Thus ‘mid calm memories steers our merry course,
Till Vappar’s wide firth is all left behind,
And, with its church, afar off the Sound there
Bids us come to its narrow bosom.
There, on the hills, I see the green birches now. —
I greet you, silent witnesses of my bliss;
And thee, oh hut, on the strand erected,
Rented for me for the fleeting summer.
Receive me now, and let me one winged hour
‘Mid sleep and dreaming dwell in thy calm embrace;
When glows the earliest beam of morning,
Waits for me Frigga on the hill already.
HOW BLEST AM I!
HOW blest am I! — In lifetime’s morning hour
Around hope’s gleaming seas I sweep away,
E’en as the sailor in the yawl doth scour
The mirrory creek upon a summer’s day;
Where’er he looks, a leaf-decked hillock shimmers,
A glittering scene of flowers his glances trace,
And beaming heaven’s high vault o’er him glimmers,
And beaming laughs beneath the water’s face.
How blest am I! — Stand not the earth’s broad lands here
A boundless path for me to walk along?
Have I not ample treasures in my hands here,
My lyre attuned, and my merry song?
Have I not speech, that to the heart appealeth,
E’en though ‘mongst Afric’s naked sons I move:
The fresh repose, that brightened brow revealeth,
And in the freeborn eye the look of love?
How blest am I! — In myriad aspects dancing
The fair Ideal round my path I see,
And at its end there Honour stands, advancing
Her wreaths, and laughing calls and beckons me.
And Immortality’s calm sun sheds gold on
The goal I seek with yearning’s ardent zest,
And not a low, unworthy doubt takes hold on
My dauntless, haughty, youth-refreshed breast,
How blessed am I! — A faithful maiden shareth
My tenderness, my memory, and my hopes.
And if one missing joy my bliss impaireth,
I seek it straightway in the arms she opes.
Before her glances innocently warming,
In glorious flowers my feelings’ spring doth start,
And butterfly-like come her kisses swarming
Around the Eden that pervades my heart.
How blest am I! — When life-time’s morning paleth,
My lyre remains to comfort me again.
How blest am I! When e’en my lyre, too, faileth,
A name, instead, may yield me comfort then.
And if the tongue of fame forgotten leave me,
My gentle maid will still with me remain;
And e’en should fortune of her sight bereave me,
The memory of my past shall I retain.
THE MEETING.
BESIDE the hazel-hedge’s gate
She stood, the girl I love the best;
Her glance, that roved so free of late,
Did now in silent sadness rest
Upon the mound, where, yestere’en,
So happy by my side she’d been.
A tear-besprinkled rose she bore,
A keepsake which I gave her there;
She thought me on some far-off shore,
Yet we so near each other were;
Hid in the next bush was I lain,
And weeping looked, and looked again.
There stood a birch from long ago,
And green and stately had it grown,
It bore my maiden’s name, — also
Bore on its shining bark mine own;
Each by the other I had scratched
One evening as alone I watched.
So dearly it her fancy took
To see them daily in their place, —
But now she stood and sighed to look
Upon her loved one’s well-known trace,
And wrote a mournful couplet there
From “Ingborg’s Plaint” out of Tegnér.
But I kept silence, hiding on,
And let my maiden’s sorrow be;
It was so sweet to think upon
The pangs the darling felt for me;
For this alone ungrateful I
Did not that instant forward hie.
To flowerbuds flew the butterfly,
And flowerets gave their lips so red;
The thrush he sang in birches high,
And straight his mate towards him sped;
Then called I on my maiden too,
Sprang up, and to her bosom flew.
TO A MAIDEN.
MAIDEN, say, what is the magic rare
Drives me to thy heart with such persistence?
Tell me, wherefore am I longing there, —
Only there to dream away existence?
Wherefore is that beauteous, sacred spot,
Wherein nature is as priestess staying,
Stark and joyless to my eye, when not
Thee among its wonders, too, displaying?
One like me, into dust’s fetters hurled,
One like me, a prey to fortune stormy,
Thou for me art more than all the world,
Though the smallest bush can hide thee for me.
Darling, long ere I had looked on thee
Was I loved, and love with love returned;
O’er the clouds was then the home for me,
There had I a cherished partner earned.
Richer far her bosom was than thine,
And her kiss had fuller joy within it;
Wide as heaven was her breast, yet mine
Not too narrow to embrace her in it.
Oh, how I review them o’er and o’er,
Memories of my father’s house recalled;
What I loved, when I was free of yore,
Love I still, although in dust enthralled.
Maiden, not thy figure’s charms diverse,
Not the hue thy rosy cheek containeth,
No; a love for all the Universe
Is the power, which to thy bosom chaineth.
