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Opencobol Faq Documentation Release 1111 Brian Tifn
https://ebookbell.com/product/opencobol-faq-documentation-
release-1111-brian-tifn-23632990

OpenCOBOL FAQ Documentation
Release 1.1.11
Brian Tiffin
February 25, 2013

CONTENTS
1 1.1 What is OpenCOBOL? 5
2 1.2 What is COBOL? 7
3 1.3 How is OpenCOBOL licensed? 9
4 1.4 What platforms are supported by OpenCOBOL? 11
5 1.5 Are there pre-built OpenCOBOL packages 13
5.1 1.5.1 kiska.net repository . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
5.2 1.5.2 sourceforge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
6 1.6 What is the most recent version of OpenCOBOL? 15
7 1.7 How complete is OpenCOBOL? 17
8 1.8 Will I be amazed by OpenCOBOL? 19
9 1.9 Who do I thank for OpenCOBOL? 21
10 1.10 Does OpenCOBOL include a Test Suite? 23
11 1.11 Does OpenCOBOL pass the NIST Test Suite? 25
12 1.12 What about OpenCOBOL and benchmarks? 27
12.1 1.12.1 telco billing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
13 1.13 Can OpenCOBOL be used for CGI? 29
14 1.14 Does OpenCOBOL support a GUI? 31
14.1 1.14.1 GTK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
14.2 1.14.2 Tcl/Tk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
14.3 1.14.3 Vala, WebKit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
15 1.15 Does OpenCOBOL have an IDE? 33
16 1.16 Can OpenCOBOL be used for production applications? 35
16.1 1.16.1 Nagasaki Prefecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
16.2 1.16.2 Stories from Currey Adkins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
16.3 1.16.3 Public Accounting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
i

17 1.17 Where can I get more information about COBOL? 39
18 1.18 Where can I get more information about OpenCOBOL? 41
18.1 1.18.1 The OpenCOBOL Programmer’s Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
19 1.19 Can I help out with the OpenCOBOL project? 43
19.1 1.19.1 Translation Efforts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
20 1.20 Is there an OpenCOBOL mailing list? 45
21 1.21 Where can I find more information about COBOL standards? 47
22 1.22 Can I see the OpenCOBOL source codes? 49
22.1 1.22.1 What was used to color the source code listings? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
23 1.23 What happened to opencobol.org? 51
24 1.24 What is COBOL in Latin? 53
25 1.25 Do you know any good jokes? 55
25.1 1.25.1 A 5-7-5 haiku? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
26 2 History 57
26.1 2.1 What is the history of COBOL? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
26.2 2.2 What are the Official COBOL Standards? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
26.3 2.3 What is the development history of OpenCOBOL? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
26.4 2.4 What is the current version of OpenCOBOL? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
27 3 Using OpenCOBOL 61
27.1 3.1 How do I install OpenCOBOL? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
27.2 3.2 What are the configure options available for building OpenCOBOL? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
27.3 3.3 Does OpenCOBOL have any other dependencies? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
27.4 3.4 How does the OpenCOBOL compiler work? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
27.5 3.5 What is cobc? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
27.6 3.6 What is cobcrun? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
27.7 3.7 What is cob-config? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
27.8 3.8 What compiler options are supported? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
27.9 3.9 What dialects are supported by OpenCOBOL? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
27.10 3.10 What extensions are used if cobc is called with/without “-ext” for COPY . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
27.11 3.11 What are the OpenCOBOL compile time configuration files? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
27.12 3.12 Does OpenCOBOL work with make? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
27.13 3.13 Do you have a reasonable source code skeleton for OpenCOBOL? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
27.14 3.14 Can OpenCOBOL be used to write command line stdin, stdout filters? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
27.15 3.15 How do you print to printers with OpenCOBOL? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
27.16 3.16 Can I run background processes using OpenCOBOL? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
27.17 3.17 Is there OpenCOBOL API documentation? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
27.18 3.18 How do I use LD_RUN_PATH with OpenCOBOL? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
27.19 3.19 What GNU build tool options are available when building OpenCOBOL? . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
28 4 Reserved Words 99
28.1 4.1 What are the OpenCOBOL RESERVED WORDS? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
28.2 4.2 Does OpenCOBOL implement any Intrinsic FUNCTIONs? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
28.3 4.3 Can you clarify the use of FUNCTION in OpenCOBOL? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
28.4 4.4 What is the difference between the LENGTH verb and FUNCTION LENGTH? . . . . . . . . . 247
28.5 4.5 What STOCK CALL LIBRARY does OpenCOBOL offer? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
28.6 4.6 What are the XF4, XF5, and X91 routines? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
ii

28.7 4.7 What is CBL_OC_NANOSLEEP OpenCOBOL library routine? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262
28.8 4.8 How do you use C$JUSTIFY? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262
28.9 4.9 What compiler directives are supported by OpenCOBOL? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264
29 5 Features and extensions 267
29.1 5.1 How do I use OpenCOBOL for CGI? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
29.2 5.2 What is ocdoc? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
29.3 5.3 What is CBL_OC_DUMP? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
29.4 5.4 Does OpenCOBOL support any SQL databases? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293
29.5 5.5 Does OpenCOBOL support ISAM? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296
29.6 5.6 Does OpenCOBOL support modules? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302
29.7 5.7 What is COB_PRE_LOAD? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302
29.8 5.8 What is the OpenCOBOL LINKAGE SECTION for? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302
29.9 5.9 What does the -fstatic-linkage OpenCOBOL compiler option do? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
29.10 5.10 Does OpenCOBOL support Message Queues? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
29.11 5.11 Can OpenCOBOL interface with Lua? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313
29.12 5.12 Can OpenCOBOL use ECMAScript? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
29.13 5.13 Can OpenCOBOL use JavaScript? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
29.14 5.14 Can OpenCOBOL interface with Scheme? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328
29.15 5.15 Can OpenCOBOL interface with Tcl/Tk? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331
29.16 5.16 Can OpenCOBOL interface with Falcon PL? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 344
29.17 5.17 Can OpenCOBOL interface with Ada? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 344
29.18 5.18 Can OpenCOBOL interface with Vala? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346
29.19 5.19 Can OpenCOBOL interface with S-Lang? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 354
29.20 5.20 Can the GNAT Programming Studio be used with OpenCOBOL? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 358
29.21 5.21 Does OpenCOBOL support SCREEN SECTION? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364
29.22 5.22 What are the OpenCOBOL SCREEN SECTION colour values? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365
29.23 5.23 Does OpenCOBOL support CRT STATUS? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365
29.24 5.24 What is CobCurses? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 366
29.25 5.25 What is CobXRef? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367
29.26 5.26 Does OpenCOBOL implement Report Writer? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373
29.27 5.27 Does OpenCOBOL implement LINAGE? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373
29.28 5.28 Can I use ctags with OpenCOBOL? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373
29.29 5.29 What about debugging OpenCOBOL programs? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374
29.30 5.30 Is there a C interface to OpenCOBOL? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376
29.31 5.31 What are some idioms for dealing with C char * data from OpenCOBOL? . . . . . . . . . . . 377
29.32 5.32 Does OpenCOBOL support COPY includes? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 378
29.33 5.33 Does OpenCOBOL support WHEN-COMPILED? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 378
29.34 5.34 What is PI in OpenCOBOL? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 378
29.35 5.35 Does OpenCOBOL support the Object features of the 2002 standard? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 378
29.36 5.36 Does OpenCOBOL implement PICTURE 78? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379
29.37 5.37 Does OpenCOBOL implement CONSTANT? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379
29.38 5.38 What source formats are accepted by OpenCOBOL? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379
29.39 5.39 Does OpenCOBOL support continuation lines? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379
29.40 5.40 Does OpenCOBOL support string concatenation? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 380
29.41 5.41 Does OpenCOBOL support D indicator debug lines? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381
29.42 5.42 Does OpenCOBOL support mixed case source code? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381
29.43 5.43 What is the shortest OpenCOBOL program? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 382
29.44 5.44 What is the shortest Hello World program in OpenCOBOL? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383
29.45 5.45 How do I get those nifty sequential sequence numbers in a source file? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383
29.46 5.46 Is there a way to count trailing spaces in data fields using OpenCOBOL? . . . . . . . . . . . . 384
29.47 5.47 Is there a way to left justify an edited numeric field? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 385
29.48 5.48 Is there a way to detemermine when OpenCOBOL is running ASCII or EBCDIC? . . . . . . . 385
29.49 5.49 Is there a way to determine when OpenCOBOL is running on 32 or 64 bits? . . . . . . . . . . 386
iii

