The Songs of Ensign Stål/Biography

This famous Swedish poet was born at Jacobstad, Finland, Feb. 5^th, 1804.

He was the son of a merchant-vessel captain, and the first-born of six children; and on account of the poverty of his parents was brought up by his father's brother in Uleåborg, which place was the birth-place of the poet Franzèn.

Runeberg's boyhood was passed in obscurity. At eighteen he was sent to the college at Wasa, where,to help his expenses, he became tutor to students younger and wealthier than he. At nineteen he left Wasa and went to the University of Åbo, continuing his hard struggle with poverty there.

His studies were interupted by a period spent as tutor in Saarijärva and Ruovesi, two very quiet Finland villages, where he had time to learn the home life of the simple people, and to study literature and poetry.

Returning to Åbo, he was given in 1827 the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

After the great fire of this year, the University was moved to Helsingfors; and here Runeberg was made amanuensis to the Council of the University.

In 1830 a volume of his poems, Dikter, was published.

Under the title Serbiska Folksånger (Servian Folk-songs), he published a series of translations into Swedish in 1830; and also established the Helsingfors Morgonblad, a journal of aesthetics and literature, which brought out many of his own tales and poems. The Morgonblad became the most influential journal of the land.

In 1831 he married Fredrika Charlotta Tengström, daughter of the Archbishop of Finland.

The same year he was appointed Lecturer on Roman Literature in the Helsingfors University, and brought out Grafven i Perrho (The grave in Perrho),—the story of the grave of and old Finlander and his six tall sons, and the history of their tragic deaths.

In 1832 Runeberg published Elgskyttarne (The Elk Hunters), a splendid epic, establishing his fame. This was written in the classical dactylic hexameter, of which Gosse writes: "The Swedish language suits this exotic growth much better than German or English; there are more compact masses of rolling sound to be obtained, and it is far more easy to observe the rules of position. Runeberg seems to have gone straight back to Homer for his model. His hexameters have, as a rule, a more pure and classical character than Goethe's."

​In 1834 he produced Friarenfrån Landet (The Country Lover), a comedy; and in 1836, Hanna, a delightful idyil of country life in Finland.

In 1837 he was placed in the Latin Literature chair in the University of Borgå,—a peaceful seaport town on the Gulf of Finland, about 25 miles distant from Helsingfors.

Borgå had also a beautiful Gymnasium and Cathedral.

Runeberg was lecturer at this famous Gymnasium, and in this quiet town (for quietude doubtless conduces to literary work) he lived for forty years, until his death in 1877.

He quitted his home here only once,—for a brief trip to Sweden in 1851.

In 1839 the Academy voted him a large gold medal.

In 1841 he produced Nadeschda, a fine epic, a romance of Russian country life;—also, in the same year, Julquällen, a Christmas-eve idyll of Finnish life.

King Oscar I of Sweden in 1844 decorated our poet with the order of the North Star.

The same year Runeberg was elected Rector of the College of Borgå.

In 1844 appeared from his pen Kung Fjalar, an unrhymed epic of the days of the ancient Norsemen.

In 1848 he brought out the first part of the great poetical work of his life, Fänrik Ståls Sägner (The Songs of Ensign Stål), of which the second part saw the light in 1860.

In 1854 he published Smärre Berättelsen, a series of fine essays.

In 1857 he produced a Psalm Book for the Evangelical Lutheran Church, of which 62 psalms were from his own pen. A successful comedy, Kan ej (Can't) came out in 1862.

One of his latter works was Kungarne på Salamis (The Kings at Salamis), a tragedy in the manner of the Greek Sophocles.

May I venture to include here three brief lyrical numbers from Runeberg?

These are from the translator in his article on The Lyric Poetry of Sweden, which appeared in the Christmas magazine, Sweden, of 1918.

The first, almost word for word, is a characteristic portrayal of maternal love:

CRADLE SONG.

Slumber, my darling, the waning light dies,—
Hide for a season the pearls of thine eyes;
All is so still—like the silence of death—
Sleep, while I watch the soft heave of thy breath.

Now, little child, is thy life's golden hour,
One day this peace will be dawning no more;
Into thy heart cares will stealthily creep,
Stealing away the repose of thy sleep.

​Angels from heaven, as lovely as thou,
Float o'er thy cradle and smile on thee now,
Ah! Yet again will their forms round thee rise,
Only to wipe away tears from thine eyes.

Slumber my treasure, the darkness draws near,—
Mamma ne'er wearies in rocking her dear;
Early or late, in her motherly breast
Love always waketh, the truest and best.

The second poem requires no special comment:

TEARS.

The sun had passed the summit of the forest
And spread his brightness through the dewy valley;
With tear-glad eyes a maid received her lover,
Who, gazing on her, smiled with this inquiry:
"You wept when I departed; now returning,
I see, dear maid, your lids again o'erflowing;
Twixt tears and tears say what distinction lieth."
"A like distinction," softly spoke the maiden,
"Exists between the dews of night and morning:
The one is banished by the sun's awaking,
The other lingers through the lonely night-hours."

The third lyric is the farewell song of a maiden to her lover departing over the sea, of which is also included the beautiful musical setting by F. Pacius, with the original Swedish text:

THE SAILOR'S SWEETHEART

Now the breeze is rising fast,
Sail is filling yard and mast,
Steers the ship to far lands lonely,
Its returning God knows only.

Sailor-boy, who dost depart,
Holdst mine image in thy heart?
Thee I chance were yet discerning,
Were mine eyes with tears not burning.

Were I like a bird of air,
Winged, as the sea-gull there,
Thee I'd follow on glad pinions
To the world's unknown dominions,—

​Wend my flight where thou didst wend,
Bend my path where thou didst bend,
With my buoyant wings be playing,
Catch thy glances in my straying.

But thy poor maid now must stand,—
Tear-dewed kerchief in her hand,—
With a parting signal only,
Wingless on the strand, and lonely.

Far from following thee, ah, no!
Must my footsteps homeward go,
Ere the light of day is banished,
Ere thy distant sail has vanished.

I must fill this empty heart
Lest my solace all depart,
Tear-drops from my cheek effacing,
Lest my mother mark their tracing.

Having shaken off the shackling conventionalities which had bound up his contemporaries, and always mindful of his struggling tutor days in Saarijärva, the poet became intensely practical; hence the realism of Runeberg, in contrast to the idealism of Tegnér.

In 1870 was issued Samlade Skrifter, a collection of his works by C. R. Nyblom.

Runeberg's Lyrical Songs, Idylls and Epigrams have been put into English by Eirikr Magnusson and E. H. Palmer, London, 1878.

An excellent edition of his works is Samlade Arbeten (8 V.), 1899–1902, by Estlander and Appelquist; also, Efterlemnade Skrifter (3 V.), 1878–9.

The Encyclopedia Britannica thus eulogizes the works of our poet: "The poems of Runeberg show the influence of the Greeks and of Goethe upon his mind; but he possesses a great originality. It is hardly possible to overestimate the value of his patriotic poems as a link between the Swedish and Finnish nations. He has remained one of the most popular Swedish poets, although his whole life was spent in Finland.

In 1878 Studies in the Literature of Northern Europe, by E. W. Gosse, was published, with an able biography of the poet.