se Men represented his
sole contribution to hymnody. Other interests engaged his attention and
absorbed his energy. During his years of intense work with the sagas he
only occasionally broke his "engagement" with the dead to strike the lyre
for the living. In 1815 he translated "In Death's Strong Bonds Our Savior
Lay" from Luther, and "Christ Is Risen from the Dead" from the Latin. The
three hundredth anniversary of the Reformation brought his adaptation of
Kingo's "Like the Golden Sun Ascending" and translations of Luther's "A
Mighty Fortress Is Our God" and "The Bells Ring in the Christmastide." In
1820 he published his now popular "A Babe Is Born at Bethlehem" from an
old Latin-Danish text, and 1824 saw his splendid rendering of "The Old
Day Song," "With Gladness We Hail the Blessed Day," and his original "On
Its Rock the Church of Jesus Stood Mongst Us a Thousand Years."

These songs constitute his whole contribution to hymnody from 1810 to
1825. But the latter year brought a signal increase. In the midst of his
fierce battle with the Rationalists he published the first of his really
great hymns, a song of comfort to the daughters of Zion, sitting
disconsolately at the sickbed of their mother, the church. Her present
state may appear so hopeless that her children fear to remember her
former glory:

Dares the anxious heart envision
Still its morning dream,
View, despite the world's derision,
Zion's sunlit height and stream?
Wields still anyone the power
To repeat her anthems strong,
And with joyful heart embower,
Zion with triumphant song.

Her condition is not hopeless, however, if her children will gather about
her.

Zion's sons and daughters rally
Now upon her ancient wall!
Have her foemen gained the valley,
Yet her ramparts did not fall.
Were her outer walls forsaken
Still her cornerstone remains,
Firm, unconquered and unshaken,
Making futile all their gains.

Another of his great hymns dates from the same year. Grundtvig was in the
habit of remaining up all night when he had to speak on the following
day. The Christmas of 1825 was particularly trying to him. He had
apparently forfeited his last vestige of honor by publishing his _Reply
of the Church_; the suit started against him by Professor Clausen still
dragged its laborious way through the court; and his anxiety over the
present state of the church was greatly increased by th