,     The soul of your nation harrowed      By old injustice and need,     By luckless labor and longing,      - And did you its meaning heed;     Yes, if it were you, whose duty      To teach your people were tried,     To honor their new-born freedom,      To find in their flag their guide:     Would longer you suffer it sundered,      Leave foreign a single field?     Would you not claim it unplundered,      Your independence to shield?     Would not to yourself you say then:      "If one has high lineage long,     If greater his colors' glory,      The more alluring his song.     Oh, tempt not him who from trouble      Is rising with new found might;     With pure marks direct him, rather,      To honor's exalted height."     Thus you would speak, elder hero,      If you in our home abode;     Your wont is the way of honor,      You fare on the forward road.     From eighteen hundred and fourteen,      And down to the latest day,     So oft for our independence      We stood like the stag at bay,     Brave men have risen among you,      And scorning the strife that swelled     Have talked for our cause high-minded,      Like Torgny to them of eld.          VI     ANSWER TO THE AGED RIDDERSTAD     You say, it is "knightly duty,"      The fight for the flag to share, -     I hold you full high in honor,      But - that is our own affair!     For just because we encounter      The storm-blasts of slander stark,     It's "knightly duty" to free now      The flag from the marring mark.     The "parity" that mark preaches      Flies false over all the seas;     A pan-Scandinavian Sweden      Can never our nation please.     From "knightly duty" the smaller      Must say: I am not a part;     The mark of my freedom and honor      Is whole for my mind and heart.     From "knightly duty" the greater      Must say: A falsehood's fair sign     Can give me no special honor,      No longer shall it be mine.     For both it is "knightly duty,"      With flags that are pure, to be     A warring world's bright example      Of peoples at peace, proud and free.