Earth and heaven, which I possess in thee,
But in thee can to my breast be strained,
Wonder not then, that thou art for me
Dear, aye dear, as if I both had gained.
THE CONVALESCENT.
OH, let me sit silent on thy bed and notice
How spring doth gently sprout out of winter’s torpor,
And, decked in purple, and wreathed again in flowers,
Promiseth joy fuller days.
I sat, not long ago, by thy side, oh, maiden,
Thy hue was wasted then, and thine eye o’er-clouded,
And death’s wan pallor lay as a dreary snowdrift
Over thy countenance spread.
Now he hath fled, and laughing again there beameth
On me thy charming look, like a brightened May sun;
And in the sweet cheeks’ glowing warmth are swelling
Roses and lilies again.
And every mirth, and all the sweet little graces,
That frightened fled from under the Chill one’s sceptre,
Assemble again, now round thy brightened forehead,
Now round thy ruddy ripe mouth.
Their graceful frolic will I behold a moment,
How butterfly-like they hail each new-born beauty,
Till with a butterfly’s courage myself I sink down
Lively, to frolic with them.
For every tear I shed on thy winter, maiden,
Shall then thy spring return me a pretty flower;
For every sigh thy pallid lip hath cost me,
Gives me the fresh one a kiss.
LULLABY FOR MY HEART.
SLEEP, oh heart so unruly, sleep!
Heed not worldly things loved o
r loathed!
Ne’er a hope thy peace disorder,
Ne’er a vision thy quiet.
Wherefore lookest thou still towards day?
What expectest thou more of it?
For thy deep-pierced wound, it may be,
Some restorative flower?
Wretched heart, now thine eyelid close,
Day-time’s roses thou’st tried enough,
Only slumber’s gloomy garden
Bears the stem that shall heal thee.
Sleep, as the lily that slumbers off,
Crushed in autumn by fleeting winds;
As the hart, weighed down by arrows,
Droppeth to sleep and bleedeth.
Wherefore sorrow for by-gone days?
Why remember how blest thou wert?
Sometime spring must fade and wither,
Sometime, oh heart! thy gladness.
Even thou hast thy May-day seen,
What, if it cannot last for aye!
Only seek its gentle fires not
Still ‘midst shadows of winter.
Mind’st thou the hours of bliss e’en now?
Groves were verdant and song-birds sang,
And thy love-abounding temple
Was the odorous hillock.
Mind’st the bosom that clasped thee there?
Mind’st the heart that sought for thee?
Mind’st thou yet the kiss-o’ercovered
Lips with languishing oaths then?
Then, when eye into eye did look,
Feeling mirrored in feeling lay,
Then was the time, oh heart! to waken,
Now to forget and slumber.
Sleep, oh heart so unruly, sleep!
Heed no worldly things loved or loathed,
Ne’er a hope thy peace disorder,
Ne’er a vision thy quiet.
MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD.
I MIND a time, I mind it every hour,
When life’s young May upon my cheek was glowing,
And in my tender breast a rose in flower
With beauty yet unmarred by storm was growing.
How blest then in my innocence lived I,
Like morning’s early breeze through valleys playing:
My joy was pure as daylight in the sky,
My cares as light as pearly dewdrops weighing.
Then gladness seemed on every form to fall,
Earth smiled as though by angel hands supported,
The whispering wind, the brooklet’s song, and all
Were babes, as I was, and with nature sported.
But soon thou fleddest, childhood’s springtime dear,
No more to warm this heart again, ah, never!
Ah! woodland’s beauty buds from year to year,
But lifetime’s blossom only once for ever.
In vain, when once there weareth off the bloom,
Its root the water of your tear-flood drinketh;
The whitening leaflets seek but for a tomb,
The stem against its chilly mother sinketh.
But all too soon these hours do pass away,
Which here on striving and on hope one spendeth;
Why, when so short man’s path was meted, say,
Should fade its joys, ere yet the course he endeth.
On thee I gaze, oh time, for ever flown,
A sailor o’er the dwindling sea-coast sighing,
To laugh and play was childhood’s lot alone,
And youth’s is one of strife and self-denying.
What is the world, doth to my hope unfold, —
The palm my bold foreboding sets before me?
What to the hut, where I grew up of old,
The wreaths, the valley of my childhood bore me?
Yet I repine not, joy that is no more,
The heart’s dove-messenger retrieveth never;
But memory sweet of bygone days of yore,
Be thou my trusty follower for ever.
Mayhap some friend, the journey o’er, will then
The bowed-down wanderer pity, tenderhearted;
Perhaps, that old age yet may give again
My former peace, my childhood’s dreams departed.
When on my staff in feeble hand I shrink,
And see the room where sorrows ne’er betide me,
I’ll totter gladly to the deep grave’s brink,
As many an eve erst towards my cot I hied me.
