Words: (1855-1931) (Den Sag er ald­rig i Ver­den tabt); trans­lat­ed from Dan­ish to Eng­lish by (1877-1970).

Music: Os­ter­gaard, Dan­ish folk mel­o­dy.


That cause can never be lost nor stayed
Which takes the course of what God has made;
And is not trusting in walls and towers,
But slowly growing from seeds to flowers.

Each noble service that men have wrought
Was first conceived as a fruitful thought;
Each worthy cause with a future glorious
By quietly growing becomes victorious.

Thereby itself like a tree it shows:
That high it reaches, as deep it grows;
And when the storms are its branches shaking,
It deeper root in the soil is taking.

Be then no more by a storm dismayed,
For by it the full grown seeds are laid;
And though the tree by its might it shatters,
What then, if thousands of seeds it scatters?