The Icelandic Canadian - 01.12.1963, Blaðsíða 24

22
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Winter 1963
tongue than SigurSur Julius.
With Jakobina Johnson one shifts
to a gracious and “gemutlich” spirit,
not least in her charming poems for
children, such as “Hann Skugga-
sveinn,” her gay version of a depredac-
ious family tomcat:
Old Shadow-Lad is a wicked cat,—
For mercy he has but scorn.
His back is brindled and yellow-dark,
And both his ears are torn.
For him to roam in the garden free
Is a cause for the birds to mourn.
One of her choicest lyrics, and the title-
poem of her collected works, is
“Candle-Light”:
All I loved yesterday
in youth’s fair morning,
is dear to me today,
though dim remembered:
the rosy dawning,
the rainbow in the sky,
the verdure of the springtime,
the violet in the hollow.
Now fall the autumn shadows,
come frosty tempests,
and evening lamplight
is lit for story-reading.
Soon comes our Christmas,
a climax of rapture!
On the table is kindled
the candle-light!
Though electric lamps
now lighten the darkness
of half the world
on the Holy Night,
yet dearest to me
are the dreaming candles
of hallowed remembrance.
—Happy Christmas!
In something of the same gentle spirit
is Vigfus Guttormsson’s pleasant little
springtime tribute to “The Frog” og
SigurSur Julius’s “Mus i gildru,” remi-
niscent of Robert Burns lines addressed
to a fieldmouse.
One other quality that recurs again
and again is a gift of laughter—not
merely in the barbed wit of the epi-
gram or the sparkling attacks of social
satire but best of all in a pure sense
of the incongruous. We might quote
the whimsical fancy of Th. Th. Th.
on “The Minister’s Dog” or the spirit
of Guttormur’s poem, “A Dream”,
where he is ableto smile at the limi-
tation of his bucolic Muse by ending
his last stanza thus:
And I tethered great Pegasus fast
In a cowshed, down here on the farm.
The ages of the Icelanclic-Canadian
poets who are still alive present a
startling record of longevity. Set in
order, in terms of their 1963 birthdays,
the roster runs as follows: Vigfus Gut-
tormsson, 88; Gisli Jonsson, 87; Gut-
tormur J. Guttormsson, 84; Johannes
P. Palsson, 82; Pall Bjarnason, 81:
Johannes H. HunfjorS, 79: Jakobina
Johnson, 79; Sveinn E. Bjornsson,78;
Pall GuSmundsson, 76; and Davift
Bjornsson, 73. If we add the Icelandic
American, Richard Beck, who came to
the U..S.A. from Iceland in 1922 at
the age of twenty-five, we find him to-
day a lusty juvenile of only sixty-six,
but judged by North America’s stand-
ard retirement age of sixty-five, even
he is a “senior citizen.” Looking over
this remarkable panel of poets whom
I have known for the past forty years,
my first reaction is one of amazement
at their continuing poetic fertility and
mental keenness. Four of the group,
all in their eighties, have contributions
in this year’s Timarit of the Icelandic
National League. Apparently the only
contributor who is less than a sexagen-
arian is my former pupil, Dr. Tryggvi