You, so slow and grimy far beyond your brothers,
Now are groomed, and keen to go ere all the others!
“Who has washed your features clean of soot and dust?
Who with comb has curried your gray locks so mussed?
Tell, in heaven’s name, who you from sleep has shaken? —
You whom heretofore we scarce by day could waken?”
“Young man,” thus came forth the old man’s answer bland,
“Slowly moves the one who goes from native land;
When, by constant flight, falls shame on all our numbers,
It is better far than waking, if one slumbers.
“And why therefore should I wash my aged face,
Since more clear upon it would be seen disgrace?
Willing took I gibes, became the mocker’s booty,
Sorrow bore, and hence a nose I carried sooty.
“All is altered now; the Finnish troops have striven,
Finland lies before us opened wide as heaven;
Not a blot henceforth shall stain the nation’s glory;
Now a clear and clean brow wears the driver hoary.
“Call the people up, and let the drums resound!
Night has now departed, daylight gleams around
When repose we needed, all was in a flurry;
Noble, youthful master, now ’tis time to hurry!”
CANTO THIRTY-FIRST. WILHELM VON SCHWERIN.
Wilhelm Johan Ludvig von Schwerin, born In December, 1792, near Stockholm, son of the member of Parliament, Dean and Count Schwerin, was Lieutenant of the Swedish artillery; and was less than 16 years old, when in August, 180S, he came to Finland with the Swedish advance troops commanded by General von Vegesack. The boy had but lately left the military school.
He had never been under fire until the episode occurred which is described In the first ten stanzas of the canto. This was at Omossa, south of Kristinestad, on September 4th, 1808; and here he revealed the attributes of a genuine young hero, so admirably portrayed by Runeberg.
His second beautiful and immortal hero-exploit took place ten days later (September 14th) at Oravais, at which bloody battle he distinguished himself by his bravery and well-directed cannon-fire. Wounded twice in the same battle, he lingered in suffering until September 27th, when he breathed his last at Kalajoki.
Peter Ture Gerhard Drufva (1767-1822) took part in Gustaf Ill’s Finnish war in 1788-90, was taken prisoner at the battle of Svensksund, August 24, 1789, and remained long a captive in Russia. He distinguished himself at Omossa, and especially at Oravais. Later he became a governor in Sweden. The Swedish word “drufva” signifies a grape, which will elucidate the last two lines of the poem.
Eberhard Ernst Gotthard von Vegesack (1763-1818) participated in many wars. He made an unsuccessful attempt to land at Lemo Point in June 1808, but was victorious at Lappfjard. He was wounded at the battle of Oravais. He became Lieutenant-Colonel and was a valiant, highly-gifted, and very exacting general.
But we forget the great officers, and can only think of the wonderful boy.
The beauty of valor and heroism seems enhanced when possessed by one so slight, so frail, so child-like. And Drufva and Vegesack and all the warriors wept in silence over the pallid and beautiful form, as if to murmur with Topelius in “A Little Boy:”
“Thou shouldst have stood with thy silvered hairs
In Life’s evening hour declining,
And backward gazed over long, long years,
Well blessed and beloved, and seen the tears
In grand-children’s eyelids shining; —
But in thine earliest morning’s light,
Ere life had begun its day aright,
There came the sleep of untimely night.”
XXXI. WILHELM VON SCHWERIN.
As Drufva, Lieutenant-colonel, stood,
Perplexed was he;
“Here all would fail with a failing mood,
And shattered be.
The foe advancing I anxious scan,
Whose numbers many fold ours outspan;
To make a stand I am ordered,
And fight to my final man!
“Ah! Would for the cannons I had obtained
A veteran, —
A devil hardened and powder-stained, —
A cannon-man;
But no! A youngster of years fifteen,
Refined and slender, a Count Schwerin,
Must now for our battery answer!
What shows such a child in his mien?”
Then straight he rode to the youth in haste,
And gave his hand:
“A life-or-death battle must soon be faced
Upon this land; —
Death, certain death, if you stand here tame,
But life, perchance, if exact your aim;
Life, death, you may, sir, be gaining,
But yielding will cost your game!
“I see you standing so frail and slight,
Like storm-tossed reed;
That ne’er such play you have proved aright,
Is sad, indeed.
To kill the time is not waged this strife;
So search your heart for its valor rife;
Are you willing to-day, if need be,
To offer your youthful life?”
“Lieutenant-Colonel, you draw your sword
With time-skilled hand,
Still daring to offer your life as guard
For king and land;
My life has only its spring-time gained,
And but years fifteen in my heart have reigned;
Why should I not make it an offering?
I will see if my gift be disdained.”
And Drufva aged his glance did roll, —
“That rang like steel!
Young man, it struck fire! — They reached the goal,
Your words of zeal!
