You know the land with smiling face Which many blue-ridged mountains grace, The song of swan on quiet stream Where meads with joyous flowers teem, The glacier’s broad and shining wall, The glint of sea, the roar of fall,— God’s blessing rest on thee, I pray, Throughout the everlasting day.
There are songs of the meadow and the sheep-tending, of fishing and of the hay-harvest, of returning spring and dying summer, of the happiness of home-life, of sorrow and joy and love and the whole scale of human emotions. In the midst of their poverty and toil they are a cheerful and happy race, singing at their occupations or writing songs in the saddle or at the sheep-tending. The children are taught to appreciate poetry and to write it and the result is that nearly every one makes verses and out of the many attempts there is much that is excellent. Much of the poetry is spontaneous as in the _Saga_ days. The _Sagas_ are replete with impromptu verses witty, ironical, boastful and descriptive. Thus _Kari_, when _Skapti_ accuses him of “sneaking out of this atonement” after the famous trial of 1112 at the _Althing_ for the burning of _Njal_, retorts, in part,—
“Men who skim the main on sea stag Well in this ye showed your sense, Making game about the Burning, Mocking Helgi, Grim and Njal; Now the moor round rocky Swinestye,[4] As men run and shake their shields, With another grunt shall rattle When this _Thing_ is past and gone.”
The great Icelandic poets have translated into the Icelandic many of Shakespeare’s plays, the Iliad, _Odyssey_, Paradise Lost and scores of the minor pieces of English and American poetry as well as the masterpieces of German, French and Scandinavian literature. When we learn that the rules for Icelandic poetry are strict, that not only rhyme and rhythm but a complicated alliteration must be incorporated in the verses, we can understand what a task these translators have had. There are many variations of the alliteration. In the following is noted not only simple alliteration but also that the _second hemistich begins with the penultimate syllable of the first_. To illustrate note the following:—
_H_rein-tiörnum gledr _horna_ _Horn_ nair litt at thorna Miöðr hegnir _b_ol _bargna_ _Brag_ningr scipa Fagnir. Folk hömlo gefr _fram_la _Fram_lyndr vidum gamla Sas helldr fyrir skot _Skiölld_um. _Skiölld_ungr hunangs ölldur.