Classic Poem

FROM " POEMS ON DALECARLIAN PAINTINGS "

She's coming down the meadow from the hall of Sjugareby,
A little maid with cheeks as fair as almond flowers to see,
As almond flowers and wild-rose flowers where town may never be,
Or road where dust of traffic soils and smothers.
What pathway have you followed, that your cheek was never burned?
What have you dreamed, O Mary, what has your bosom learned,
That your blood burneth not as that of others?
Around your hair uncovered a strange effulgence glows,
Your brow is like the crescent moon that beameth,
When over Meadow Mountain all white and bent it goes
And through the leafy blackthorn stems it gleameth.

The cooling winds of even set the columbine asway,
The lilies' yellow bells ring in the peaceful holy day;
The kids are hardly bleating, the colts will hardly neigh,
From nest and grove come faintest chirpings only.
And now the young Dalecarlian lads and girls go pair by pair;
But you the flower of all of them, whom each lad longs to wear,
Why have you come to ponder here so lonely?
You look as would a virgin, by her first communion stirred,
Who on Whitsunday night her watch is keeping
While thinking of the Bread of Life and all that she has heard
Until her heart with ecstasy is leaping.

Turn back, turn back, O Mary, for dark is evening's brow,
Your mother must be anxious that alone you wander now;
For you are slight and fragile as a slender willow bough,
And in yon wood the grim bear prowleth surely.
The rose you hold as token, though, will keep you even there,
'T was brought you by an angel from a sacred garden fair:
And you can tread on snake or thorn securely.
Yea, that long sunbeam stretching down so radiantly bright
O'er Silja Lake from glowing towers of even —
In truth you might be passing on your bridal way to-night
Along that narrow trembling bridge to heaven.