Shall thy soul take flight.

Here stilled is all yearning,
No passion returning;
No terror come near thee
When the Saviour can hear thee.
For He, if in need be
Thy storm-beaten soul,
Though it bruised as a reed be,
Shall raise it up whole."

Despite the power and beauty of an occasional manifestation
of his genius during the late sixties and early seventies,
the poetic impulse that had made Bjornson the most famous of
Norwegian authors seemed, toward the close of the fifteen-year
period just now under review, to be well nigh exhausted. Even
among those who had followed his career most closely there were
few who could anticipate the splendid new outburst of activity
for which he was preparing. These years seemed to be a dead
time, not only in Bjornson's life, but also in the general
intellectual life of the Scandinavian countries. Dr. Brandes
thus describes the feelings of a thoughtful observer during
that period of stagnation. "In the North one had the feeling
of being shut off from the intellectual life of the time.
We were sitting with closed doors, a few brains struggling
fruitlessly with the problem of how to get them opened... With
whole schools of foreign literature the cultivated Dane had
almost no acquaintance; and when, finally, as a consequence
of political animosity, intellectual intercourse with Germany
was broken off, the main channel was closed through which