The Icelandic Canadian - 01.09.1964, Page 44

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THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Autumn 1964
GTWO SOMM1BT!
by the Arctic Explorer
VILHJALMUR STEFANSSON
Because of Vilhjalmur Stefansson’s
fame as an explorer, a lecturer and
scientist, not much has been said
about him as a poet. Some mention
has been made of his excellent trans-
lations of Icelandic poems into Eng-
lish, but very little about his original
verse, except his “Philosophy at
Twenty” which is an acknowleged
masterpiece. And yet in his teens and
early twenties he wrote a number of
poems, some of which were published
in the Icelandic papers in Winnipeg
and elsewhere; and he has said some-
where that his first chief ambition
was to become a poet of some distinc-
tion.Somewhat later, however, eventu-
alities changed that obsession. His tal-
ents were averted to another field,
and that story is now well known.
But what may not be so generally
known is that shortly after he entered
the University of N. Dakota he wrote
and published a number of poems and
a play, of a somewhat satirical nature,
which at first were regarded with dis-
favor Iby some of the faculty. But he
soon became known as the institution’s
chief poet and many of his shorter
pieces appeared in the University’s
magazine “The Student”. As samples
of his work I wish to append two son-
nets that appeared in its issue of
March 1901.
Paul IJjarnason
WHITMAN
Whitman, thy rolling rhythms surge
With maddened fury through the shoreless seas
Of human life’s eternal tragedies;
Sinking their tone—now to a moaning dirge
Of sorrow, and now raising it to scourge
Thy self-dwarfed littleness that shrivles and flees
Before thee. The impassioned mysteries
Of life brood in thy heart and wildly urge
Thy fingers o’er the sounding harp that thrills
With all thy knowledge of the -heart of man
And all ithy love of nature and mankind;
That tells the firmness of the rock-ribbed hills,
The depths of space, and of the eyes that scan
Those depths and dream of that which lies behind.