orm:

"Sin and Death, at break of day,
Day, day,
Spoke together with bated breath;
'Marry thee, sister, that I may stay,
Stay, stay,
In thy house,' quoth Death.
"Death laughed aloud when Sin was wed,
Wed, wed,
And danced on the bridal day:
But bore that night from the bridal bed,
Bed, bed,
The groom in a shroud away.
"Death came to her sister at break of day,
Day, day,
And Sin drew a weary breath;
'He whom thou lovest is mine for aye,
Aye, aye,
Mine he is,' quoth Death."

One more saga drama was to be written by Bjoernson, but "Sigurd Slembe"
remains his greatest achievement in this field of activity. Its single
successor, "Sigurd Jorsalfar," was not published until ten years later,
and may not be compared with it for either strength or poetic
inspiration. The author called it a "folkplay," and announced the
intention, which was never fulfilled, of making several similar
experiments with scenes from the sagas, "which should appeal to every
eye and every stage of culture, to each in its own way, and at the
performance of which all, for the time being, would experience the joy
of fellow feeling." The experiment proves interesting, and is carried
out without didacticism or straining after sensational effects; the
play is vigorous and well planned, but for the reader it has little of
the dramatic impressiveness of its predecessor, although as an acting
drama it is better fitted for the requirements of the stage.

The two volumes which contain the greater part of Bjoernson's poetry not
dramatic in form were both published in 1870. One of them was the
collection of his "Poems and Songs," the other was the epic cycle,
"Arnljot Gelline," the only long poem that he has written. The volume
of lyrics includes many pieces of imperfect quality and slight
value,--personal tributes and occasional productions,--but it includes
also those national songs that every Norwegian knows by heart, that are
sung upon all national occasions by the author's friends and foes
alike, and that have made him the greatest of Norway's lyric poets. No
translation can ever quite reproduce their cadence or their feeling;
they illustrate the one aspect of Bjoernson's many-sided genius that
must be taken on trust by those who cannot read his language. A friend
once asked him upon what occasion he had felt most fully the joy of
being a poet. His reply was as follows:--

"It was when a party from the Right