If, furthermore, we take into account also Björnson's labors and
achievements in the domain of action more narrowly considered, it
is no wonder that his _Poems and Songs_ make only a small volume.
Examining the book more closely, we find that three-quarters of
its pages were written before the year 1875, so that the lyrical
output, here published, of the thirty-four years thereafter
amounts to but fifty pages. From the year 1874 on in Björnson's
life the chieftain supplanted the skald, so far as lyrical
utterance was concerned. He was leading his nation in thought and
action on the fields of theology and religion, of politics, economics,
and social reform; he was tireless in making speeches, in writing
letters and newspaper articles; his poetic genius flowed out
copiously in the dramatic and epic channels of his numerous modern
plays, novels, and stories.

That soon after 1874 Björnson passed through a crisis in his
personal thought and inner life was probably, in view of the
sufficient explanation suggested above, without influence in
lessening his production of short poems. This crisis was in his
religious beliefs. His father was a clergyman in the Lutheran State
Church, and from his home in western Norway Björnson brought with
him to Christiania in 1850 fervent Christian faith of the older
orthodox sort. Here his somewhat somber religion was soon made
brighter and more tender by the adoption of Grundtvig's teachings,
and until past mid-life he remained a sincere Christian in the fullest
sense, as is repeatedly shown in his lyrics. But in the years
just before 1877 study of modern science and philosophy, of the
history of the Church and dogma, led him to become an evolutionist,
an agnostic theist. Nevertheless, he ever practiced the Christian
art of life, as he tried to realize his ideals of truth, justice,