SONG OF THE SILENT LAND.

Each the father's breast embraces,
Son and daughter; and their faces
Colorless grow utterly.
Whichever way

Looks the fear-struck father gray,
He beholds his children die.

"Woe! the blessed children both
Takest thou in the joy of youth;
Take me, too, the joyless father!
Spake the grim Guest,

From his hollow, cavernous breast,
"Roses in the spring I gather!"

SONG OF THE SILENT LAND.

78

FROM THE GERMAN OF SALIS

INTO the Silent Land!

Ah! who shall lead us thither?

Clouds in the evening sky more darkly gather, And shattered wrecks lie thicker on the strand. Who leads us with a gentle hand

Thither, O thither,

Into the Silent Land?

Into the Silent Land!

To you, ye boundless regions

Of all perfection! Tender morning visions
Of beauteous souls! The Future's pledge and band
Who in Life's battle firm doth stand,

Shall bear Hope's tender blossoms

Into the Silent Land!

The mildest herald by our fate allotted,
Beckons, and with inverted torch doth stand
To lead us with a gentle hand

Into the land of the great Departed,
Into the Silent Land!

And say to them, "Be of good cheer!”

Ye sounds, so low and calm,

That in the groves of balm

Seemed to me like an angel's psalm.

Go, mingle yet once more

With the perpetual roar

Of the pine forest, dark and hoar!

Tongues of the dead, not lost,
But speaking from death's frost,
Like fiery tongues at Pentecost!

Glimmer, as funeral lamps,
Amid the chills and damps

Of the vast plain where Death encamps

BALLADS

AND

OTHER POEMS.

1841.

PREFACE.

THERE is one poem in this volume, in reference to which a few introductory remarks may be useful. It is The Children of the Lord's Supper, from the Swedish of Bishop Tegnér; a poem which enjoys no inconsiderable reputation in the North of Europe, and for its beauty and simplicity merits the attention of English readers. It is an Idyl, descriptive of scenes in a Swedish village; and belongs to the same class of poems, as the Luise of Voss and the Hermann und Dorothea of Göthe. But the Swedish Poet has been guided by a surer taste, than his German predecessors. His tone is pure and elevated; and he rarely, if ever, mistakes what is trivial for what is simple.

There is something patriarchal still lingering about rural life in Sweden, which renders it a fit theme for song. Almost primeval simplicity reigns over that Northern land, almost primeval solitude and stillness. You pass out from the gate of the city, and, as if by magic, the scene changes to a wild, woodland landscape. Around you are forests of fir. Overhead hang the long, fan-like branches, trailing with moss, and heavy with red and blue cones. Under foot is a carpet of yellow leaves; and the air is warm and balmy. On a wooden bridge you cross a little silver stream; and anon come forth into a pleasant and sunny land of farms. Wooden fences divide the adjoining fields. Across the road are gates, which are opened by troops of