differences between poets. And wherein did this difference lie? Mainly in the fact that other poets seemed to have only the vaguest notion about the way that leads to the heart, whereas Sigurður Breiðfjörð followed this mysterious path quite instinctively— but without leaving behind him any signposts for other poets to follow; yes, he found his way into every heart and touched it with beauty and sorrow.
When there was no one else in the loft, the boy would sit up hastily, bring out the
Núma Ballads
, from under his pillow, and swallow a few verses, forgetting for the moment all his sufferings. If he heard someone on the stairs, he would hastily thrust the book under the pillow and lie back again. But the lovely lines did not fade in his mind even though someone arrived; they continued to echo and seethe there. Toward the end of winter he knew all the poems by heart, and Sigurður Breiðfjörð reigned supreme over his soul and was his refuge in all his sufferings. And so it came about that on the first sunny days of February the poet himself stepped down from the little sunbeam on the ceiling, as if from a heavenly golden chariot, rosy-cheeked and blue-eyed, and laid his gentle master’s hand on the pain-racked head of Ólafur Kárason of Ljósavík and said, “You are the light of the world.” It was one of those dreams that make the dreamer a happy man, ready to bear with a happy heart anything that might happen to him. Tirelessly the boy thought about the poet and his golden chariot whenever he was in distress; such can be the therapeutic effect of one single dream. One day in the dark of winter, in the middle of this dreary world which was so hostile to a sensitive heart, the great poet himself had come to him in his golden chariot and had baptized him into the light:
Beaten, bruised, in fetters bound,
In darkness when in bed I lie,
To me o’er the sunlit sound
Comes Sigurður Breiðfjörð from the sky.
In his eyes a smile I see
Gleam from his chariot of gold,
The smile which once, from sorrow free,
I sang to my love of old.
In the darkness of the barn at night
I hear his voice, I see his eyes;
He summons me toward the light,
The golden chambers of the skies.
11
When the parish pauper started writing out his own poetry in a book on Sundays, it was hardly surprising that the members of the family began to look at him askance.
“He’s healthy enough for that sort of rubbish, the damned malingerer,” said the elder brother, Jónas.
“Oh, you never know, perhaps our little friend’s book might just happen to get torn to pieces one day,” said Júst.
But when they looked at him writing, their irritation was mingled with fear, as when a dog eyes a cat. Sometimes the boy felt that the dread with which the written word filled them was even stronger than the hatred they felt for mankind. And now, as ill luck would have it, a scrap of paper with the poem about Sigurður Breiðfjörð on it was blown by a draft down the stairs and fell into the family’s hands.
“Never in my whole life have I ever seen or heard such filth!” said the housewife, Kamarilla. “Nor did I ever dream that I had reared such a viper at my breast, who dares to accuse us of beating him and maltreating him and says he is made to sleep in the barn—yes, and other lies of this sort that I and the rest of us here will be quick to refute with witnesses and oaths if it’s your intention to let other people see these scraps of paper. But what you say about us is as nothing to the way you blaspheme about God, and you’d better know now, if you didn’t know it before, that I shall not suffer blasphemy to go unpunished in my house which the Lord has blessed for so long. And I must say that never in my whole life have I heard such depraved ideas in a young rascal, uttering the name of Sigurður Breiðfjörð in the same breath as that of our Father, for if there was ever a drunkard and lecher and dishonest rogue in Iceland
When there was no one else in the loft, the boy would sit up hastily, bring out the
Núma Ballads
, from under his pillow, and swallow a few verses, forgetting for the moment all his sufferings. If he heard someone on the stairs, he would hastily thrust the book under the pillow and lie back again. But the lovely lines did not fade in his mind even though someone arrived; they continued to echo and seethe there. Toward the end of winter he knew all the poems by heart, and Sigurður Breiðfjörð reigned supreme over his soul and was his refuge in all his sufferings. And so it came about that on the first sunny days of February the poet himself stepped down from the little sunbeam on the ceiling, as if from a heavenly golden chariot, rosy-cheeked and blue-eyed, and laid his gentle master’s hand on the pain-racked head of Ólafur Kárason of Ljósavík and said, “You are the light of the world.” It was one of those dreams that make the dreamer a happy man, ready to bear with a happy heart anything that might happen to him. Tirelessly the boy thought about the poet and his golden chariot whenever he was in distress; such can be the therapeutic effect of one single dream. One day in the dark of winter, in the middle of this dreary world which was so hostile to a sensitive heart, the great poet himself had come to him in his golden chariot and had baptized him into the light:
Beaten, bruised, in fetters bound,
In darkness when in bed I lie,
To me o’er the sunlit sound
Comes Sigurður Breiðfjörð from the sky.
In his eyes a smile I see
Gleam from his chariot of gold,
The smile which once, from sorrow free,
I sang to my love of old.
In the darkness of the barn at night
I hear his voice, I see his eyes;
He summons me toward the light,
The golden chambers of the skies.
11
When the parish pauper started writing out his own poetry in a book on Sundays, it was hardly surprising that the members of the family began to look at him askance.
“He’s healthy enough for that sort of rubbish, the damned malingerer,” said the elder brother, Jónas.
“Oh, you never know, perhaps our little friend’s book might just happen to get torn to pieces one day,” said Júst.
But when they looked at him writing, their irritation was mingled with fear, as when a dog eyes a cat. Sometimes the boy felt that the dread with which the written word filled them was even stronger than the hatred they felt for mankind. And now, as ill luck would have it, a scrap of paper with the poem about Sigurður Breiðfjörð on it was blown by a draft down the stairs and fell into the family’s hands.
“Never in my whole life have I ever seen or heard such filth!” said the housewife, Kamarilla. “Nor did I ever dream that I had reared such a viper at my breast, who dares to accuse us of beating him and maltreating him and says he is made to sleep in the barn—yes, and other lies of this sort that I and the rest of us here will be quick to refute with witnesses and oaths if it’s your intention to let other people see these scraps of paper. But what you say about us is as nothing to the way you blaspheme about God, and you’d better know now, if you didn’t know it before, that I shall not suffer blasphemy to go unpunished in my house which the Lord has blessed for so long. And I must say that never in my whole life have I heard such depraved ideas in a young rascal, uttering the name of Sigurður Breiðfjörð in the same breath as that of our Father, for if there was ever a drunkard and lecher and dishonest rogue in Iceland
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