No longer now may I call you slight,
I God must thank for your mood to fight;
For not the arm, but the spirit,
At last is the giver of might!”
Soon sounded the cannon; the youth’s first fray
He bravely fought;
Hard-pressed, his men turned in flight away,
But he failed not;
His battery was his home, his hearth,
He quickened its fire, he was five men worth!
He singed the beards of the Cossacks
In crowds as they hurried forth!
He found an instant of rest, then sprang
Swift to his folk;
He roused their mood as his accents rang,
And anger spoke.
A moment more all was changed to view,
His scattered troops to the combat flew;
He stood by his cannon beloved,
And fire was flashing anew.
This scene did Drufva from distant ground
In wonder heed;
“A master-stroke that will be renowned, —
This youthful deed!
If crowns such glory his first affray,
What wins he not in a life-long sway?
God safeguard the youth heroic; —
Great armies he leads one day!
The strife was o’er as the daylight died;
Then came Schwerin,
Who’d stemmed the swell of the battle’s tide,
Though slight and thin.
When back with his cannons to camp he came,
Loud shouted the gray-clad warriors his name;
And then the fatherly Drufva
Embraced him with loudest acclaim.
The youthful hero! His name towered up
In early light.
No life-career ever held a hope
Than his more bright.
How soon ’twas ended forevermore!
One lunar circle was scarce half o’er,
Ere pathway to grave the nearest
Was the end his earth-life bore.
Yet one m
ore record for verse and song
His life doth bear:
Once more he fought in the battle throng,
Of all most fair, —
Ere death enfolded his youthful form,
And stilled the pulse that had beat so warm, —
Ere, vainly summoned to exploits,
Lay withered his slumbering arm.
It was when Oravais’ bloody day
Arose for woe,
When in defeat very triumph lay,
Our hopes brought low;
Then shone most brilliant his matchless mood,
Then struck most deadly his missile-brood;
Then flashed his cannon the hottest,
When colored red with his blood!
At last, they say, at its side he sank,
By wounds low laid; —
But rising, yet stormed the enemy’s rank,
With lifted blade; —
Called forward his soldiers and hurried before,
And hewing his pathway, slashed o’er and o’er,
Nor fell he until, exulting,
His soldiers he reached once more!
He who had reached not his sixteenth year,
Now slept from strife;
But long the time of his dwelling here,
If deeds make life.
Ah! Many a man, gray in honor grown,
Would place the wreath his own worth has known
On the brow of the boy heroic,
To win his crown for his own.
And he had reached not his sixteenth year,
So young he died;
Yet mourned him a bleeding army here,
Itself sore tried;
But deep in the silence of sorrow bound,
Stood noblest warriors his form around,
And what he had been for those heroes,
Was clearly this moment found.
No weak lament by the men was sung, —
Deep grief was heard;
To the hero’s glory who died so young,
There fell no word.
But Vegesack did life’s spring revere,
And Adlercreutz decked the pale one’s bier;
And was pressed from the eye of Drufva
Rare wine — a great, bright tear.
CANTO THIRTY SECOND. NUMBER FIFTEEN STOLT.
Each soldier of a company had his own number. Stolf had Number Fifteen, but his place in the company was now vacant. He is supposed to have been fictitious, but it matters not.
During this war, volunteers often fought with the regular soldiers. When one distinguished himself especially, he was presented with a uniform, and placed in the thinned ranks. The hero of this canto was such a volunteer, and had the honor of being placed in one of the blanks, — the blank left by Stolt.
Inspired at once with the heroic spirit, he feels a ray of the spring sun in his heart, and with gushing tears he exclaims:
“And if I am one, both in joy and woe,
Of this valiant soldiery,
Then say when to battle or death we go?
God grant it to-morrow be!”
The most notable action of the war was the victory at Lappo, achieved by the Finns under Adlercreutz over the Russians led by Rajevsky.
In the morning the Savolaks light infantry was in the hottest fire; in the evening Dobeln and his Bjorneborg men ended the battle by their valiant charge. The town was taken by storm. Captain von Schantz and his company were the first to force their way in. The battle ended at sunset.
XXXII. NUMBER FIFTEEN STOLT.
The cloudless day upon Lappo’s plain
Was o’er, and with triumph’s smile
Rode Dobeln forth, to his troops again,
Reviewing each rank and file.
In simple words he with thanks was rife,
Spoke grateful to every band,
For their true-fast honor, their manly strife,
And their love of their fatherland.
To the farthest wing he had ridden along
By eventide’s latest glance;
And there he thanked, as before, the throng
Commanded by Captain Schantz.
The ranks were thinner, he noted well;
In every line there were blanks;
Soon something else did his soul impel,
And he made it known to the ranks.
They had marked anon, mid his praises warm,
How his glance to the side he had thrown
Toward a beggar’s figure, a tattered form,
That stood there mute and alone.