29.50 5.50 Does OpenCOBOL support recursion? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386
29.51 5.51 Does OpenCOBOL capture arithmetic overflow? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387
29.52 5.52 Can OpenCOBOL be used for plotting? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389
29.53 5.53 Does OpenCOBOL support the GIMP ToolKit, GTK+? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393
29.54 5.54 What is ocsort? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406
29.55 5.55 When is Easter? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407
29.56 5.56 Does Vim support OpenCOBOL? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 411
29.57 5.57 What is w3m? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 412
29.58 5.58 What is COB_LIBRARY_PATH? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 414
29.59 5.59 Can OpenCOBOL interface with Rexx? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 414
29.60 5.60 Does OpenCOBOL support table SEARCH and SORT? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 420
29.61 5.61 Can OpenCOBOL handle named pipes? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 424
29.62 5.62 Can OpenCOBOL interface with ROOT/CINT? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 426
29.63 5.63 Can OpenCOBOL be used to serve HTTP? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 429
29.64 5.64 Is there a good SCM tool for OpenCOBOL? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 432
29.65 5.65 Does OpenCOBOL interface with FORTRAN? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 435
29.66 5.66 Does OpenCOBOL interface with APL? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 436
29.67 5.67 Does OpenCOBOL interface with J? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 436
29.68 5.68 What is COBOLUnit? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 438
29.69 5.69 Can OpenCOBOL interface with Gambas? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439
29.70 5.70 Does OpenCOBOL work with LLVM? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 440
30 6 Notes 443
30.1 6.1 big-endian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 443
30.2 6.2 little-endian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 444
30.3 6.3 ASCII . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 444
30.4 6.4 currency symbol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 444
30.5 6.5 DSO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 444
30.6 6.6 errno . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 444
30.7 6.7 gdb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 445
30.8 6.8 GMP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 445
30.9 6.9 ISAM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 445
30.10 6.10 line sequential . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 446
30.11 6.11 APT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 446
30.12 6.12 ROBODoc Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 446
30.13 6.13 cobol.vim . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 457
30.14 6.14 make check listing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 462
30.15 6.15 ABI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 472
30.16 6.16 Tectonics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 472
30.17 6.17 Setting Locale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 472
30.18 6.18 GNU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 473
30.19 6.19 Performing FOREVER? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 473
30.20 6.20 POSIX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 482
31 7 Authors 483
32 8 Maintainers and Contributors 485
33 9 ChangeLog 487
34 Indices and tables 491
Bibliography 493
iv

OpenCOBOL FAQ Documentation, Release 1.1.11
Status
This is a 1.1 release candidate of the OpenCOBOL FAQ. Sourced at ocfaq.rst. Courtesty of ReStructuredText,
Sphinx and Pygments.
ocfaq.pdf is also available, using rst2latex and then pdflatex.
This FAQ is more than a FAQ and less than a FAQ. Someday that will change and this document will be split
into an OpenCOBOL manual and a simplified Frequently Asked Questions file.
Website favicon by Mark James, help.png from the FAMFAMFAM Silk icon set.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/
“COBOL Warriors” image Copyright © 2008 Robert Saczkowski. Banner courtesy of the GIMP, Copyright
© 2008-2013 Brian Tiffin and both are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic
License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/
Authors
Brian Tiffin [btiffin]
Answers, quotes and contributions:
John Ellis [jrls_swla], Vincent Coen, Jim Currey, Bill Klein [wmklein],
Ganymede, Simon Sobisch [human], Rildo Pragana, Sergey Kashyrin,
Federico Priolo, Frank Swarbrick, Angus, DamonH, Parhs, Gerald Chudyk
Compiler by:
Roger While [Roger],
Keisuke Nishida [Keisuke],
(with the invaluable assistance of many others)
Special credits to
Gary Cutler author of the OpenCOBOL Programmers Guide
Joseph James Frantz for hosting and advocacy [aoirthoir]
Version 1.1rc13, February 25th, 2013 (now in Sphinx)
Status close to complete
Copyright Copyright © 2008-2013 Brian Tiffin
ChangeLog ChangeLog
Note: Regarding COBOL Standards, Official COBOL Standards: There are many references to standards in this
document. Very few of them are technically correct references. Apologies to all the hard working men and women of
the technical committees for this unintentional slight. For specific details on what wordings should be used please see
What are the Official COBOL Standards?
CONTENTS 1

OpenCOBOL
Contents
• 1 OpenCOBOL FAQ
– 1.1 What is OpenCOBOL?
– 1.2 What is COBOL?
– 1.3 How is OpenCOBOL licensed?
– 1.4 What platforms are supported by OpenCOBOL?
– 1.5 Are there pre-built OpenCOBOL packages
– 1.6 What is the most recent version of OpenCOBOL?
– 1.7 How complete is OpenCOBOL?
– 1.8 Will I be amazed by OpenCOBOL?
– 1.9 Who do I thank for OpenCOBOL?
– 1.10 Does OpenCOBOL include a Test Suite?
– 1.11 Does OpenCOBOL pass the NIST Test Suite?
– 1.12 What about OpenCOBOL and benchmarks?
– 1.13 Can OpenCOBOL be used for CGI?
– 1.14 Does OpenCOBOL support a GUI?
– 1.15 Does OpenCOBOL have an IDE?
– 1.16 Can OpenCOBOL be used for production applications?
– 1.17 Where can I get more information about COBOL?
– 1.18 Where can I get more information about OpenCOBOL?
– 1.19 Can I help out with the OpenCOBOL project?
– 1.20 Is there an OpenCOBOL mailing list?
– 1.21 Where can I find more information about COBOL standards?
– 1.22 Can I see the OpenCOBOL source codes?
– 1.23 What happened to opencobol.org?
– 1.24 What is COBOL in Latin?
– 1.25 Do you know any good jokes?
• 2 History
– 2.1 What is the history of COBOL?
– 2.2 What are the Official COBOL Standards?
– 2.3 What is the development history of OpenCOBOL?
– 2.4 What is the current version of OpenCOBOL?
• 3 Using OpenCOBOL
– 3.1 How do I install OpenCOBOL?
– 3.2 What are the configure options available for building OpenCOBOL?
– 3.3 Does OpenCOBOL have any other dependencies?
– 3.4 How does the OpenCOBOL compiler work?
– 3.5 What is cobc?
– 3.6 What is cobcrun?
– 3.7 What is cob-config?
– 3.8 What compiler options are supported?
– 3.9 What dialects are supported by OpenCOBOL?
– 3.10 What extensions are used if cobc is called with/without “-ext” for COPY
– 3.11 What are the OpenCOBOL compile time configuration files?
– 3.12 Does OpenCOBOL work with make?
– 3.13 Do you have a reasonable source code skeleton for OpenCOBOL?
– 3.14 Can OpenCOBOL be used to write command line stdin, stdout filters?
– 3.15 How do you print to printers with OpenCOBOL?
– 3.16 Can I run background processes using OpenCOBOL?
– 3.17 Is there OpenCOBOL API documentation?
– 3.18 How do I use LD_RUN_PATH with OpenCOBOL?
– 3.19 What GNU build tool options are available when building OpenCOBOL?
• 4 Reserved Words
– 4.1 What are the OpenCOBOL RESERVED WORDS?
– 4.2 Does OpenCOBOL implement any Intrinsic FUNCTIONs?
– 4.3 Can you clarify the use of FUNCTION in OpenCOBOL?
– 4.4 What is the difference between the LENGTH verb and FUNCTION LENGTH?
2 CONTENTS

OpenCOBOL FAQ
CONTENTS 3

4 CONTENTS

CHAPTER
ONE
1.1 WHAT IS OPENCOBOL?
OpenCOBOL is an open-source COBOL compiler. OpenCOBOL implements a substantial part of the COBOL 85 and
COBOL 2002 standards, as well as many extensions of the existent COBOL compilers.
OpenCOBOL translates COBOL into C and compiles the translated code using the native C compiler. You can build
your COBOL programs on various platforms, including Unix/Linux, Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows.
The most excellent OpenCOBOL Programmer’s Guide can be found at OpenCOBOL Programmers Guide.
5

