So we'll drain our jacks To the English flax And the land where the hemp was wove. What of the shaft? The shaft was cut in England: A long shaft, a strong shaft, Barbed and trim and true; So we'll drink all together To the gray goose feather, And the land where the gray goose flew. What of the men? The men were bred in England: The bowman - the yeoman The lads of dale and fell. Here's to you-and to you! To the hearts that are true And the land where the true hearts dwell. Reprinted by permission of the American Publishers' Corporation, Publishers. 4840 HOLGER DRACHMANN (1846-) OLGER DRACHMANN, born in Copenhagen October 9th, 1846, belongs to the writers characterized by Georg Brandes as "the men of the new era." Danish literature had stood high during the first half of the nineteenth century. In 1850 Oehlenschläger died. In 1870 there was practically no Danish literature. The reason for this may have been that after the new political life of 1848-9 and the granting of the Danish Constitution, politics absorbed all young talent, and men of literary tastes put themselves at the service of the daily press. HOLGER DRACHMANN > In 1872 Georg Brandes gave his lectures on Main Currents in the Literature of the Nineteenth Century at the University of Copenhagen. That same year Drachmann published his first collection of 'Poems,' and so began his extraordinary productivity of poems, dramas, and novels. Of these, his lyric poems are undoubtedly of the greatest value. His is a distinctly lyric temperament. The new school had chosen for its guide Brandes's teaching that "Literature, to be of significance, should discuss problems." In view of this fact it is somewhat hard to understand why Drachmann should be called a man of the new era. He never discusses problems. He always gives himself up unreservedly to the subject which at that special moment claims his sympathy. Taken as a whole, therefore, his writings present a certain inconsistency. He has shown himself alternately as socialist and royalist, realist and romanticist, freethinker and believer, cosmopolitan and national, according to the lyric enthusiasm of the moment. Independent of these changes, the one thing to be admired and enjoyed is his lyric feeling and the often exquisite form in which he presents it. His larger compositions, novels, and dramas do not show the same power over his subject. If Drachmann discusses any problem, it is the problem Drachmann. He does this sometimes with what Brandes calls "a light and joking self-irony," in a most sympathetic way. Brandes quotes one of Drach mann's early stories, where it is said of the hero:-"His name was really Palnatoke Olsen; a continually repeated discord of two tones, as he used to say." Olsen is one of the most commonplace Danish names. Palnatoke is the name of one of the fiercest warriors of heathen antiquity, who, like a veritable Valhalla god, dared to oppose the terrible Danish king Harald Blaatand. When Olsen's parents gave him this name they unwittingly described their son, "forever drawn by two poles: one the plain Olsen, the other the hot-headed fiery Viking." With this in mind, and considering Drachmann's literary works as a whole, one is irresistibly reminded of his friend and contemporary in Norway, Björnsterne Björnson. There is this difference between them, however, that if the irony of Palnatoke Olsen may be applied to both, one might for Drachmann use the abbreviation P. Olsen and for Björnson undoubtedly Palnatoke O. It might be said of Drachmann, as Sauer said of the Italian poet Monti:-"Like a master in the art of appreciation, he knew how to give himself up to great time-stirring ideas; somewhat as a gifted actor throws himself into his part, with the full strength of his art, with an enthusiasm carrying all before it, and in the most expressive way; then when the part is played, lays it quietly aside and takes hold of something else." When a young man, Drachmann studied at the Academy of Arts in Copenhagen, and met with considerable success as a marine painter. His love for the Northern seas shows itself in his poetry and prose, and his descriptions of the sea and the life of the sailor and fisherman are of the truest and best yielded by his pen. He is the author of no less than forty-six volumes of poems, dramas, novels, short stories, and sketches, and of two unpublished dramas. portant work is 'Forskrevet' (Condemned), which is largely autobiographical; his most attractive though not his strongest production is the opera 'Der Var Engang' (Once Upon a Time), founded on Andersen's The Swineherd,' with music by Sange Müller; his best poems and tales are those dealing with the sea. His most im At present he lives in Hamburg, where