Poems Sigourney 1827/The Swedish Lovers
THE SWEDISH LOVERS.
Where Dalecarlia's pine-clad hills
Rear high in air the untrodden snow,
Where her scant vales and murmuring rills
A short and sultry summer know.
Where great Gustavus exiled, fled,
And found beneath a covering rude,
Hearts by the noblest impulse led
Of valour, faith, and fortitude,
There still, a virtuous race retain
The simple manners of their sires.
Unchanged by love of sordid gain,
Or stern ambition's restless fires.
And there, where silver Mora flow'd,
In freshness through the changeful wild,
A peasant rear'd his lone abode,
And fair Ulrica was his child.
Untutor'd by the arts that spoil
The soul's integrity was she,
And nurtured in the virtuous toil
Of unpretending poverty.
Within a neighbouring hamlet's bound
In manly beauty's ardent grace,
Christiern his humble dwelling found
Amid the miner's hardy race.
He oft beheld Ulrica's hand
A part in rural labour take,
To bind the sheaf with pliant band,
Or steer the light boat o'er the lake.
He mark'd the varying toil bestow
On her pure cheek a richer dye,
And saw enlivening spirits flow
In dazzling radiance from her eye.
Oft in the holy house of prayer
Where weekly crowds assembling bow,
He mark'd the meek and reverent air
Which shed new lustre o'er her brow.
And soon no joy his heart might share
Unless her soft smile met his view,
And soon he thought no scene was fair
Unless her eye admired it too.
And duly as the shadows fleet
O'er closing day, with silence fraught,
Young Christiern with his lute so sweet
Ulrica's peaceful mansion sought.
Long had the gossip's mystic speech
Deep knowledge of their love profest,
Before the timid lip of each
The cherish'd secret had exprest.
But when the trembling pain reveal'd,
And vows of mutual faith had cheer'd,
Quick on the hamlet's verdant field
Christiern their simple cottage rear'd.
And taught Ulrica's rose to twine
Its tendrils round the rustic door,
And thought how sweet at day's decline
When the accustom'd task was o'er,
To sit and pour the evening song
Amid gay summer's varied bloom,
And catch the breeze that bore along
Her favourite flowret's rich perfume.
The appointed day its course begun
With gentle beams of rosy light,
When they whose hearts had long been one
Should join their hands in hallow'd rite.
At morn, the marriage bell was rung.
Where the lone spire from chapel towers,
And village maids assembling hung
Ulrica's lowly hall with flowers.—
Yet mark'd a shade that pensively
Was stealing o'er her features fair,
For mid those hours of festive glee
The youthful bridegroom came not there.
Full oft along the coppice green
She deem'd his well-known step she heard,
Then brightening, raised her lovely mien,
Then sigh'd—for other guest appear'd.
Dim twilight o'er the landscape fell,
Sad evening paced its tardy round,
Nor Christiern at his father's cell,
Nor through the hamlet's range was found.
"'Tis but in sport,"—her neighbours cried,
"The temper of your heart to prove."—
"Not thus, the sinking maid replied,
Doth Christiern sport with trusting love."
Night came, but void of rest or sleep
Move on its watches dark and slow,
Ulrica laid her down to weep
In anguish of unutter'd wo.
How drear the gentle dawn appear'd!—
How gloomy morning's rosy ray!
Nor tidings of her lover cheer'd
The horrors of that lengthen'd day.
Weeks past away,—all search was vain,—
Her smile of lingering hope was dead,
She shun'd the joyous village train,
And from each rural pastime fled.
Time wrote his history on her brow!
In characters of wo severe,
And furrows mark'd the ceaseless flow
Of fearful sorrow's burning tear.
Years roll'd on years,—her friends decay'd,
Her seventieth winter chill had flown,
A new and alter'd race survey'd
The spectre stranger, sad and lone.
"Why do I live?"—she sometimes sigh'd
"Thus crush'd, beneath affliction's rod?"—
But stern reproving thought replied,
"Ask not such question of thy God!"—
Yet still she lov'd that pine-clad hill
Where erst her love his way would take,
Still wander'd near his favourite rill
Or sat by Mora's glassy lake.
His white-wash'd cot with roses gay,
Had lone and tenantless been kept,
But moulder'd now by time's decay,—
And mid its ruins oft she wept.
The sound of flail at early morn,
Or harvest song of happy hind,
Awoke undying memory's thorn
To probe anew her wounded mind.
Where near her cell, the quarries bold
With veins metallic richly glow,
And where their yawning chasms unfold
Dark entrance to the depths below,
Once, while the miners toil'd to trace,
Between two shafts an opening new,
Mid earth and stones, a human face
Glared sudden on their startled view.—
A form erect, of manly size,
In that embalming niche reposed,
And slight and carelessly the eyes
As if in recent dreams were closed.