6 Chapter 1. 1.1 What is OpenCOBOL?

CHAPTER
TWO
1.2 WHAT IS COBOL?
COBOL is an acronym for COmmon Business Oriented Language. This author has always thought of it as “Common
Business” Oriented more than Common “Business Oriented”, but that emphasis is perhaps up to the reader’s point of
view.
7

8 Chapter 2. 1.2 What is COBOL?

CHAPTER
THREE
1.3 HOW IS OPENCOBOL LICENSED?
The compiler is licensed under GNU General Public License.
The run-time library is licensed under GNU Lesser General Public License.
All source codes are copyright by the respective authors.
What that means, roughly, is:
You are allowed to write OpenCOBOL programs that use the libcob run time
library however you like. Closed, proprietary, commercial use is allowed
and encouraged. You can ship programs in binary form as you wish.
Modifications to the compiler itself, MUST provide access to source code and
be licensed under the GNU GPL. This ensures that no one is allowed to call
modified sources their own, nor deny anyone else the chance to copy and
re-distribute the compiler source code, including your local changes.
Please note: any verion of the compiler that is configured to use Berkeley DB
beyond version 1.85 must abide by the Oracle license and sources of the
COBOL programs that use libdb must be shipped with any binaries.
OpenCOBOL is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the
implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General
Public License for more details.
9

10 Chapter 3. 1.3 How is OpenCOBOL licensed?

CHAPTER
FOUR
1.4 WHAT PLATFORMS ARE
SUPPORTED BY OPENCOBOL?
OpenCOBOL 1.0 the current official release version, hosted on SourceForge.net, compiles on:
• All 32-bit MS Windows (95/98/NT/2000/XP)
• All POSIX (Linux/BSD/UNIX-like OSes)
• OS/X
OpenCOBOL 1.1, has been built on
• MS Windows native
• MS Windows with Cygwin
• GNU/Linux
• POSIX Systems including OpenSolaris
• OS/X
• AS/400
• HP Integrity HPUX 11.23
• RS600 AIX 5
• 390 Mainframe z/OS OMVS/USS
• others
11

12 Chapter 4. 1.4 What platforms are supported by OpenCOBOL?

CHAPTER
FIVE
1.5 ARE THERE PRE-BUILT
OPENCOBOL PACKAGES
Yes. Debian APT, and RPM packages exist. Packages for NetBSD. Many. Google opencobol packages for any late
breaking news.
A Debian Advanced Package Tool binary package exists for OpenCOBOL 1.0 as open-cobol and lists dependencies
of
• libc6 (>= 2.7-1),
• libcob1,
• libcob1-dev (= 1.0-1),
• libdb4.5 (>= 4.5.20-3),
• libdb4.5-dev,
• libgmp3-dev,
• libgmp3c2,
• libltdl3-dev,
• libncurses5 (>= 5.6+20071006-3)
Thanks to the gracious efforts of Bart Martens, bartm on Debian’s .org domain.
5.1 1.5.1 kiska.net repository
Also check out kiska.net for binary builds on various platforms. Thanks to Sergey Kashyrin.
5.2 1.5.2 sourceforge
There are OpenCOBOL links at http://cobol.sourceforge.net
In particular, http://sourceforge.net/projects/cobol/files/open-cobol/ can come in handy, with sources and MinGW
binaries at a mininum. Maybe more as time goes on.
13

14 Chapter 5. 1.5 Are there pre-built OpenCOBOL packages

CHAPTER
SIX
1.6 WHAT IS THE MOST RECENT
VERSION OF OPENCOBOL?
See What is the current version of OpenCOBOL?
15

16 Chapter 6. 1.6 What is the most recent version of OpenCOBOL?

CHAPTER
SEVEN
1.7 HOW COMPLETE IS OPENCOBOL?
OpenCOBOL 1.0 implements a substantial portion of COBOL 85, supports many of the advances and clarifications
of COBOL 2002, and includes many extensions in common use from Micro Focus COBOL, ACUCOBOL and other
existent compilers.
OpenCOBOL 1.1 implements a more substantial portion of the COBOL 85 Dialect, COBOL 2002 and a growing
number of vendor extensions. Some proposed COBOL 20xx features have also been implemented. Compatibility
support includes:
• MF for Micro Focus
• IBM for IBM compatibility
• MVS
• BS2000
OpenCOBOL also includes some advanced features allowing source code such as
CALL "cfunction" USING BY REFERENCE ADDRESS OF VAR-IN-LINKAGE-SECTION.
Passing the equivalent of char**, pointer to pointer to char. Just as a small example of the level of coverage and
flexibility provided by OpenCOBOL.
DISPLAY
FUNCTION UPPER-CASE(
FUNCTION SUBSTITUTE(
"This is the orginal string.";
"original"; "new"; "string"; "text"
)
)
END-DISPLAY
To allow for substitution of mixed length strings, something not normally so easy in COBOL. The above will output:
THIS IS THE NEW TEXT.
Note: While OpenCOBOL can be held to a high standard of quality and robustness, the authors DO NOT claim it to
be a “Standard Conforming” implementation of COBOL.
17

18 Chapter 7. 1.7 How complete is OpenCOBOL?

CHAPTER
EIGHT
1.8 WILL I BE AMAZED BY
OPENCOBOL?
This author believes so. For an open source implementation of COBOL, OpenCOBOL may surprise you in the depth
and breadth of its COBOL feature support, usability and robustness.
COBOL has historically been very secretive and low key. Its domain of use being very secretive and low key. COBOL
programmers rarely work on systems that would allow for open internet chat regarding details, let alone existence.
It is a tribute to the professionalism of these programmers that most people rarely, if ever, hear the name COBOL, a
programming language with billions of lines of source code compiled and in production around the world over half a
century.
OpenCOBOL is poised to change that historic trend, and allow for the long overdue sharing of wisdom that legions
of COBOL developers have accumulated over 50 years of success and failure. The OpenCOBOL conversation may
be more POSIX than mainframe, but there is now room to share, critique and pass on the hard lessons learned from
critical systems computing. Given that millions of COBOL programmers kept billions of lines of COBOL source
out of the press, surely some of the wisdom can be passed on in a way that keeps all the secrets secret while curious
developers are exposed to COBOL outside the vaults.
19

20 Chapter 8. 1.8 Will I be amazed by OpenCOBOL?

CHAPTER
NINE
1.9 WHO DO I THANK FOR
OPENCOBOL?
Many people. In particular Keisuke Nishida and Roger While.
See the THANKS file in the source code archive for more names of people that have worked on the OpenCOBOL
project. Roger points out that the list is woefully incomplete. To quote:
The OC project would not have been where it is today without the
significant/enormous help from many-many persons. The THANKS
file does not even do justice to this.
21

22 Chapter 9. 1.9 Who do I thank for OpenCOBOL?

CHAPTER
TEN
1.10 DOES OPENCOBOL INCLUDE A
TEST SUITE?
Why yes it does. 74 syntax tests, 170 coverage tests, and 16 data representation tests in the February 2009 pre-release.
88 syntax, 253 coverage, and 22 data tests in a 2010 cut.
From the development tarball:
$ make check
will evaluate and report on the test suite. See make check listing for a current output listing of a test run.
23

24 Chapter 10. 1.10 Does OpenCOBOL include a Test Suite?

CHAPTER
ELEVEN
1.11 DOES OPENCOBOL PASS THE
NIST TEST SUITE?
The National Institute of Standards and Technology, NIST, maintains a COBOL 85 implementation verification suite
of tests. An archive of the tests can be found at
http://www.itl.nist.gov/div897/ctg/cobol_form.htm
OpenCOBOL passes many of the tests included in the NIST sponsored COBOL 85 test suite. While it passes over
9000 of the tests, OpenCOBOL does not claim conformance to any level of COBOL Standard.
Instructions for use of the NIST suite is included in the build archive under:
tests/cobol85/README
Basically, it is a simple uncompress and make then sit back and relax. The scripts run OpenCOBOL over some 374
programs/modules and includes thousands of test passes.
Test Modules
------------
Core tests:
NC - COBOL nucleus tests
SM - COPY sentence tests
IC - CALL sentence tests
File I-O tests:
SQ - Sequential file I-O tests
RL - Relative file I-O tests
IX - Indexed file I-O tests
ST - SORT sentence tests
Advanced facilities:
IF - Intrinsic Function tests
With the addition of GLOBAL support, the OpenCOBOL 1.1 pre-release fails none of the attempted tests.
The summary.log from a run in February 2009:
------ Directory Information ------- --- Total Tests Information ---
Module Programs Executed Error Crash Pass Fail Deleted Inspect Total
------ -------- -------- ----- ----- ----- ---- ------- ------- -----
NC 92 92 0 0 4363 0 6 11 4380
25

SM 15 15 0 0 290 0 3 1 294
IC 24 24 0 0 246 0 4 0 250
SQ 81 81 0 0 512 0 6 81 599
RL 32 32 0 0 1827 0 5 0 1832
IX 39 39 0 0 507 0 1 0 508
ST 39 39 0 0 278 0 0 0 278
SG 5 5 0 0 193 0 0 0 193
OB 5 5 0 0 16 0 0 0 16
IF 42 42 0 0 732 0 0 0 732
------ -------- -------- ----- ----- ----- ---- ------- ------- -----
Total 374 374 0 0 8964 0 25 93 9082
26 Chapter 11. 1.11 Does OpenCOBOL pass the NIST Test Suite?