on October 10th, 1896, he celebrated his fiftieth birthday and his twenty-fifth "Author-Jubilee," as the Danes call it. Among the features of the celebration were the sending of an enormous number of telegrams from Drachmann's admirers in Europe and America, and the performance of two of his plays, one at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, the other at the Stadt Theatre in Altona. THE SKIPPER AND HIS SHIP From 'Paul and Virginia of a Northern Zone': copyright 1895, by Way and Williams, Chicago THE HE Anna Dorothea, in the North Sea, was pounding along under shortened sail. The weather was thick, the air dense; there was a falling barometer. It had been a short trip this time. Leroy and Sons, wine merchants of Havre, had made better offers than the old houses in Bordeaux. At each one of his later trips, Captain Spang had said it should be his last. He would lay up" at home; he was growing too stout and clumsy for the sea, and now he must trust fully to Tönnes, his first mate. The captain's big broad face was flushed as usual; he always looked as if he were illuminated by a setting October sun; there was no change hererather, the sunset tint was stronger. But Tönnes noted how the features, which he knew best in moments of simple good-nature and of sullen tumult, had gradually relaxed. He thought that it would indeed soon be time for his old skipper to "lay up"; yet perhaps a few trips might still be made. "Holloa, Tönnes! let her go about before the next squall strikes her. She lies too dead on this bow." The skipper had raised his head above the cabin stairs. As usual, he was in his shirt-sleeves, and his scanty hair fluttered in the wind. When he had warned his mate, he again disappeared in the cabin. Tönnes gave the order to the man at the helm, and hurried to help at the main-braces. The double-reefed main-topsail swung about, the Anna Dorothea caught the wind somewhat sluggishly, and not without getting considerable water over her; then followed the fore-topsail, the reefed foresail, and the trysail. When the tacking was finished and the sails had again caught the wind, the trysail was torn from the boltropes with a loud crack. The captain's head appeared again. "We must close-reef!" said he. The last reef was taken in; the storm came down and lashed the sea; the sky grew more and more threatening; the waves dashed over the deck at each plunge of the old bark in the sea. The old vessel, which had carried her captain for a generation, lay heavily on the water-Tönnes thought too heavily. The second mate-the same who had played the accordion at the inn came over to Tönnes. "It was wrong to stow the china-clay at the bottom and the casks on top; she lies horribly dead, and I'm afraid we shall have to use the pumps." "Yes, I said so to the old man, but he would have it that way," answered Tönnes. "We shall have a wet night.' "We shall, surely," said the second mate. --- Tönnes crawled up to the helm and looked at the compass. Two men were at the helm - lashed fast. Tönnes looked up into the rigging and out to windward; then suddenly he cried, with the full force of his lungs: "Look out for breakers!" Tönnes himself helped at the wheel; but the vessel only half answered the helm. The greater portion of the sea struck the bow, the quarter, and the bulwarks and stanchions amidship, so that they creaked and groaned. One of the men at the helm had. grasped Tönnes, who would otherwise have been swept into the lee scupper. When the ship had righted from the terrible blow, the captain stood on the deck in his oilcloth suit. "Are any men missing?" cried he, through the howling of the wind and the roaring of the water streaming fore and aft, unable to escape quickly enough through the scuppers. The storm raged with undiminished fury. The crew and amongst them Prussian, who had been promoted to be ship's-dog -by-and-by dived forward through the seething salt water and the fragments of wreck that covered the deck. Now it was that the second mate was missing. The captain looked at Tönnes, and then out on the wild sea. He scarcely glanced at the crushed long-boat; even if a boat could have been launched, it would have been too late. Tönnes and his skipper were fearless men, who took things as they were. If any help could have been given, they would have given it. But their eyes sought vainly for any dark speck amidst the foaming waves-and it was necessary to care for themselves, the vessel and the crew. "God save his soul!" murmured Captain Spang. Tönnes passed his hand across his brow, and went to his duty. Evening set in; the wind increased rather than decreased. "She is taking in water," said the captain, who had sounded the pumps. |