ON A FRIEND’S DEATH.
TOO transient then was the happiness
That stunned me;
Like spring-day’s breezes, with one caress
It shunned me.
While sweetly dreaming,
Self nothing deeming,
Came he who hid all my joy so beaming
The grave in.
How fondly, tenderly, name I thee,
No more now; —
Thou hear’st me not, nor dost ope to me
Thy door now.
No tears discover,
No sighs recover,
The breast that ashes and night now cover
The grave in.
Yet I, sweet friend, though by Fate’s hard blow
Oppressed,
My grief count sweet, and my wound also
As blessed;
For thus thou gainedst,
To peace attainedst,
The calm I missed thou two-fold obtainedst
The grave in.
Blest thou, with thy staff laid down, asleep
Now lying;
On earth its bliss doth the heart first reap
In dying.
To fate, disquiet,
To storm and riot,
How deep the peace and how calm the quiet
The grave in!
Sleep, happy spirit, where guile no more
Nor bale is;
Sleep light as dew which at eve spilt o’er
The dale is. —
Till dawn’s hour gleameth, —
Through heaven beameth,
The slumb’rer from morning sleep redeemeth
The grave in.
The seed of life, hid in all mankind
By light here,
No bonds of dust shall for ever bind
In night here. —
What death down-bringeth,
That he up-bringeth,
And but a bud, whence the floweret springeth,
The grave is.
ON A SLEEPING CHILD.
HOW blest in cradle’s lap thou restest there,
How unaware of error and temptation!
Thy bed — a mother’s hand it did prepare,
Thy rest — thy kinsfolk from a higher station.
As ‘neath a morning’s calm the still blue spring,
Thy lifetime’s guiltless wave in peace is sleeping;
For Time hath not yet struck it with his wing,
Nor Fate gone o’er it yet in storm-blasts sweeping.
Thou smil’st, — oh, were there but revealed to me
The image in thy closed-up eye now playing!
’Tis not yet earth, that thus enchanteth thee,
It is a memory from far heaven straying.
Sleep, tiny babe! how sweet thy lot to-day,
To join thy heart’s life to that of a flower,
Within thy looks let sleep alone hold sway,
Dreams angel only in thy breast have power.
ON A CHILD’S GRAVE.
WHO measured out thy struggle, say,
Young child, now gone to sleep, away
From all earth’s grief and gladness?
Thou didst but see its springtime here,
Yet in thy looks but dwelt the tear,
Within thine heart sore sadness.
Now is thy calm restored to thee,
Now sleep’st thou deep and blissfully,
As ‘neath the storm and shower
Doth rest the fallen flower.
That lot is sweet, that victory fair,
To fall at morn, an
d yet to share
The day’s full wages for it.
Ah, many walked in sorrow’s dale,
And saw its dawn oppressed with bale —
Saw, peaceless, eve fall o’er it;
But came not, as thou, to their goal
With purified and spotless soul,
When Heaven from sorrow bade them,
To where the palms should shade them.
LIFE AND DEATH.
LIFE’S fair angel sat upon the Maker’s right,
In her childhood still the Earth reposed below;
And the Highest looked in anger from his height
On the first sin, that already there did grow.
Fly, so did God say unto life’s Angel then, —
Bearing punishment to Earth’s guilt-covered dale!
Not a joy shall bloom for ever there again,
Not a being ‘scape from evanescence’ bale!
And God’s envoy flew down to the sinful land:
At his Lord’s behest the scythe swang from its sheath.
Saw the son of dust the traces of his hand,
And, affrighted, named the luminous angel Death;
And the mighty Reaper spareth not, his glave
Crusheth seedlings slight, and stately oaks doth smite,
High and low, and rich and poor, and king and slave,
All before his sternness quake, before his might.
But out of the victims whom he felleth there,
Gathers he, what noble hid in them had lain;
Sifts it but from dust’s contagion, to transfer
All atoned unto its God, its home again.
OLD AGE.
ON the past art thou thy grief expending,
Grand old man, reserved and silent wending
Slow thy way through chill old age’s plain?
On the hours dost thou regretful ponder,
When thou nursed’st each feeling’s wealthy wonder,
And the youthful, fervid pulse was swelling,
Now with blissfulness and now with pain?
No delight upon thy road is growing,
Love’s and honour’s standards bravely flowing
Far from thy deserted pathway soar;
And content’s sweet breezes balsam-laden,
Goblets’ nectar and the rosy maiden,
Quicken weaklings, quicken slaves oppressed,
Ah, but quicken thine own self no more.
Are thy pains and struggles then redressed
By those limbs with Time’s deep stamp impressed,
This desire, that ne’er its goal attained?
Can there in thy wasted form be traced
Collected Works of Johan Ludvig Runeberg Page 30