CHAPTER
TWELVE
1.12 WHAT ABOUT OPENCOBOL AND
BENCHMARKS?
COBOL has a legacy dating back to 1959. Many features of the COBOL standard provide defaults more suitable to
mainframe architecture than the personal computer a 3rd millennium OpenCOBOL developer will likely be using.
OpenCOBOL, by default, generates code optimized for big-endian hardware. Fairly dramatic speed improvements on
Intel architecture can come from simple USAGE IS COMPUTATIONAL-5 clauses in the DATA DIVISION.
12.1 1.12.1 telco billing
There is a benchmark posted at http://speleotrove.com/decimal/telco.html and thanks to Bill Klein [wmklein], there is
a COBOL entry. From the source code at http://home.comcast.net/~wmklein/DOX/TELCO.txt you should only have
to modify
Input-Output Section.
File-Control.
Select InFile Assign to
"C:expon180.1e6".
Select OutFile Assign to
"C:TELCO.TXT"
Line
Sequential.
to point to the correct filename for your local copy of the benchmark million entry file and a suitable OutFile name for
a clean compile and run.
In summary, the benchmark reads a large input file containing a suitably distributed list of telephone call durations
(each in seconds). For each call, a charging rate is chosen and the price calculated and rounded to hundreths. One or
two taxes are applied (depending on the type of call) and the total cost is converted to a character string and written to
an output file. Running totals of the total cost and taxes are kept; these are displayed at the end of the benchmark for
verification.
A run on an older pentium 4 and the million number file gave:
$ echo ’N’ | time ./telco
Enter ’N’ to skip calculations:
0.46user 1.08system 0:01.61elapsed 96%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 0maxresident)k
0inputs+134776outputs (0major+345minor)pagefaults 0swaps
$ echo ’’ | time ./telco
Enter ’N’ to skip calculations:
11.37user 1.41system 0:12.95elapsed 98%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 0maxresident)k
27

24inputs+134776outputs (0major+360minor)pagefaults 0swaps
$ tail TELCO.TXT
35 D | 0.31 0.02 0.01 | 0.34
193 D | 1.73 0.11 0.05 | 1.89
792 L | 1.03 0.06 | 1.09
661 D | 5.91 0.39 0.20 | 6.50
44 L | 0.06 0.00 | 0.06
262 L | 0.34 0.02 | 0.36
-------------+----------------------------------------+-------------
Totals: | 922,067.11 57,628.30 25,042.17 | 1,004,737.58
Start-Time:09:37:23.93
End-Time:09:37:36.83
A more recent 1.1 pre-release, on a dual quad-core Xeon box running Linux SLES 10 64-bit:
35 D | 0.31 0.02 0.01 | 0.34
193 D | 1.73 0.11 0.05 | 1.89
792 L | 1.03 0.06 | 1.09
661 D | 5.91 0.39 0.20 | 6.50
44 L | 0.06 0.00 | 0.06
262 L | 0.34 0.02 | 0.36
-------------+----------------------------------------+-------------
Totals: | 922,067.11 57,628.30 25,042.17 | 1,004,737.58
Start-Time:21:40:48.52
End-Time:21:40:51.92
3.4 seconds cache-hot. Not bad.
28 Chapter 12. 1.12 What about OpenCOBOL and benchmarks?

CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
1.13 CAN OPENCOBOL BE USED FOR
CGI?
Yes. Through standard IO redirection and the extended ACCEPT ... FROM ENVIRONMENT ... feature, Open-
COBOL is more than capable of supporting advanced Common Gateway Interface programming. See How do I use
OpenCOBOL for CGI? for a sample Hello Web program.
For those developers looking to serve OpenCOBOL applications on hosted systems and no super user privileges, see
How do I use LD_RUN_PATH with OpenCOBOL? for some pointers.
29

30 Chapter 13. 1.13 Can OpenCOBOL be used for CGI?

CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
1.14 DOES OPENCOBOL SUPPORT A
GUI?
Yes, but not out of the box. There is not currently (February 2013) anything that ships with the product.
Third party extensions for Tcl/Tk and bindings for GTK+ do allow for graphical user interfaces. See Does Open-
COBOL support the GIMP ToolKit, GTK+? and Can OpenCOBOL interface with Tcl/Tk?.
14.1 1.14.1 GTK
The expectation is that GTK+ will be completely bound as a callable interface. That is currently (February 2013) not
the case, with perhaps 2% of the GTK+ functionality wrapped (but with that 2%, fully functional graphical interfaces
are possible).
14.2 1.14.2 Tcl/Tk
The Tcl/Tk engine is already quite complete but does place most of the burden of GUI development squarely on the
Tk side.
14.3 1.14.3 Vala, WebKit
Vala will also open up a quick path to GUI development with OpenCOBOL. There is already an embedded web
browser using the Vala bindings to WebKit. See Can OpenCOBOL interface with Vala? for a lot more details.
31

32 Chapter 14. 1.14 Does OpenCOBOL support a GUI?

CHAPTER
FIFTEEN
1.15 DOES OPENCOBOL HAVE AN
IDE?
Yes and no. There is no IDE that ships with the product. The add1tocobol team is currently (February 2013) at work
creating extensions for the GNAT Programming Studio. This is working out quite nicely and will likely be the IDE of
choice for the add1tocobol OpenCOBOL developers.
See Can the GNAT Programming Studio be used with OpenCOBOL? for more information.
There is also the Eclipse IDE and a major project for integrating COBOL but this will not be OpenCOBOL specific.
Many text editors have systems in place for invoking compilers. SciTE, Crimson Editor, vi and emacs to name but a
few of the hundreds that support edit/compile/test development cycles.
See Does OpenCOBOL work with make? for some information on command line compile assistance.
33

34 Chapter 15. 1.15 Does OpenCOBOL have an IDE?

CHAPTER
SIXTEEN
1.16 CAN OPENCOBOL BE USED FOR
PRODUCTION APPLICATIONS?
Depends. OpenCOBOL is still in active development. Feature coverage is growing, and while the current implemen-
tation offers great coverage, applicability to any given situation would need to analyzed and risks evaluated before
commitment to production use.
The licensing allows for commercial use, but OpenCOBOL also ships with notice of indemnity, meaning that there
are no guarantees when using OpenCOBOL, directly or indirectly.
There may be a time when commercial support of OpenCOBOL is offered, but at the time of writing no known offering
exists.
Search google just in case!
And yes, OpenCOBOL is used in production environments.
From [Roger]:
Incidentally, OC has been (and still is) used in production
environments since 2005.
(This includes projects that I personally worked on plus other
projects reported to me; these worldwide)
The OC project would not have been where it is today without the
significant/enormous help from many-many persons. The THANKS
file does not even do justice to this.
16.1 1.16.1 Nagasaki Prefecture
Reported on opencobol.org, The Nagasaki Prefecture, population 1.44 million and 30,000 civil employees is using
OpenCOBOL in support of its payroll management system. A team of 3 ported and maintain a suite of 200 COBOL
programs, mingled with Perl and specialized reporting modules, running on Nec PX9000 big iron and Xeon servers.
16.2 1.16.2 Stories from Currey Adkins
Another post from opencobol.org in April 2009, reprinted with permission.
OpenCOBOL viability
For those concerned about the viability of OpenCOBOL in a production
35

