wspapers. After
returning home, he settled for some time in the island of Bornholm,
painting seascapes. He now issued his earliest volume of poems, _Digte_
(1872), and joined the group of young Radical writers who gathered under
the banner of Brandes. Drachmann was unsettled, and still doubted
whether his real strength lay in the pencil or in the pen. By this time
he had enjoyed a surprising experience of life, especially among
sailors, fishermen, students and artists, and the issues of the
Franco-German War and the French Commune had persuaded him that a new
and glorious era was at hand. His volume of lyrics, _Daempede Melodier_
("Muffled Melodies," 1875), proved that Drachmann was a poet with a real
vocation, and he began to produce books in prose and verse with great
rapidity. _Ungt Blod_ ("Young Blood," 1876) contained three realistic
stories of contemporary life. But he returned to his true field in his
magnificent _Sange ved Havet; Venezia_ ("Songs of the Sea; Venice,"
1877), and won the passionate admiration of his countrymen by his prose
work, with interludes in verse, called _Derovre fra Graensen_ ("Over the
Frontier there," 1877), a series of impressions made on Drachmann by a
visit to the scenes of the war with Germany. During the succeeding years
he was a great traveller, visiting most of the principal countries of
the world, but particularly familiarizing himself, by protracted
voyages, with the sea and with the life of man in maritime places. In
1879 he published _Ranker og Roser_ ("Tendrils and Roses"), amatory
lyrics of a very high order of melody, in which he showed a great
advance in technical art. To the same period belongs _Paa Somands Tro og
Love_ ("On the Faith and Honour of a Sailor," 1878), a volume of short
stories in prose. It was about this time that Drachmann broke with
Brandes and the Radicals, and set himself at the head of a sort of
"nationalist" or popular-Conservative party in Denmark. He continued to
celebrate the life of the fishermen and sailors in books, whether in
prose or verse, which were the most popular of their day. _Paul og
Virginie_ and _Lars Kruse_ (both 1879); _Osten for Sol og vesten for
Maone_ ("East of the Sun and Moon," 1880); _Puppe og Sommerfugl_
("Chrysalis and Butterfly," 1882); and _Strandby Folk_ (1883) were among
these. In 1882 Drachmann published his fine translation, or paraphrase,
of Byron's _Don Juan_. In 1885 his romantic play called _Der var en
Gang_ ("Once