The sunburnt tinge that bronzed the brow
Was bleach'd within that humid shade,
And o'er the smooth cheek's florid glow
The raven curls profusely play'd.
The pliant hand was soft and fair,
As if in youth's unfolding prime,
Although the bridal robes declare
The costume of an ancient time.
Yet no recorded fact might tell
Who fill'd that dark, mysterious shrine,
The hoariest ones remember'd well
A shock which whelm'd that ruin'd mine,
But all of him who lifeless slept,
Was lost in time's unfathom'd deep,
At length an aged woman crept
To join the throng who gaze and weep.
Propp'd on her staff she totter'd near,
But when the cold corse met her eye,
She clasp'd her hands in pangs severe,
And shrieks reveal'd her agony.
And fainting on the earth she lay,
With struggles of convulsive breath,
As if weak life had fled away
In terror at the sight of death.
Yet when their care again could light
The vital taper's fading flame,
When day assured her doubtful sight,
Deep sighs and sobs of anguish came.
No word of notice or reply
She deign'd to their inquiring tone,
One only object fix'd her eye,
One image fill'd her heart alone.
'T was thus, disdaining all relief,
She mourn'd with agonizing strife,
While the wild storm of love and grief
Rack'd the worn ligaments of life.
'T was thus o'er age and sorrow's gloom,
Unchill'd affection soar'd sublime,
While strangely foster'd in the tomb
Youth rose, to mock the power of time.
That shrivell'd form convulsed so long,
And that bright brow devoid of breath,
Might seem in contradiction strong,
Like buried life, and living death.
'T was strange from livid lips to hear
Such wild lament, such piercing groan,
While manly love reposing near,
Call'd forth, yet heeded not the moan.
The mourner raised the curls whose shade
Conceal'd that polish'd forehead dear,
And there her wasted hand she laid,
Exclaiming in the lifeless ear,
"Oh!—have I lived to see that face
Engraved upon my soul so deep?—
And in this bitterness to trace
Those features wrapt in holy sleep?
My promised Love!—thou still hast kept
The beauty of thy mantling prime,
While o'er my broken frame have crept
The wrinkles and the scars of time.
Yes.—Well may I be wreck'd and torn
Whom fifty adverse years have seen
Like blasted oak, the whirlwind's scorn,
Still clinging where my joys had been.
My boughs and blossoms all were reft,—
They might not know a second birth,—
Why were my wither'd roots thus left
Unhappy cumberers of the earth?—
Yet still one image soothed my cares,
Amid my nightly dream would shine,
Came hovering fondly o'er my prayers,
And this, my buried lord, was thine.
That smile!—Ah, still unchanged it plays
O'er thy pure cheek's vermilion hue,
As when it met my childhood's gaze,
Or charm'd my youth's delighted view,—
As when thy skilful hand would bring
From mountain's breast, or shelter'd down,
The earliest buds of tardy spring
To scatter o'er my tresses brown.
But now the blossoms of the tomb
Have whiten'd all those ringlets gay,
Whilst thou in bright, perennial bloom,
Dost shine, superior to decay.
Rend from thy lip that marble seal,
And bid once more those accents flow,
That waked even coldest hearts to feel,
And taught forgetfulness to wo.
Wildly I rave!—as if thine ears
The sad recital would receive;
Vainly I weep!—as if those tears
Could move thy sainted soul to grieve.
Time was,—when Christiern's treasured name
No voice howe'er despised might speak,
But from my bounding heart there came
A tide of crimson o'er the cheek;
Time was, when Christiern's step was heard
With raptured joy's tumultuous swell,
And when his least and lightest word,
Was stored in memory's choicest cell.
Yet have I lived to mourn thee lost,
To find each earthly solace fled,
And now, on time's last billow tost,
To see thee rising from the dead!
Ha!—didst thou speak,—and call my soul
To bowers where roses ever bloom,
Where boundless tides of pleasure roll,
And deathless love defies the tomb?
"I come! I come!"—strange lustre fired
Her glazing eye, and all was o'er,
No more that heaving breast respired,
And earthly sorrows pain'd no more.
So there they lay,—a lifeless pair,
Whose hearts by youthful love entwined,
Sever'd by fate, and fix'd despair,
Were now in death's cold union join'd.
Full oft in Dalecarlian cells
When evening shadows darkly droop,
Some hoary-headed peasant tells
Their story to a list'ning group,
And oft the wondering child will weep,
The pensive youth unconscious sigh,
At hapless Christiern's fearful sleep,
And sad Ulrica's constancy.