Living

Young Men and Women, Strong and Sound

by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson 1832–1910

Translated by Arthur Hubbell Palmer (1915) · From Poems and Songs (1870; Palmer 1915)

Living

Young men and women, strong and sound,
Adorn with beautiful excess
Of play and song and flower-dress
Our fatherland's ancestral ground.
They dream great deeds of ages older,
They long to lead to battles bolder.

Young men and women, strong and sound,
Our nation's honor are, in whom
Our whole life has its better bloom,
Rebirth upon our fathers' ground
Of them of yore. Anew there flower
The old in young folks' summer-power.

Young men and women, strong and sound,
Can doubly do our deeds and fill
With higher hope for all we will,--
Are growth in character's deep ground,
To larger life drawn by the spirit
They from our forefathers inherit.

MLA

Bjørnson, Bjørnstjerne. “Young Men and Women, Strong and Sound.” Translated by Arthur Hubbell Palmer. Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/bjornson/123/.

Chicago

Bjørnson, Bjørnstjerne. “Young Men and Women, Strong and Sound.” Translated by Arthur Hubbell Palmer. Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/bjornson/123/.

Read this poem with the Codex →

More by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson