rk, with to-morrow
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 Bjoernson 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 Bjoernson'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 the intellectual
developments of the day had been communicated to Norway as well as
Denmark. French influence was dreaded as immoral, and there was but
little understanding of either the English language or spirit." But an
intellectual renaissance was at hand, an intellectual reawakening with
a cosmopolitan outlook, and, Bjoernson was destined to become its
leader, much as he had been the leader of the national movement of an
earlier decade. During these years of seeming inactivity,
comparatively speaking, he had read and thought much, and the new
thought of the age had fecundated his mind. Historical and religious
criticism, educational and social problems, had taken possession of his
thought, and the philosophy of evolution had transformed the whole
tenor of his ideas, shaping them to, deeper issues and more practical
purposes than had hitherto engaged them. He had read widely and
variously in Darwin, Spencer, Mill, Mueller, and Tain