Classic Poem

Devoid is he of real tenderness,
Who, though the blessings of this world denied, —
Would wish the maid he loves to be his bride,
To pine with him in mis'ry and distress;
For she can never break the sacred tie
By which her fortune is with his entwined,
Nor leave the scene of misery, to fly
To the loved home she first for him resigned.

Unhappy is the fond ingenuous heart,
That, in adversity, admires the fair,
Yet would not they his misery should share,
But loves too well, by far, to live apart:
Angelic forms he sees around him glide,
Whose smiles, alas, he cannot hope to gain,
Like Tantalus who lingered in the tide
Which he for e'er essayed to taste in vain.

'Till now, young Lawo never mourned his fate,
Though scarce a worldly blessing did he share;
But now he saw his rude and vagrant state,
The beauteous Orra was not formed to bear.
" Oh! then I ne'er will ask that hand again —
Nor never build my pleasure on her pain —
Farewell," he said, " farewell, my Orra fair!"

His Orra's name he murmured yet again:
" Farewell," he said, and trembled as he spake,
" I ne'er will lead thy spirit into pain —
Oh no! my aching heart shall sooner break;
And yet, heart-rending thought! must I forsake
A maid so heav'nly fair, a maid so true?
Ah poverty! ah Orra! yes, adieu!"

Now thrice around the heav'ns the moon has rolled,
And yet he comes not to his promised bride,
" Oh, is his love," she said, " so early cold,
Who erst such vows of love to Orra sighed?
And does he leave his Orra thus to weep?
Or does — but heav'n forbid! — my lover sleep
Beneath the billows of the ocean tide?

" He oft has told me of a little Isle
High from the ocean, rising in the west,
Where, in the transient summer, for a while,
His vagrant family are wont to rest;
And there perhaps my love is ling'ring now,
Ling'ring alas! unmindful of his vow,
Beneath the smile of lovelier maiden blest."

The Sun — for summer now is nearly past —
Rolls half extinguished in the northern deep,
And o'er the land a twilight shade is cast,
And singing winds around the vallies sweep;
The gloomy pine that shades the lowly shed,
In sullen murmurs waves its lofty head,
And lulls the peaceful Laplander to sleep.

'Tis night — but darkness scarcely night resembling:
Upon the lofty hills the sun still sheds
His midnight beams, in yellow spangles trembling
Upon the snows that crown their airy heads;
And Orra now has trimmed her little bark,
And on the heaving waves of ocean dark,
Her swelling sail to midnight winds she spreads.

And she is gone to seek her wand'ring love —
Ah! my fair readers! be ye not inclined
The maiden's artless passion to reprove,
Nor say I make my heroine too kind,
For ye have arts — and eke I ween ye use 'em —
To hide the warmer feelings of the bosom,
And vex, with long suspense, a lover's mind.

But Orra loves, nor would conceal the truth,
Nor cruelly an unfelt coldness feign;
And she would share the fortune of that youth,
As now she meets the dangers of the main;
Where still to cheer her dark and wat'ry way
She sings, as on she sails, this artless lay:
Oh listen to the Lapland Maiden's strain:

ORRA'S SONG

Oh many a time when tempests rose
I've looked upon the troubled wave;
And wept as I have thought on those
Who in the ocean find their grave.

And now were Lawo at my side,
I'd sail for e'er from isle to isle,
Without a star to be our guide,
And meet the tempest with a smile.

But may the tempest yet be still,
The sun be beaming in the sky,
And be my lover where he will,
To him I'll fly, to him I'll fly.

That I might think of him — he bound
This glitt'ring zone around my waist,
And, till my lover I have found,
It ne'er again shall be displaced.

The breezes failed, and Orra's sail was furled,
On the still sea the light unbroken lay,
Save when around her oar the waters curled,
Or when her boat struck up the dancing spray;
The breezes failed, and Orra's weary hand
Must fail ere she can reach the distant land
Where she a while for fav'ring winds may stay.

Huge, rising from the sea, not far away, —
And crown'd with glitt'ring and eternal snows —
A rock is seen, that in the solar ray,
Far o'er the waves a gloomy shadow throws;
Its lofty head, as if rebuked by heaven,
Into a thousand shapeless peaks was riven:
Nor flow'r nor plant upon its surface grows.

Its northern side displays a rugged cave,
And the wild waters in the tempest, break
O'er lesser fragments now above the wave,
That to the cave an easy access make;
Here, rising from their weedy bed of green,
The sea-nymphs, though by mortals seldom seen,
Their watery locks in midnight sun-shine shake.

Here to the rock, her boat young Orra ties,
And gains the cavern, with as light a tread
As e'er those sea-nymphs from the ocean rise:
And there her weary form to rest is laid.
Did one so fair e'er grace a cell so rude!
Or linger in so wild a solitude!
Or slumber on so comfortless a bed!

And softly now her snowy eyelids close,
Weighed down by slumber, o'er her bright blue eyes,
As bound beneath the cold and wintry snows,
The azure wave of ocean frozen lies:
Sleep on, sleep on, thou miserable fair,
Oh slumber on, nor wake again to share
The woes that wait thee, when thou shalt arise.

Fresh blows the wind — and hissing on the main,
Like snowy serpents, curls the glittering spray,
Wrapped in sweet sleep, the beauteous maid is lain,
And smiles o'er her unconscious features play.
The heavens with gloomy clouds are overspread —
Her wandering soul, in dreams delusive led,
In sunny fields with Lawo seems to stray.

Loud raves the wind, the sky with thunder rings,
And all is dark, save where the light'ning flies
Through the white foam that angry ocean flings
Indignant to the dark and cruel skies —
From its frail mooring Orra's boat is torn,
And far away upon the waves is borne
For ever and for ever from her eyes.

Waked by the wild tempestuous war around,
The Lapland maiden started from her sleep,
And pale and trembling, rising from the ground,
Looked out upon the wild and troubled deep.
There glides a gleam of light'ning through the dark;
And in its light she missed her little bark
That erst was moored to the rocky steep.

She gave one shriek, while tremblingly she laid
Upon her breaking heart, her hand so fair,
And pallid as the surf that round her played,
She senseless fell with horror and despair;
Nor can she gain her boat if she could leap
Down from the rocky height into the deep:
Oh! no! 'tis death to go, 'tis death to linger there.