The five songs in Digte (Poems), Op. 60, were completed in 1894 and composed to texts by Vilhelm Krag. Dedicated to the Dutch baritone Johannes Messchaert (regarded as among the finest concert singers of his age), they were premiered by him in Copenhagen on January 20, 1894. Krag's arch-Romantic imagery served Grieg well in the creation of these unceasingly interesting lyric expressions.

The first song, "Liden Kirsten" (Little Kirsten) has a folk-like temperament, well suited to the bright simplicity of the poem. The second song, "Moderen synger" (The Mother Sings) is an anguished lament, arrestingly modern in its use of a hesitating melody set over an unsettlingly dissonant accompaniment. "Mens jeg venter" (While I Wait) is frequently performed apart from the other songs in this opus and presents a superb example of the composer's sophistication as well as his gift for freshness of utterance. The harmonization is chromatic, often changing key and supporting melodic cells with startling effect. The fourth song, "Der skreg en Fugl" (There Screeched a Bird) attests to the composer's close observation of nature's sounds. In the introduction and final measures of this song, Grieg used a motif from one of his sketchbooks, noted as "the cry of a seagull heard near the Hardanger fjord." The song is dramatic and impressionistic at the same time, prevailingly bleak and singular in its use of minor seventh chords near the ending, voiced over the sustaining pedal throughout the sequence to create a blurred and dissonant effect. The song seems to simply hang in suspension at its conclusion. The final song, "Og jeg vil ha mig en Hjertenskjær" (And I will Take a Sweetheart) is an exuberant outburst of high spirits and a superb encore piece. It is found in the song repertoires of many singers who do not otherwise program much of Grieg's music.

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3.Mens jeg venter ('On the Water')

Grieg wrote many popular works in a variety of genres, but could sometimes be uneven in quality. His songs often reflect his varying artistic yield: of the three sets published in 1894—Opp. 58, 59, and 60—it is the latter of this consecutive run that is regarded as one of his finest song collections. On the Water, the third of the five in the set, is one of his more popular songs. It divulges Grieg's deft skill at capturing the neo-Romantic spirit of the three verses by Norwegian poet and novelist Vilhelm Krag.

The song opens with a lovely, bright theme that mixes romance with a sense of the playful, the latter quality emerging in the sprightly cascades of notes in the piano's accompaniment, accompaniment that calls to mind the gently rocking current and mild splashes of a stream of water. The music exudes sunshine amid the shifts in tempo, the playful tumbling downward of both voice and piano, the seemingly whimsical starts and stops, and the sudden intense buildups auguring a passionate outburst that never comes. The song brims with youthful charm and bright colors throughout, never losing its frolicsome or romantic sense.

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