He thought he would catch it, and wildly woke; For the tune Thou hast made is consuming me." By the side of this which thou never shalt win!” SWEDISH Gustav Rosenhane SONNETS I 1619-1684 DEEP in a vale where rocks on every side Shut out the winds, and scarcely let the sun Between them dart his rays down one by one, Where all was still and cool in summer-tide, And softly, with her whispering waves that sighed, A little river, that had scarce begun Her silver course, made bold to fleet and run Down leafy falls to woodlands dense and wide, There stood a tiny plain, just large enow To give small mountain-folk right room to dance, With oaks and limes and maples ringed around; Hither I came, and viewed its turf askance, Its solitude with beauty seemed a-glow,- II AND then I sat me down, and gave the rein To my wild thoughts, till many a song that rang From boughs around where hidden warblers sang Recalled me from myself; then "Oh! in vain" Can these sweet birds that with such airs harangue Their feathered loves, like me, feel sorrow's pang? Ah! would that I, like them, had pinions twain! Straight would I fly to her whom I love best, Nor vainly warbling in the woodland sing, But chirp my prayer, and preen my plumèd crest, And to this spot once more her beauty bring, And flutter round her flight with supple wing, And lead her to my secret leafy nest." Olof Wexionius (Sir Edmund Gosse) 1656-1690? ON THE DEATH OF A PIOUS LADY THE earthly roses at God's call have made Way, lady, for a dress of heavenly white, In which thou walk'st with other figures bright, Once loved on earth, who now, like thee arrayed, Feast on two-fold ambrosia, wine and bread; They lead thee up by sinuous paths of light At parting left as sad as thou art glad; The saint heaven hath, the mother once they had. Erik Johann Stagnelius MEMORY 1793-1823 O CAMP of flowers, with poplars girdled round, My pensive childhood its Elysium found! Whose horn of plenty flatteringly subdued She will not smile, nor I, who mourn below, Valleys and mountains and hills, but on the fourth side was the ocean. Birch-woods crowned the summits, but over the downsloping hill-sides Flourished the golden corn, and man-high was waving the rye-field. Lakes, full many in number, their mirror held up for the mountains, Held for the forest up, in whose depths the high-antlered reindeers Had their kingly walk, and drank of a hundred brooklets. But in the valleys, full widely around, there fed on the green-sward Herds with sleek, shining sides, and udders that longed for the milk-pail. 'Mid these were scattered, now here and now there, a vast countless number Of white-woolled sheep, as thou seest the white-looking stray clouds, Flock-wise, spread o'er the heavenly vault, when it bloweth in spring-time. Twice twelve swift-footed coursers, mettlesome, fastfettered storm-winds, Stamping stood in the line of stalls, all champing their fodder, Knotted with red their manes, and their hoofs all whitened with steel shoes. The banquet-hall, a house by itself, was timbered of hard fir. Not five hundred men (at ten times twelve to the hundred) Filled up the roomy hall, when assembled for drinking at Yule-tide. Thorough the hall, as long as it was, went a table of holm-oak, Polished and white, as of steel; the columns twain of the high-seat Stood at the end thereof, two gods carved out of an elm tree; Odin with lordly look, and Frey with the sun on his frontlet. Lately between the two, on a bear-skin (the skin, it was coal-black, Scarlet-red was the throat, but the paws were shodden with silver), Thorsten sat with his friends, Hospitality sitting with Gladness. Oft, when the moon among the night clouds flew, related the old man Wonders from far distant lands he had seen, and cruises of Vikings Far on the Baltic and Sea of the West, and the North Sea. Hushed sat the listening bench, and their glances hung on the graybeard's Lips, as a bee on the rose; but the Skald was thinking of Bragé, Where, with silver beard, and runes on his tongue, he is seated Under the leafy beach, and tells a tradition by Mimer's Glad on its stone-built hearth; and through the widemouthed smoke-flue Looked the stars, those heavenly friends, down into the great hall. But round the walls, upon nails of steel, were hanging in order Breastplate and helm with each other, and here and there in among them Downward lightened a sword, as in winter evening a Star shoots. More than helmets and swords, the shields in the banquet-hall glistened, White as the orb of the sun, or white as the moon's disk of silver. Ever and anon went a maid round the board and filled up the drink-horns; Ever she cast down her eyes and blushed; in the shield her reflection Blushed too, even as she;-this gladdened the harddrinking champions. (H. W. Longfellow') FRITHIOF'S FArewell "No more shall I see In its upward motion. The smoke of the Northland. Man is a slave; The Fates decree. On the waste of the ocean, There is my fatherland, there is my grave. |