environment, I offer our situation as an example.
We started loading OpenCOBOL to a Debian (Etch) Parisc box in mid March. With
some valuable help from this forum we were up and running in a few days.
We then explored the CGI capabilities and moved our home-brewed CGI handler
(written in HP3000 Cobol) over. We ended up changing only a few lines.
As Marcr’s post indicates, we found a MySql wrapper and made some minor
changes to it.
Starting the second week in April we were in full development of new systems
for commercial use.
Please accept our congratulations to the community and our gratitude for the
help from the forum.
jimc
Another reference by Jim, some 6 months later in February 2010, which seems to be enough time for any rose-coloured
glass effect to have worn off if it was going to.
For our part, the answer is yes.
You may want to read an earlier thread about this. Search on OpenCOBOL
viability.
Having worked with Cobol since the 1960’s, my mindset is that no
conversion is automatic.
In our case we are not converting from a specific dialect like MF,
but instead are either writing entirely new systems or are changing
features (making them web based for example) in older systems.
There are some identified failures in OpenCOBOL execution that have
been discussed in this forum. We have found them to be inconsequential
and simply work around them. Then again I do not remember working with
a bug-free compiler.
Our environment is Debian Linux, OpenCOBOL 1.1, MySQL, ISAM (the one
provided with the 1.1 prerelease), HTML (via CGI) and a new PreProcessor
to relieve the tedium of writing SQL statements.
If you have some "nay sayers" in your organization and would like some
support I will be happy to speak with them.
jimc
I hope people don’t mind a little advertising in this FAQ, but Jim has done a lot for OpenCOBOL and his company is
a community minded company. http://www.curreyadkins.com
16.3 1.16.3 Public Accounting
Another from opencobol.org
36 Chapter 16. 1.16 Can OpenCOBOL be used for production applications?

As part of an initial study of COBOL compilers for finding an alternative to
that of MicroFocus, OpenCobol was selected to develop a model for the
compilation of a public accounting package (1.5 million lines).
The model had to validate this choice, including with the use of sequential
indexed files, with OpenCobol version 0.33 and small adjustments to the COBOL
code (mainly using reserved keywords and keywords not implemented).
After the functional qualification of this model, the software is in production
since July, 2011 under Linux RedHat Enterprise Linux 4 Advanced Server 32-bit
virtualized environment VMWARE ESX - 4 GB of RAM - processor dual AMD Opteron
6176 (tm).
The software package is deployed for 650 users whose 150 connected
simultaneously, at the peaks of activity and in comparison with the previous
platform on AIX 4.3 and MicroFocus, performance gain is in a report, at best,
1-10 (batch of exploitation of entrustment), at worst, 1 to 4 (batch of
recalculation).
With the rise of the package version, a functional validation is in progress
since September 2011 with OpenCobol version 1.1 under Linux RedHat Enterprise
Linux 5 Advanced Server 64-bit and dual Quad-Core AMD Opteron 8356 (tm)
processor. No loss of performance related to the new version of OpenCobol (but
related to the package of 10% to 20% loss) after campaign in the two
environments.
16.3. 1.16.3 Public Accounting 37

38 Chapter 16. 1.16 Can OpenCOBOL be used for production applications?

CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN
1.17 WHERE CAN I GET MORE
INFORMATION ABOUT COBOL?
The COBOL FAQ by William M Klein is a great place to start.
A google of the search words “COBOL” or “OpenCOBOL” are bound to lead to enough days worth of reading of
in-depth articles, opinions and technical information to satisfy the greatest of curiosities.
The COBUG site COBOL User Groups is also a wonderful resource for OpenCOBOL developers.
This is highly subject to change, but currently (February 2013) a Draft of 20xx is available at
http://www.cobolstandard.info/j4/index.htm and in particular http://www.cobolstandard.info/j4/files/std.zip
Note: While OpenCOBOL can be held to a high standard of quality and robustness, the authors DO NOT claim it to
be a “Standard Conforming” implementation of COBOL.
39

40 Chapter 17. 1.17 Where can I get more information about COBOL?

CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN
1.18 WHERE CAN I GET MORE
INFORMATION ABOUT OPENCOBOL?
The opencobol.org website is probably the best place to find out more about the OpenCOBOL system.
add1tocobol.com is a place to find out about a few of the fan initiatives. (An older archive has been stashed at
http://oldsite.add1tocobol.com)
18.1 1.18.1 The OpenCOBOL Programmer’s Guide
A very well written and masterful OpenCOBOL reference and COBOL development guide. By Gary Cutler, Open-
COBOL Programmers Guide.
41

42 Chapter 18. 1.18 Where can I get more information about OpenCOBOL?

CHAPTER
NINETEEN
1.19 CAN I HELP OUT WITH THE
OPENCOBOL PROJECT?
Absolutely. Visit the opencobol.org website and either post a message asking what needs to be done, or perhaps join
the development mailing list to find out the current state of development. See Is there an OpenCOBOL mailing list?
for some details. OpenCOBOL is a GPL licensed open source project and while [Roger] is the lead developer he is
quite open to code submissions. Having a central point of development allows for consistency and the very high level
of quality control enjoyed by OpenCOBOL users.
19.1 1.19.1 Translation Efforts
A new project has started to see native language support in the cobc compile and run-time systems. Please see
http://www.opencobol.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=1127&forum=1 for details if you think you can
help.
Hi folks!
We’re starting to translate upcoming versions into different
languages. The necessary code changes for OC 2.0 were already done.
Now we need translators.
Before posting every stuff here I want to gather the translators
here. Who is able and willing to translate the strings (currently 667)
into what language(s)
[or has somebody who does this]?
From the last discussions I remember people wanting to do this for
French, Italian, Spanish, German but I don’t remember who exactly said
that he/she will help. We already have a Japanese translation, but
that needs an heavy update.
...
43

44 Chapter 19. 1.19 Can I help out with the OpenCOBOL project?

Other documents randomly have
different content

Det er Lillejuleaften,
det er Lillejuleaften,
og et Brus af fjerne Minder
jager Blod til mine Kinder,
— dem, den fattige Polarnat havde bleget.
Jeg er sær og syg til Mode,
kunde gerne grædt og skreget
over Smærter i mit Ho'de,
for jeg længes, saa min Hjerne bliver svimmel,
og mit Livshaab slukner som en bristet Klode ...
Der er Taage over Fjældet,
der er Slør for Aftnens Himmel,
og jeg ligger, overvældet
af de gamle Minders Brus,
tavs i Angmalor'toks Hus.
Det er Lillejuleaften,
det er Lillejuleaften ...
Hvordan lever I derhjemme? —
Aa, om jeg dog kunde glemme — —
Nøgen ligger jeg paa Fælgen,
og min Vært, som ser mig lide,
siger: »Det er vist paa Tide
at faa givet dig lidt Foer!«
Og jeg ser ham trække Bælgen
af en Blaaræv, Dagens Fangst;
den blir kogt og, Gud skal vide,
jeg er slunken som en Slange,
Gulvet er vort Spisebord,
og jeg spiser,
mens han viser
mig den Gunst at nynne Sange,
først et Par og siden mange;
— men min Sult er stadig stor,
og hans Kone spytter Spæk
paa en optøet Narhvalshjerne,

paa en optøet Narhvalshjerne,
for hun under mig saa gerne
denne lækre Juleret.
Endelig blir jeg da mæt —
og min Svimmelhed er væk,
— Taagen med; nu har vi Blæst —
og jeg sover mig fra Længsel hjem og Angst,
mens Fru Angmalor'tok, venlig mod sin Gæst,
nytter Tiden til en heldig Lyske-Fangst ...
VI

Saa tyst stod aldrig Fjældene om Fjorden
og aldrig Stjernerne saa vemodsfulde
og Sneen ingen Tid saa hvid af Kulde
som nu ved Jul. Og der er Fred paa Jorden.
Selv er af Fred og Vé jeg sært bevæget,
kan ikke være ude, ikke inde,
min Sjæl er fyldt af Julens fjerne Minde,
og Vunder bløder, som jeg troede læged.
Og rundt i Verden fejres Juledrømmen,
og alle Hjærter næste-kærligt bløder.
— Snart er vel Julens Baal kun slukne Gløder,
og Hjærtet gaar igen saa jævnt med Strømmen.
Men der var Tider, da jeg ærligt troede
paa Julens store Fredsbudskab i Folket,
— forlængst har Verden Loven omfortolket,
og Julen er nu blot en gammel Mode.
Rørte til Gavmildhed, som Lammets Hyrde,
er alle Menneskenes Millioner —
men kun saa længe Klokken højtids-toner,
Dagen derefter stjæle de og myrde ...
Og dog stod aldrig Fjældene om Fjorden
og aldrig Himlens Lys saa højtidsfulde
som nu i denne Nat, saa hvid af Kulde,
thi det er Jul. Og der er Fred paa Jorden ...
VII

