The Songs of Ensign Stål/Canto 6

CANTO SIXTH.
THE COTTAGE MAIDEN.

This Canto is usually regarded as fictitious,—a creation of the poet's own fancy.

It embodies no element that might not pertain to any land, time, or condition of life. Its universality appeals to all readers.

The simplicity and guilelessness of the maiden's heart had prevented her apprehension of the possibility of cowardice as inhering in her lover's nature. No mental telegraphy, with its mystical powers, had been potent in his presence or his absence to make her perceive his innate unworthiness; and this quality must have been extreme, since not even the contagious inspiration of battle could restrain him from cowardly desertion of the army.

The contrast between this lover and the one in The Cloud's Brother is paralleled by the contrast between the base ideal of the mother, who encouraged the departing soldier's delinquency, and the lofty honor-sense of her daughter, who preferred his death to his disgrace.

Runeberg seems to have been particularly happy in this smooth and graceful lyric.

To this poem, extraordinarily beautiful melcdies have been set by K. Collan, G. Linsen, F. V. Schantz and A. F. Lindblad.

VI.
THE COTTAGE MAIDEN.

The sun had sunk, the evening came, the summer evening tender;
O'er huts and meadows now reposed a sheen of purple splendor;
And from their day's work, glad yet worn, a throng of landsmen came;
Their work was done, and they had turned, the peace of home to claim.

Their task was o'er, their harvest reaped, this time a harvest treasured,
Forto a fierce and hostile band was death or capture measured;
Unto the combat they had marched in morning's early light,
And when the scene in triumph closed, it grew fast toward the night.

Anear the field where long and fierce their might had been exerted,
A little cottage by the way was standing, half deserted;
There sat upon its lowly step a maiden mute, who scanned
The soldiers as they marched along, a calm returning band.

She watched as one expectant would; but who her thoughts detected?
A deeper hue glowed on her cheek than evenings glow reflected.
She sat so silent, so intent, yet with an eye so clear,
That if she listened as she gazed, her heart-beats she could hear.

The troops move on; the maiden scans the throng as it advances;
To every file, to every man, her eye a question glances,-
A question timid, faltering, a query unexpressed,
More silent than the sigh itself that flutters from her breast.

When all the troops, from first to last, their homeward way have wended,
The poor girl's calm now vanishes, and seems her spirit rended;
Not loud she weeps, but bows her head upon her opened hand,
And on her fresh and crimson cheeks the copious tear-drops stand.

Why are you weeping? Courage take! New hope we yet may borrow;
○ daughter, hear your mother's voice,-for idle is your sorrow;
He whom your eyes have sought in vain, though naught could tidings give,
He's yet alive, he thought of you, and so for you will live.

"He thought of you, my counsel took 'gainst seeking dangers madly;
It was my whispered farewell word when he departed sadly;
The troops he followed by constraint, 'twas not his wish to fight;
I know he would not choose to die from us and life's delight."

The maiden raised her trembling eyes, from sorrow's dreaming shaken,
As if some dark, foreboding thought disturbed her heart forsaken;
She lingered not, she turned one glance where fierce had raged the fight,
Then stole away, in silence fled, and vanished from the sight.

A while passed by, and yet a while, on stole the evening's glimmer,
A silver cloud swam in the sky, below lay twilight's shimmer.
She tarries yet! O daughter, come! Your fears are all in vain;
To-morrow, ere the sun appears, your bridegroom's here again!"

The daughter comes; with silent step to mother she advances;
But floods of tears no longer now obscure her gentle glances;
The maiden's hand, for greeting given, is chill as wind of night,
And paler than the skies of heaven her cheek so cold and white.

"Prepare my grave, O mother dear, my day of life is over;
With shame deserted he the fight, who'd won my faith as lover.
He thought of me, he thought of self, your counsel well obeyed,
And cheating all his brothers' hope, his father's land betrayed!

"When they returned, and he came not, his fate I mourned, true-hearted,
Believed he lay upon the field, a man, with those departed;
I sorrowed; but my grief was sweet,-it held no piercing thorn;
I would have lived a thousand years his valiant death to mourn.

"O mother, till the day's last gleam I've searched among the perished,
But not one face of all the slain revealed his features cherished;
And now on this deceiving isle no longer will I sigh;
He was not there among the dead, and therefore will I die!"