Classic Poem

PART FIRST

1

A mighty hunter of the deer,
A fisherman in silent mere,
A trapper by the river reed
Was Olaf; his the huntsman's meed.
Azure his eyes, yellow his beard,
Seldom among men he appeared,
But down within the piny wood,
Somewhere, his habitation stood.

2

A daughter had he like himself
In loneliness—a forest elf,
A fairy that all secrets knew
Of bird and herb and midnight dew,
Born of a Lapland mother who
Had died to give her baby birth:
She scarcely seemed to be of earth.

3

She had her father's eyes so fair,
His silent ways, his golden hair.
A harp, unto whose wondrous string
A scald of ocean once did sing,
She played upon, and could command
Sweet music with her elfin hand
Sometimes, when by the river's flow
To sell his game would Olaf go,
Up to the fort on Tinicum,
Brita, to hear the fife and drum,
And see the soldiers proud and gay,
Would trudge beside him all the way,
With harp to help her roundelay,
And to the homesick garrison
Would sing old songs of booty won,
Of love, and fame,
And princely name,
And glorious always was her pay.

4

Strange was her father, like a ghost
Who came, then in the woods was lost;
Strange had her Lapland mother been,
Seer of visions few have seen;
Stranger than either was the child,
Singing her northern ballads wild.

5

Among the officers was one
On whom she gazed like flower on sun,
A courtly youth, with eyes of gray,
Who had from Sweden sailed away
With Printz, and would return some day.
And when to him she sang, sometimes,
Her voice would tremble on the rhymes;
And cold her slender hands would grow,
Which should be merry with youth's glow;
And in her eyes, when he was near,
There shone a light so sad and clear
It almost trembled in a tear.

6

But to his mind the wild song brought
Dreams of a maid whose hand he sought,
Who, in her castle o'er the sea,
Waited for him so faithfully.
And when, at even-tide, he saw
Brita, the harper, round her draw
The poor and faded cloak of gray
Which from her childish limbs did keep
The cruel autumn winds away,
He little knew what passionate sleep
Was hers, down in the piny wood,
Where Olaf's habitation stood

PART SECOND

1

Spring lightly stepped across the land,
Scattering wild flowers from her hand;
And into sudden maidenhood
Bloomed Brita, down in piny wood;
But to the soldiers of the fort,
And to the sailors of the port,
Oft, still, she sang her songs; nor feared
Insult while Olaf's yellow beard
Behind her, like a flame, appeared.

2

But one bright day,
When summer lay
Over the land like mother's smile,
In a lone spot,
When men came not,
She stayed for Olaf; (who, meanwhile,
Unto the Upland people sold
The booty of a forage bold)
And spying, where it shone so blue,
A flower that o'er the river grew,
Upon a high, outstretching bank,
Whose narrow base the stream did flank,
She left her harp (without whose string,
Accompanying, she would seldom sing)
Below, and quickly climbed till she
The treasure clasped; then suddenly
Round her the forest seemed to swim;
Waves closed above her; sense grew dim.

3

Beside the river strolled, that day,
An officer from Tinicum;
He saw the jutting bank give way,
A cry he heard, then all was dumb.
O bush and vine retard him not,
He leaps, a rescuer, to the spot!
Lo, by the river's brink, the harp
Of Brita—hers that cry so sharp!
Lo, in the deep and turbid stream,
A figure—hers he could but deem!

4

Against young Axel's heart was pressed
A bosom ne'er before so blessed;
And as, from out the flood, he bore
Brita in safety to the shore,
Rested upon her face his eyes
In admiration and surprise.
A dreamy child, old Olaf's lass,
He oft, ere this, had marked her pass;
Minstrel of wave-girt Tinicum,
Whose songs the soldiery would hum;
But in a few swift months had grown
A woman, and a child had flown.

5

All pale, upon the mossy bank,
He laid her, then beside her knelt;
His eyes her budding beauty drank,
Within his heart love's joy he felt;
While she, encircled by his arms,
Rested as though beyond all harms.

6

At last, unto the soldier's ear
Came wandering accents, growing clear,
As on a face she oft had seen
Gazed Brita, with half-conscious mien.
How like the blue forget-me-not
Those eyes which shone upon him now!
How like the rose those blushes hot
Illuminating cheek and brow!
Then, suddenly rising, she put off
(So doth a flower its calyx doff)
The cloak of blue which he had thrown
About her, and, in faltering tone,
The flame still burning on her cheek,
She tried her gratitude to speak

7

A snap—as of a broken bush—
Then through the underwood did push,
With hunter stride, and shouldered gun,
Olaf, his Upland business done.
A cloud came o'er his blue eyes' gleam,
Much mystified he, too, did seem,
To see, together, by the stream,
The officer of Tinicum,
And Brita, standing wet and numb.
But when the story he had heard,
Told in his daughter's gentle word,
A look came into his strange face
Such as had seldom lit the place;
And, with a moisture in his eye
He left for the soft breeze to dry,
He clasped the soldier's youthful hand
And spoke his thanks; though, all unmanned,
Scarce could he speak the words he planned.
8

Then from his shoulders broad he drew
A cloak, which he o'er Brita threw,
And, while in silence Axel stood,
They disappeared within the wood.

PART THIRD

1

East of the river Delaware,
Between it and the ocean's wave,
There is a land which now doth bear
The title England later gave,
In honor of that loyal lord
Who held fair Jersey's island-sward:
A land once covered by the sea
It is, o'er whose reality
Still broods the ocean's mystery:
A region wild and desolate,
Left by the waters to its fate:
A seemingly-haunted tract: a land
Of low pine-wood, and gray sea-sand,
And dismal pools, and marshes old,
And ancient sea-things turned to mold
Beneath the sand's o'er-sweeping fold:
Here once the Atlantic billows rolled.

2

Hidden in the depths of the pine-wood,
Here, now, the home of Olaf stood.
3

A lamp is set in Brita's room,
It glimmers through the midnight gloom:
Is it to guide
Him to her side
Who through the forest now doth ride?
If 'tis for that woe will betide!
4

How pale her elfin face to-night!
How trembles she, as if with fright!
Far off is Olaf; wassail's sound
The sough of the wild pines has drowned;
To Printz, the merry Governor,
He sells his game, a goodly store,
And till the morrow will be gone
Doth Brita fear to be alone?
Answer ye eyes
Which to the skies
Like stars more beautiful arise!

5

A shadow cometh from the wood,
It is a horse and rider good;
An eye doth heed the lonely light,
Shining, like Hero's, through the night;
A hand doth knock upon the door,
Which never rested there before;
A kiss doth fall on Brita's cheek,
For which would Olaf vengeance wreak.

PART FOURTH

1

Immortal Venus, queen of Love,
What life is theirs whom thou dost move!
What ecstasies! What blinded eyes!
What hearts which naught save dalliance prize!
What sweet forgetfulness of things
Terrestrial, and of Time's swift wings!

2

'Tis midnight—often since that hour
When first the pines did round him lower,
Borne on by Love, has Axel come,
A secret guest, to Olaf's home;
Unbidden—unseen—save by the one
Who in her chamber waits alone
When up to Tinicum hath gone
Her father, or, upon the mere,
By torch-light, hunts the antlered deer.

3

'Tis midnight—and, from Brita's room,
A light shines on the forest's gloom;
Within how blissful is the air
To him who beauty's bower doth share;
There are some jewels in her hair
Which Axel's hand hath twisted there,
But plaintively her fingers pass
Over her harp, as if, alas,
She felt some shadow drawing near,
Whose breath did fill her soul with fear.
Beside her, at her gentle feet,
So fair to see, so frailly fleet
To wander into paths unmeet,
Sits Axel, winding tresses sweet.

4

Unto her music listening,
He does not speak—he does not move;
But ever holds those locks of love,
About his fingers glistening.
Then, as the strange chords die away,
And she her harp doth cease to play,
Around her elfin shape he flings
His arm, and to her thus he sings:

SONG

“Brita, with her golden hair,
Plays for me a wizard air;
Drest in white
Is she to-night,
Like a spirit strange and fair;
Or enchantress who, from lands
Where no human foot ere stands,
Draws the fairy
By the eerie
Music of her milk-white hands.

“As the room her music fills,
As the sweet, fantastic trills
Wander out into the night,
Flying spirits hear aright:
'Tis no melody of earth
Which thus lures them from their mirth;
'Tis the magic of a hand
Skilled to rule the fairy band;
From their singing,
Ether winging,
Come they at the sweet command.