Nej, det er altfor skøn en Nat,
og jeg kan ikke sove,
Fjældkæderne har Linjer
som danske Bøgeskove.
Som Udhugst-Lysninger blandt Trær
staar istids-fødte hvide Brær
i sælsomt livløst Maaneskær —
et Snitværk af Sølv-Filigran,
som tier dødt. Her lever Pan ...
VIII
Jeg har saa ung en Glæde
bare ved at træde
mit Fodtrins lette Spor
paa den sne-tilføgne Jord.
Min Sjæl er tavs af Lykke,
jeg kaster ingen Skygge
i denne dejlige Nat
fredfyldt og lysforladt.
Min Hjerne har ej Tanker,
og Livet ingen Skranker ...
Over Himlen de funklende Stjerneskud strøs,
her gaar jeg saa lykkelig skyggeløs.
IX

Maane og skyfrit og en Snes Kuldegrader!
Nu har vi Nyaar efter Almanakken,
hjemme er Vrimlen en gensidig Takken,
en Ønsken Godt-Aar selv for dem, man hader,
et Mundsvejr blot af tyndslidte Tirader,
en Brev-Hob Falskhed, bragt paa Kaffe-Bakken,
— aa, Gudskelov, jeg kasted Selskabsfrakken,
da Luften blev mig kvalm i vore Gader ...
Mit Nyaar nævnes aldrig i Kalender,
det kommer uanmældt og uformodet
en skønne Dag, naar noget sælsomt hænder:
de Stunder, da mit Selv sanddru erkender
og rejser Viljen, lutrer Hjærteblodet,
da blir en Nyaars-Kvist mit Træ indpodet.
X

Der er ikke et Træ, som tør Pollandet gæste,
end ikke den usleste Busk finder Fæste,
— men hjemme staar Graner paa goldeste Banke
hvidpudrede ranke.
Jeg drømmer mig hjemme, ser Raabukken springe
og lytter til flaksende Fuglevinge,
jeg følger i Snedriven Muldvarpens Stier,
jeg lytter og tier.
Jeg har en Veninde, vi elsker begge
at suse paa Skøjter langs klukkende Bække,
og ud ad de barfrosne Veje vi gaar
med Rimløv i Haar.
Nu gaar hun alene. Jeg sidder som bundet,
maaske er mit Timeglas snart udrundet.
Jeg sanser kun Mad, baade god og slet,
og jeg er saa træt ...
XI

Min Livskraft ligger i Dvale,
alle mine Tanker er gaaet i Hi.
Nu drager den store Nat forbi
de slumrende Fjælde og Dale.
Jeg ligger som dybt i Dvale.
Min Sjæl er sløv som en Larve,
den sanser ej længer sin vante Strid,
den sover sig frem til Lysets Tid,
hvor den skal faa Liv og Farve.
Min Sjæl er en jordbunden Larve.
Jeg tror, Genfødelsen kommer.
Naar Vinterens Nattemulm er forbi,
skal Larven blive sommerfugle-fri
med al den flyvende Sommer.
Jeg véd jo, Genfødelsen kommer.
XII

Tidt tror jeg min Ungdoms livssvulmende Lilje
udblomstret og gold,
mit følsomme Hjærteblod omstøbt til Vilje
og Hjernen is-kold,
skarpt ser mine Øjne, som før var forblindet,
min Manddomsvej ligger belyst ud ad Vildnissets
skyggende Løv.
Mit Øre
kan høre
hver varslende Rytme, hvert dryssende Støv,
klart véd jeg, hvorhen al min Stræben skal føre,
men tidt gaar en hjælpeløs Sorg mig i Sindet:
Jeg er kun et Frø,
som skal dø.
Hvad er vel mit Livsværk mig, selv om jeg sejrrig
til Kampmaalet naar?
Vandt Livet, der udrandt i vekslende Vejrlig,
ublidere Kaar?
Og hvad er det værd, hvis jeg Maalet forfejler?
Gik ikke i maalbevidst Trang og Ærgerrighed
Ungdommen tabt?
— Men bygge
min Lykke
paa Ungdom, dertil var min Sjæl ikke skabt;
jeg savner det Stof, som gør Mennesker trygge.
— O, Ungdomsaar! Jeg er en ydmyget Bejler,
der angrer, at I
gled forbi!
Jeg angrer hver Klogskab, der førte til Handling.
Er Ungdommen klog?
Nej, Ungdom er Afsind og evig Forvandling
og hensynsløst Sprog.
Den Gang, jeg var ung med de yngste, som kendtes,
da sad jeg indspundet i taktfuld, forkrøblende

j g p ,
Slægts-Pietet.
Jeg vilde
ved stille
udadlelig Flid vinde mere end sket.
Først nu er jeg fri. O, men er det for silde
forynget at leve de Drømme, som sendtes,
da Haabet var sundt,
Verden rundt!
XIII
Der er en Higen i hver Drøm, jeg digter,
ud til et blodrigt Liv i sære Egne,
en Udvé, som gaar alle vide Vegne
til Fjæld og Skov, frigjort for trange Pligter,
hvor Fugl og Dyr er Maal, hvortil jeg sigter.
— Der er saa mange Præmie-Sjæle til,
o, lad mig altid være ung og vild!
Og lad mig aldrig, ivrig efter »Ære«,
min egen ranke Nakke ydmygt bøje
— hellere med det lidet lade mig nøje
end tækkes Krybet i en højere Sfære,
hvor der er smitsomt for min Sjæl at være.
Saa mangen Radikal blir Snob ad Aare,
o, lad mig altid være ung og Daare!
XIV

Der er ikke et Menneske, fjern eller nær,
som véd, hvilken Grøde mit Sjæledyb bær,
jeg kalde jer Hustru, Far eller Ven,
I véd, hvad jeg hedder, og hvor jeg gaar hen,
men Driften, som hidser mig, kender I den?
Tidt véd jeg knapt selv, om min Saasæd gir Frugt.
Hvem er jeg? Hvad vil jeg af hæsligt og smukt?
Jeg véd kun, og det har med Kvide jeg lært,
at Menneskelivet er bitterlig svært
og Mennesket selv af omtvisteligt Værd.
Jeg er i den vide Verden kun én,
hvorhen jeg saa færdes, i Fryd eller Mén,
kun ene og ensom, en tillukket Grav,
hvor strømmende Ord mine Læber saa gav,
en Sjæl, der er tavs med sit dybeste Krav.
Og enten jeg lever, hvor Larmen er stor,
eller gemmer mig bort i det tavseste Nord,
hvad enten jeg længes fra Mylret mod Fred
eller higer mod Liv fra mit Skjulested,
jeg er dog kun én i al Evighed.
En venneløs gaar jeg i Fjendekrig,
og fjenderig møder jeg Vennesvig,
selv sviger jeg, stejl af den Ensommes Magt,
den Ven eller Fjende, der faar min Foragt
— og dømmer mig selv for hvert Ord, jeg har sagt.
Tidt knuger min ensomme Lod mig i Knæ,
jeg ønsker mig podet paa rodfæstet Træ,
men ofte — og mest naar jeg rammes brutalt —
da lukker min Sjæl sig, mit Skrig bliver kvalt,
men stærk er jeg bleven i godt som i galt.

XV
Jeg har grædt, naar en Spurv blev skudt ned,
naar jeg saa' et Insekt blive pint,
naar en Blomst, jeg holdt af, traadtes sønder,
og dens Hjærteblad skælvede fint.
Jeg har været et fængeligt Tønder
for hvad Skabningens Ringeste led,
jeg har ødslet med Kærlighed.
Jeg har næret min Pen med mit Blod,
naar jeg skrev om al Menneskenød,
om forskyldt eller skyldfri Elende
og dens Véraab paa Retfærd og Brød.
O, mit pulsende Blod kunde brænde,
og min følsomme Sjæl fatte Mod,
naar jeg stred for den Sag, jeg fandt god.
Det var den Gang, mit Hjærte var Ler
og min Tillid til Menneske-Værd
og min Tro paa mig selv uforfærdet,
da mit Liv laa i morgenrødt Skær.
Ak, men nu er mit Hjærte forhærdet
af de usle Bedrag, som det ser,
og nu tror jeg paa ingen Ting mer.
— Ja, en Gang har jeg inderlig grædt
ved al Skabningens Kummer og Nag,
men da selv jeg fik Pinslerne prøvet,
tog jeg graadløs de grusomme Slag.
Og nu taler mit Hjærte bedrøvet
kun i dæmpede Aandedrag,
men min Taare har rundet sig træt.