Now he beckoned the man, and spoke: “You, you,
Come hither, take braver mood!
You once were nearer to us than now
To-day, — and in scenes of blood.
“Have you forgot how you took the gun
From a fallen warrior’s hand,
And came to my champions brave on the run,
In the heat of the battle to stand?
“While afield we crouched, you with us caught up,
And likewise crouched with the rest;
When again they appeared, my victorious troop,
You forward fought with the best.
“When they stormed the town ‘gainst the cannons
And I turned my glances to see, — [then,
Then your tattered jacket appeared again,
The first on the battery.
“Your deed was brave; such an effort true
Should dwell in the heart of fame,
Now crow frank-hearted, my brave cuckoo,
And tell me at once your name.”
“What name the priest upon me conferred,
None ever has cared to learn;
But “cur” is the name I have oftenest heard,
Far back as my memory can turn.”
“Good! See that the title you back to them give
Who bestowed it, and rest you consoled;
But only declare to me where you live,
And where you your maintenance hold.”
He showed the road at the hillock’s rand:
“Thereon my home lieth near.”
He showed his bony but powerful hand:
“And here is my maintenance, here.”
“Your home will do, your support is good;
Your business, what is it, say?
To steal in churches, small thefts include,
Or to rob on the public way?”
“And if I stole either great or small,
I at least should be owning a mote;
And if from a beggar I’d made a haul,
I’d wear a less ragged coat.”
Then Doblen gleamed in his satisfied way:
“Von Schantz, Sir Captain, hear well!
Who was the doughtiest man to-day
Of all who among us fell?
“Send hither his knapsack, his hat, his frock,
His sword and his musket, too, —
His noble name, and his warrior’s stock; —
This man is their heritor new!”
They came with the weapons and garb in haste
Once carried by Fifteen, Stolt.
Von Dobeln smiled, and his glance he placed
On his protege’s tattered coat.
“Stolt’s coat is bloody; it takes brave mood
To don such garment anew.
But this “cur” I see has grown heavy with blood
On his own apparel tool
“Now, change and put on this uniform,
In front here, that all may see!
You marched before them in this day’s storm,
And with them you soon shall be.”
He changed his garb, and his cheek it glowed,
When with arms he was fresh arrayed;
And Dobeln silent his man now showed
To the gap that Fifteen had made.
“And now you’re a soldier with youth and life,
Of genuine stamp and mold;
You’re now our comr
ade in battle’s strife,
And are “Number Fifteen, Stolt.”
“So let your valor and heart hold sway,
The same as they did of old;
But if “cur” you are called, from this very day,
Then draw your sword and say “Hold!”
The warrior new had, before this word,
Held vault-like calm in his breast;
But when the general’s speech was heard,
He trembled with deep unrest.
No joy, e’en fleeting, had him consoled
In all of his life-time way;
His tear-drops, frozen in earth-life’s cold,
Had not flowed since his childhood’s day.
And now, for the first time, shone on his heart
A ray of the spring-sun clear;
And from melted fountains did gushing start
Restrainless, tear upon tear.
“And if I am one, both in joy and woe,
Of the valiant soldiery,
Then say when to battle or death we got
God grant it to-morrow be!”
CANTO THIRTY THIRD. THE BROTHERS.
Herein is portrayed the boundless sorrow and fathomless disdain awakened in the hearts of all the people of Finland by the yielding of the fortress of Sveaborg as described in Canto XVII (Sveaborg).
Karl Vilhelm Wadenstjerna (1751-1819) had been captain of the Tavastehus regiment in the war of 1788-90, and later became Lieutenant-Colonel. In the war of 1808-9 he was a member of the war-council at Sveaborg that decreed, with the Commandant, Cronstedt, to abandon the fortress to the enemy.
He (Karl V. Wadenstjerna), and Otto Johan Colliander, had married two sisters Tool, and were comrades in battle as well as brothers-in-law. The former in 1802 adopted the latter as son, so that the Wadenstjerna name might be perpetuated. So Colliander was the Johan Wadenstjena of this dark story. He had attained the title of Major, but in the last Finnish War he did not participate, dwelling, as at the date of the poem, on his own estate, Kalho, at Jantsijarvi (Svansjon) in the parish of Gustaf Adolf. Here he died within a year of Sveaborg’s capitulation.
The poet calls the two men brothers, not brothers-in-law, Johan being thirteen years younger than Karl, the wanderer, who comes in the darkness and storm to visit Johan in the ancestral home.
“You” in the first line of the poem signifies Runeberg, who is addressed by old Ensign Stål, and who had happened to speak the name Wadenstjerna at one of their accustomed evening meetings beside the glowing fire-place, thus giving the aged narrator occasion to tell the gruesome tale.
Collected Works of Johan Ludvig Runeberg Page 17
