Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THORVALDUR THORODDSEN, by THORSTEINN GISLASON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THORVALDUR THORODDSEN, by                    
First Line: Over lava-beds
Last Line: And works endure.
Subject(s): Thoroddsen, Thorvaldur (1855-1921)


OVER lava beds,
Sandy barrens
And glaciers vast
The trail has led him.
Hidden treasures
Of precious knowledge
Sought in the wastes
Of his native land.

Young was he
When the way he chose
Which none had known
And none had travelled;
There read the hidden
And mystic runes,
Kept by the trolls
Through countless ages,

There from giants
In giant halls
And fairy folk
In peaks and passes,
And the guardians
Of hidden fires,
Learned of his country's
Past and present.

From the mountain-peaks
His eagle eye
Scanned his country's
Open pages.
Either glacial
Or fiery fingers
Inscribed on rocks
A wondrous story.

None before him
Read so wisely
The secret lore
Of land and people.
No one thus
Intently hearkened
To the beating heart
Of Hecla's country.

None before him
So construed
The trend in thought
Of times departed.
And to no one
Had his country
Thus laid bare
Its inmost soul.

For the unknown tongue
Of unseen patrons
And the fairy-tongue
Of founts and rivers
And the dwarf-tongue
In dark cliffs spoken --
All these he learned
And aptly wrote.

In the valleys
Along our coast-line
Lies merely half
Our world of story.
The other half
Is seen only
From the airy haunts
Of hawk and eagle.

Hence his full
And first-hand knowledge
And the wise thoughts
Of his writings.
While his native land
Is known in story
Shall his honored name
And works endure.





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