XVI
Jeg byder ej mit Venskab frem
til Per og Povl og alle dem,
der søger mine Stuer, min Tobak, mit Bord, min Vin,
men vandt du mig for dig og dit,
saa bliver du mig aldrig kvit,
da er jeg al min Levetid uforbeholden din.
Og den, der kalder mig sin Ven,
skal ærligt yde mig igen
et Alvorsord, en sund Kritik, ud af sin Hjærtebund,
og han skal taale min Protest,
naar han ej gir sig, sand og bedst,
thi den, hvis Hjærte aabnes ret, slaar ikke Laas for Mund.
En Kvinde kan jeg ofre alt:
min Daad, mit Hjærte, ubetalt,
og alt kan af en Kvinde jeg modtage hjærteløst.
Men Mand og Mand i Venskabspagt
har samme Pligt og lige Magt,
og han skal mig gengælde dyrt, som af min Sjæl har øst.
Men vandt du mig for dig og dit,
og tør du tale hensyns-frit
og elske mine Evner frem og kue mine Fejl,
da bliver du mig aldrig kvit,
da ejer du alt, som er mit,
ubrydelig vor Venskabspagt bær' Hjærtets Adels-Segl.
XVII

Mit Liv er planlagt frem til sene Stunder,
hvert Arbejd gennemtænkt i Hovedtrækket,
skal al Ting lykkes, maa der ske det Under,
at jeg blir hundred-aarig og usvækket.
Men er der muldfast dèr, hvor Roden bunder,
hvordan blir Stammen trøsket da og knækket!
Nej, jeg vil ikke dø den meningsløse
snigmorderiske Død af Sot og Syge,
Knald eller Fald! Og aldrig daadløs døse
i lunkent Sollys — hellere en Byge,
lad bare Stormen piske, Regnen øse,
og alle Lungepibere rejse og ryge!
I brat og voldsom Død har helst jeg villet
med denne dejlige Jord faa Afsked taget.
Paa ét Kort sat mit Liv — jeg vover Spillet,
men alle Kneb skal gælde, selv Bedraget,
og først naar alle Trumfer er udspillet,
slutter jeg af, livsmæt og højt bedaget.
Maaske, naar jeg blir gammel, kommer Gigten,
et Eftersmæk fra Liv i Baad og Slæde,
men aldrig skal jeg angre, at min Digten
drog mig langt udenfor den alfar Glæde.
Mit Liv er planlagt, dyrebar er Pligten,
o, lad mig hundred-aarig Jorden træde!
XVIII

Ja, jeg vil vorde Mand og fæste Rod
dybt i den jydske Muld, der var min Amme,
Jordens Safter skal stige i min Stamme,
forny mit Væv og nære mit Løv med Blod,
— ja, jeg vil dyrke Jorden grøn og god.
Min Sjæl er træt af fremmed, bjergfuld Strand
og længes hjem til Slettens Kløver og Tidsler,
til Heden helst, dèr hvor et Aaløb risler
det frodige Grønsvær frem af magert Sand,
stolt vil jeg dyrke Jord i eget Land.
Ja, jeg vil fæste Rod i Lyng og Klit
og klamre mig som Marehalm til Bunden,
at Havet ikke skal underskære Grunden,
men bruse mig for Øje tro og frit,
thi ene dette Hav og Land er mit!
XIX
Den Mand véd ikke, hvad Sol vil sige,
hvem den tilsmiler hver Dag i Aaret,
for ham er Sol det selvfølgelige,
men her i Pollandets Mørkerige,
hvor jeg maa leve, dens Lys beskaaret,
her faar jeg Solen smærtelig kær:
nu véd mit Øje, hvad Sol er værd.
XX

Giv mig Solen, aa, giv mig Solen
og lad mig gense de danske Strande,
hvor Natten skifter med solfyldt Dag,
og Himlen spejles i dybt-blaa Vande,
paa Marken Solsikken og Violen
og Lyd af Kornlærkers Vingeslag.
Giv mig Solen, aa, giv mig Solen,
en purpurglødende Morgenrøde
bag Ferskenblomsternes hvide Lin,
med sødlig Duft af en tropisk Grøde,
af Oleanderen og Magniolen,
af gul Orange og blaalig Vin.
Giv mig Solen, ja, giv mig Solen,
den skal fremelske Ungdom og Ynde,
jeg længes vanvittigt langt mod Syd,
dèr vil jeg aande og se og synde,
jeg hader Natmørket her ved Polen
og min Grav-Tilværelses golde Dyd.
Giv mig Solen, aa, giv mig Solen,
jeg sidder længsels-pint her og bier.
Hvordan er Verden? — fremdeles slet?
Har Kunsten udklækket ny Genier,
har Frihedskravet knust Kongestolen?
— aa, hvem der bare kom hjem til det!
XXI

Vi har atter Maanetid og Gæsteri
— ja, den Maane os med Mørkets Tid forsoner! —
Her er daglig et Par Slæder paa Visit,
for vi ligger netop paa en alfar Sti,
og her er en stadig livlig Bytten Koner,
det er svært at skelne mellem mit og dit
— akkurat som blandt de Kristnes Millioner!
Her kom nys Krajo'dak med sin Nabos Viv,
og med Agpalarsuar'suk kom Fru O'dak,
Husets allerbedste raadne Kød blir budt,
og man skynder sig at proppe i sit Liv,
mens Passiaren stiger som en lystig Krosnak,
og en høflig Vært gir Konen med til Slut,
og en høflig Gæst har blot at svare: Jo Tak!
XXII

Ja, lille søde Aini'nak,
du spørger, om Kvinderne hjemme
er ligesaa gode som her mod Nord
og Mændene ligesaa slemme?
Om Damer, lille Aini'nak,
tør ingen sin Mening sige.
Men Mændene er af et grumset Stof
og ikke just elskelige.
Jeg véd, at din Mand har slaaet dig,
jeg ser jo, din Kind bærer Skrammer,
— aa, stakkels lille Aini'nak,
hos os er der bitrere Jammer.
Du havde vel været ulydig
og nægtet ham, hvad han kan kræve,
— hos os er der tungere Vaaben
end den bare knyttede Næve.
Det véd du jo, lille Aini'nak,
snart læges din Smule Rift,
men Mændene hjemme i Danmark
de drypper i Saaret Gift.
Vi saarer med Øjets Staalblink
og Tungens bidende Odd,
med smaabitte haanske Skuldertræk
eller Tavshedens ætsende Braadd.
Saa lever vi Side om Side,
men dyrker dog hver sin Gud,
vi vælger helst det dulgte Bedrag
fremfor et ærligt Brud.
Nej, kære lille Aini'nak,
du, som er saa god og smuk,

du, som er saa god og smuk,
du kender ikke den Livsens Vé,
der bæver i Kvindesuk.
Og paa dit Spørgsmaal, Aini'nak,
svarer den fremmede Herre:
Kvinderne hjemme er bedre end her,
men Mændene meget værre!
Alene den lille Aini'nak,
der er sky som en opskræmmet Raa,
du er den eneste Kvindesjæl,
jeg blandt dine Søstre saa'.
XXIII

Vi grubler for meget og handler for lidt
og hugger hverandres Livsgerning i Splinter,
under Selv-Reflektionernes Mareridt
vi leger og kriges med Vitser og Finter,
men flytter os ikke et eneste Skridt,
dèr sidder de Skriftkloge højsæde-kry
og haaner hver Handlingens Mand og hans Ry.
Tidt væmmes jeg ved at tænke med Ord,
det er Tingene selv og ej deres Navne,
hvoraf jeg vil fyldes — som Barnet, der tror
uden at famle og føle og favne,
thi Ord er Bedrag, den Naive er stor;
mit slyngede, selv-reflekterende Jeg
skal blive én eneste lige Streg.
Saa vil jeg da bortkaste Tingenes Dragt,
min Tænkning skal være blot nøgen Beskuen,
jeg sanser kun Tingenes egen Magt
oprindeligt, ubevidst — Fjældet og Tuen —
og glemmer hvert Ord, der er skrevet og sagt;
jeg vil ikke mere studere mit Selv,
blot leve naivt under Himmelens Hvælv.
XXIV

