The Icelandic Canadian - 01.03.1968, Page 28

26
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Spring 1968
The Icelandic Mind In Continuity
The three directives to themselves, which the Icelandic people have placed
upon permanent record, emphasized in the Centennial book, The Icelanders
in Canada, are:
I brook no blemish in myself.
A root Norse philosophy of life.
Give Strength to our people, diminish their tears
On their course to a kingdom of God.
From a poem composed by Rev. Matthias Jochumsson of Iceland
in 1872, now the National Anthem of Iceland.
Think not in years but in ages,
Claim not at once but in stages,
Only then life on earth will endure.
From a poem by the Canadian poet, Stephan G. Stephansson,
composed in 1904.
A fourth, which i.s an interpretation of life as well as a directive, can be
added, which brings the continuity to the year 1968. It is found in a poem by
Paul A. Sigurdson, Morden, Man., a Canadian of Icelandic descent, and, as is
but natural, was composed in the English language. {The poem, entitled
“Weeds”, in free verse, appears in this issue of the magazine.)
This is the word-canvas which the poet has placed before mankind:
The weed:
Our stimulation;
Our challenge;
Our point of bearings;
Where life takes two directions,
And we leave unity to God.
It is not the adversities in themselves, but the use to which those adversities
were put which developed the mental and moral capacities of the Icelanders of
olden times, and has carried forward as shown in this poem.
QUOTATIONS FROM "THE ICELANDERS IN CANADA"
The Teutonic, or Scandinavian age, disappeared, but out of the ashes (in Iceland, 1120-
1262), phoenix-like, a new culture was born, (p. 57) . . .
The power of the Germanic heroic age was being transformed into purely Icelandic
strength (p. 64).