“Circling round me, as I sit,
In the window spirits flit.
Goblins flying past the moon
Hear the potent prelude soon
And, in cloaks of green and gray,
Merrily proceed this way
Each upon a broomstick good,
Ride the witches from the wood;
Peakèd cap and scarlet shoe,
Much the damage they can do;
But no mischief-making flight
Meditates this throng to-night.
Now, afloat on perfumed wind
Blowing straight from fairy-land,
All her nymphs a train behind,
Comes some queen with wand in hand.
Spirits dark and spirits bright,
Inky imps whose day is night,
Naiads who with wave-drops gleam
Fresh from the pellucid stream,
Ghosts of cobwebbed corridors
Where naught human treads the floors,
All the mystic beings we
Dream about but seldom see,
Revel in this room to-night,
(Round and round,
As in a swound)
Where the elf-queen plays in white.

“Brita, O thou knowest well
How to weave the conjurer's spell!
In what kingdom of the air
Didst thou, with thy golden hair,
Learn those things that few would dare?
From what hag, or wizard old,
Heardst thou first this witch-call bold,
That from off the silent wold,
And from out the dripping cave,
Brings these sprites that round thee rave?

“Brita, with thy magic art
Thou hast won my wandering heart;
In the mesh of thy sweet hair
Thou dost hold it, sorceress fair;
By the music thou dost make
Charmed, I have no wish to wake;
But, as now, in sight of thee,—
Drest in white,
With jewels bright,
Playing in the summer night,—
Fain would lie eternally.”

5

A tear doth shine in Brita's eye,
She trembles as his accents die,
Perhaps 'tis but the night-wind chill,
Perhaps his singing suits her ill,
But closer to him she doth draw,
As if a ghost she felt or saw.
6

What ails the air to-night? What woe
Impending will the morrow show?
What thoughts oppress young Axel's heart,
And make him from his dreaming start?
What cruel words, alas, are they
His faltering lips now strive to say?
7

To-morrow, ere the close of day,
For Sweden will he sail away,
To-morrow, broken-hearted, she
For the last time his face will see,
To-morrow, at the set of sun,
For them will love's sweet dream be done.

PART FIFTH

1

It is a night in early March,
The moon looks down from heaven's great arch
Upon a spot where few e'er come,
Olaf the hunter's forest home
The spring is lengthening fast the day,
But wintry, still, the winds which play
With ancient pine, and cedar dark,
That on the sand wild shadows mark;
And cold the waters of the pool,
For hard has been the winter's rule.

2

Into the sight
Of Luna bright
There comes a figure dumb and white;
From Olaf's door,
The gray sand o'er,
Toward the dark wood it takes its flight;
'Tis Brita; hers that golden hair,
That pallid face, distraught yet fair.

3

Deep in a gloomy grove of pine,
Where resinous odors ever float,
There is a pool unknown to line,
And never crossed by hunter's boat.
A horror round it seems to dwell,
Why, those who pass it ne'er can tell,
But rumor whispers 'tis a place
Where evil spirits show the face.
Shunned was it in the red man's day
And the New-Sweden of my lay.
4

Upon its sullen waters deep,
A figure floats in death's last sleep;
Beautiful as in a swoon,
All silvered by the silent moon;
Closed are those eyes, as wild-flowers blue,
Still is that heart love's power o'erthrew;
Never again, within this world,
For her sad human mysteries;
Above her angels' wings are furled,
Which soon shall bear her to the skies.

5

At daybreak, when the east was red,
By prescient dream, or instinct led,
There came a being desolate
Unto this shore and pool of fate.
Yellow his beard, azure his eyes,
After a daughter sweet he flies,
Brita the name of this dear life,
Born to him by a dying wife,
Where hath she wandered in the night?
Where doth she lie, in some sad plight?

6

In other regions is her soul,
Already hath she passed death's goal,
It is not she that drifts, so white,
Among the reeds before his sight,
'Tis but a body born of earth,
Though beautiful in grief or mirth,
She breathes, methinks, in shape more fair,
Celestial, not terrestrial air!

7

Where sighing pines their branches wave
Was made, with stricken hands, a grave.
Over it still, spring after spring,
Their liquid hymn the thrushes sing;
And in the sand sweet blossoms grow,
Marking her dust that lies below.
But never more, in wood-path wild,
Or clearing where the harvest smiled,
Or in the fort, or in the town,
Or by the river, swellen and brown,
Was Olaf seen, or heard his deed,
By Indian swart, or fair-haired Swede.