Nu stiger Lyset,
Nat-Mørket brister,
og Kulde-Gyset
af Landet lister.
Rødlige Buer
af Dæmringens Straale
dirrer som Luer
bag Isblink-Naale.
Paa Sletten blegner
Skyggerne bort,
Fjældryggen tegner
sig skarp og sort.
Tarmrude-Lyset
taber sit Skær,
— nu flygter Gyset,
Dagen er nær.
XXV

Opbruds-Travlhed, Rejse-Iver,
raskt Farvel til dem, der bliver,
Tak for alt og Tak til Alle:
— se, dèr kommer En og giver
mig en lækker Hvalros-Lalle,
som han i sin Kødgrav fandt,
den er Rejseproviant;
og den største Tromme-Mand
forærer mig en Narhvalstand ...
— Afsked gør mig altid trist,
jeg blir helt beklemt tilsidst;
det er svært nok at forlade
disse gode, altid glade,
trofast hjælpsomme Eskimoer;
— hvad jeg haaber end og tror,
skal vi maaske aldrig ses ...
— Det er rart at se sit Værk
kronet af en fast, besluttet
Viljesytring; den gør stærk:
— jeg vil hjem, straks paa Minuttet!
— Hør, der snakkes og der les,
og jeg gir Signal til Spandet
og er snart langt væk fra Landet ...
Ja, nu gaar det atter hjemad,
men det gaar kun trælsomt fremad,
Maanen skjuler sig bag Taage,
Strømmen skærer mangen Vaage,
vi maa lejre os som bedst
midt i isnende Sydvest.
— Av, dèr »brændte« jeg min Næse,
fire Fingre og en Taa,
jeg har vaade Vanter paa
— og et Ur, jeg skal aflæse,

det er gaaet rent i Staa ...
»Her maa ties, her maa bies«,
jeg er bleven vant til Turen.
Mens min Hud i Frost afsvides,
støder Stormen fælt i Luren,
men tilsidst er den blæst træt,
i dens sidste Aandedræt
krydser vi den sidste Bræ,
gaar i Sne til over Knæ
og naar i Melville-Bugten
ud paa ny og let-kørt Is,
hvor vi følger langs en Rende,
— mere Kulde, mer Elende:
i Kamikken stivner Fugten,
Termometrets Kviksølv fryser —
men den hvide Maane lyser
gennem rimfyldt Kuldedis ...
Det gaar fremad,
vi naar hjemad,
og vi slider, angst-befriet,
hele Kuske-Kompagniet,
dansk og fremmed, døbt og Hedning,
elleve Mand om otte Læs,
elleve Mand, tre Snese Hunde,
lutter gridske Fraasemunde
om det samme frosne Kød,
— naa, vi lider ingen Nød,
og vi nærmer os vor Redning,
thi dèr henne
bag et Næs
kan Upernivik jeg kende!
Og vi kappes. Frem paa Fronten,
Sol er nær ved Horisonten!
— Ah dèr ser vi Spor af Bjørn

— Ah, dèr ser vi Spor af Bjørn,
Hundene blir rent beruste!
— Stolte Time, da vi suste
som en Flok kamplystne Børn
hen blandt Isens vilde Kaos,
— Fjæld ved Fjæld stod opmarscherte, —
Bjørnene slap ikke fra os,
snart laa to døds-harpunerte.
Selv blev vi paa Kampens Sted,
vi var hungrige og trætte,
laa og aad os tungnemt mætte,
den skrigvorne Mave fuld,
Hund og Herre,
— men desværre
Hundene aad Skindet med ...
Pyt! Med Skind og røden Guld,
hvad er Guld mod Morgenskær:
se, vi møder Solen her,
se, derude staar den røde
Solgud op af Vinterdvale,
alle Iskrystaller gløde,
— og vi gaar vort Hjem i Møde,
og vi staar og ser og ser
— længe — — og kan ikke tale — —

Saa kom det store Øjeblik,
da vi igen var fremme;
dèr laa de kendte Huse,
vi følte os som hjemme.
Der fløj et Dannebrog til Tops,
og Hytten syntes os et Slot,
— aa, disse kære Farver,
hvor gjorde de dog godt!
Nu traadte vi i Stuen ind,
vor syge Ven blev baaret,
saa rørende en Velkomst
blev aldrig os beskaaret.
I Ovnen brændte festligt Baal,
og mange hvide Lys stod tændt,
— vi maatte alle tie
med Ansigtet bortvendt.
Saa drak vi da et godt Glas Vin
og smagte Fruens Kage,
vi skal nok aldrig glemme
den Stund, vi kom tilbage;
det sagde ogsaa O'sakrak,
da han af Hvedebrødet bed:
— »Ja, nu kan jeg begribe,
I længtes svært herned!« ...
Men laa der intet Brevskab gemt?
— min Puls tog til at banke,
den store Post fra Danmark
var aldrig af min Tanke.
— Nej! Ingen Hilsen, intet Bud!
da blev mit Hjærte koldt som Is,
saa har I Stakler hjemme
vel frygtet vort Forlis! ...
S j k k K Sj l

Se — jeg er karsk paa Krop og Sjæl,
og vi skal atter mødes,
og af vor Gensyns-Lykke
skal ny Værdier fødes.
Og er endnu min Hjemvej lang,
og faar jeg ingen Breve,
aa Gud, om vi naar sammen,
hvor smukt skal vi da leve!

Ja, Livet er dejligt, og Livet er langt
for den, som har Sans til at leve det ret,
men hjemme dèr gaar vi og har det saa trangt,
naar Udlængslen snører vort Aandedræt.
— Den Solsort og Lærke og Gøg sang forgæves,
jeg gad ikke se Bekkasinen i Mose,
af Lyngblomst og Rose
var længst jeg træt,
var vammel ved Troskab, forbitret af Svig,
men Verden derude var stor og rig,
og kostelige Skatte skulde hæves.
Saa traadte min Fod den forjættede Muld,
og dejligt var Livet, hvorhen jeg end foer,
men ikke alt det, som glimred, var Guld,
og tidt blev der øde, hvor jeg satte Spor.
Snart sang jeg, snart græd jeg — og fandt ikke Skatten,
min Sjæl blev bekymret — hvor gemtes vel Lykken?
saa sejled fra Bryggen
jeg længst mod Nord,
dèr leved jeg rigt i en livsforladt Egn,
dèr inddrak min Sjæl sin befrugtende Regn
og skjalv dog for Mørket og Natten.
Da kom der en stormfuld, oprivende Tid,
for første Gang fik jeg mig selv endevendt,
— dèr stod jeg saa sort, hvor jeg før var hvid,
nu først fik den rette Kulør jeg bekendt ...
Vi tumler i Rummet som vildsomme Sole
og véd hverken ud eller ind med vor Bane,
kan slet ikke ane,
hvordan den var endt,
men just som det hvirvlende Vejr vil opsluge os,
faar vi Tag i os selv, nu kan Livet bruge os —
Livet, den kostelige Skole!

—
Og det blev just Skatten, den Vildfarne fandt
dèrude, hvorhen alle Længsler ham drog,
at Fred til en Selv-Omvurdering han vandt,
og læged blev Vunderne, Livet ham slog.
Det dyrebart dejlige Liv, det, som frister
og drager langt bort fra de hjemlige Kyster
til vovsomme Dyster
afsindig og klog.
Ja, Livet er farligt og dejligt og dyrt,
og Lysten til Livet en adelig Byrd,
hvad enten det bær eller brister.
—
Du dejlige Liv, som jeg nu har forladt,
du dejlige Liv, som jeg drager imod
fra Pollandets nordlys-forsølvede Nat
til Foraar med Midnatssols gyldne Flod!
Jeg aander saa henrykt befriet mod Verden,
fjernt borte fra hilser mig hjemlige Vinde,
jeg har en Veninde —
og træt er min Fod —
ja, dejligt er Livet i Fare og Flugt,
men dejligst af alt, som er dejligt og smukt,
er altid min Hjemkomst fra Færden!

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