Classic Poem

The ice-white mountains clustered all around us,
But arctic summer blossomed at our feet;
The perfume of the creeping sallows found us,
The cranberry-flowers were sweet.

The reindeer champed the ghostly moss, and over
The sparkling peak that crowned the dim ravine
The sky was violet-blue; and loved by lover
We clung, and lay half-seen.

Below us through the valley crept a river,
Cleft round an island where the Lap-men lay;
Its sluggish water dragged with slow endeavour
The mountain-snows away.

One thin blue curl of wood-smoke rose up single, —
The only sign of life the valley gave;
But where the fern-roots and the streamlets mingle
Our hearts were warm and brave.

My arm was round her small head sweetly fashioned,
Her bright head shapely as a hyacinth-bell;
So silent were we that our hearts' impassioned
Twin throb was audible.

Alas! for neither knew the language spoken
Amongst the people whence the other came;
A few brief words were all we had for token,
And just each other's name.

" My love is pure as this blue heaven above you, "
I said, — but saw she let the meaning slip;
" Jeg elsker Dem , " I felt must be, " I love you! "
And answered, lip to lip.

Oh! how the tender throbbing of her bosom
Beat, bird-like, crushed to mine in that embrace,
While blushes, like the light through some red blossom,
Dyed all her dewy face.

There is no night-time in the northern summer,
But golden shimmer fills the hours of sleep,
And sunset fades not, till the bright new-comer,
Red sunrise, smites the deep.

But when the blue snow-shadows grew intenser
Across the peaks against the golden sky,
And on the hills the knots of deer grew denser,
And raised their tender cry,

And wandered downward to the Lap-men's dwelling,
We knew our long sweet day was nearly spent,
And slowly, with our hearts within us swelling,
Our homeward steps we bent.

Down rugged paths and torrents mad with foaming,
With clinging hands, we loitered, blind with joy,
I thought a long life spent like this in roaming
Would never tire or cloy.

And very late we saw before us, dreaming,
The red-roofed town where all her days had been,
And far beyond, half shaded and half gleaming,
The blue sea, flecked with green.

Ah! sweet is life and sweet is youth's young passion,
And sweet the first kiss on a girl's warm cheek;
Since then we both have learnt in broken fashion
Each other's tongues to speak;

And many days and nights of love and pleasure
Have laid their fragrant chaplets on our hair,
And many hours of eloquent wise leisure
Have made our lives seem fair;

But Memory knows not where so white a place is
In all her shining catalogue of hours,
As that one day of silent warm embraces
Among the cranberry-flowers.