Carl Gustaf Verner von Heidenstam

“ THE FIG-TREE. Welcome, thou cool oriental evening, welcome! After the hot day thou art as a pitcher of water after a ride in the desert. Thou art as a pale young wife, who from the hill beckons home the sweating toiler of the fields. Thou art like the Tartar jeweler's opal, for thy color shifts between the white of milk and the glowing red of wine in the same manner that thy joy shifts between healthful, strengthening repose and enkindling merriment.
With this apostrophe I saluted the evening and reined up my jenny in a small ravine which clambered up toward Jerusalem. ”

“ The fanatic, the opposite of the fickle man, lacks this power entirely; he sticks fast to an opinion and goes to death for it as if it were the greatest truth in the world, although often it proves in time to be the greatest falsehood in the world. His narrow one-sidedness reminds us of the sort of men whom we call wooden-headed. Why should one enclose only a single hardened thought, a single kernel, like the insignificant little plum, instead of a hundred seeds like the great splendid melon? The God of the Christians hides three persons in one, but the fickle man at least ten. ”

“ Saw there the priest of Hator. But bitterly spoke the high priestess,
Eldest among them all, the ninety-year Bent-Amenemma:
"This is the sin predestined. In Isis' presence our sister
Stood with a man. In Isis' presence now must she be offered!
Sevenfold more than the sin the offering demanded, and therefore
Six more, the youngest, I doom to fall by the knife as atonement." ”

“ To strains of deep feeling that will not pass.
Is a mother not more than a toying lass?
But the child she holds is the corpse of love.
On the mount of the gods, where in vain their liege is
Opposing to time his broken ægis,
With gray-haired Bacchus near by, we see
In never-changing stupidity
Fat Venus, who sits like a country girl
As she fastens a ribbon around a curl.
I furthermore count as a grievous fault
That blondest of hair which she thus attires.
She never glows, she only perspires;
For blondes are as bread that is baked without salt,
And their table-talk is inept and stale. ”

“ For hours together "sä-ker-hets-tänd-stickor"
And say: "The Swedish language sounds like hell."
I soon made friends and, better yet, what ho!
One day my youthful happiness was doubled
When o'er the threshold slouched a fresh "nouveau,"
And I had rest while he in turn was troubled.
We were like mad-cap boys and acted so.
What painter lacks the impulse or the leisure
To climb forthwith the giddiest peak of pleasure,
When his tobacco and his punch-bowl glow,
Like sunny morning with new-fallen snow,
Such was the spirit of our band's employment. ”

“ And 'Pæstum's Temple' is his mighty name!"
So evening fell. A single ship went out
With lowered sail, a Naxos flag had she.
Slowly she rowed far out against the sun
And vanished on the mirror of the sea.
A thousand years and more have passed away,
Leveling Pæstum with the verdant plain,
But still the temple stands, and in its shade
The fiddlers wake Arcadian joys again.
The master's name may no man surely know,
But all who see the temple's gleaming height
May see his very soul in yonder form
And share to-day the architect's delight. ”

“ Silently over the bowl and read in the fate-written water.
Anxious and hushed, the circle waited; but lo! with a sudden
Gesture she flung back her whitened hair! "Ye priestesses holy,
Never the stars have given an answer more grim than this evening.
Darkly, sepulchrally clanks a threatening doom there above us:
One of us shall to-night so deeply sin, that atonement
Greater by sevenfold than the sin shall of us be demanded." ”

“ Pound the gavel and scratch at their heads all day,
And cough and blink at the ceiling so gray
Ere they let the gold-pieces ring!
But when it's time that for people and king
Our blood on the snow shall run,
They don't tie a man with a money-bag string,
For then, young or old, the man 's the thing. ”

“ Verse translation should rank higher as an art than even the most skilful photography. It is perhaps most like making an engraving of a well-known building; the translator may not change the outlines or add anything extraneous, but he must re-create the beauty or majesty of his subject in a new medium. Some of the old-fashioned Nineteenth Century translations are like picture post-cards compared to the vital and delicate renderings that recent English masters have attained. ”

“ The problems he deals with, whether national or personal, are our problems. As one of the great fighting minds of this generation, he cannot fail to inspire all earnest thinkers with whom he comes in contact. Furthermore he is a great artist in presenting vivid scenes from the human drama, both subjective and objective. He boldly represents life as he knows it in the light of a militant, optimistic imagination. It can therefore hardly be doubted that, wherever his poetry can be made accessible, he will exercise a quickening and exalting influence at least equal to that of any poet now writing. ”

“ Take your gloves off and smack her buttocks in play,
Then wink and step on her toes a bit,
That's the wooing that suits Lady Venus's wit.
But if evil thoughts in her mind shall flow,
She'll poison the dart on Cupid's bow.
It is only to children, who sportively bear
Her apples and doves while they dream of her blisses,
That the smirking deceiver appears as fair
With thirst-cooling clusters of baneful kisses.
Yet there's no stout oak of kingliest frame
But the whistling hail will shatter its crest;
The hurt man will dig his nails in his breast,
And curse, as I do, her might and her name. ”

“ My steed, let us be springing
Out into the glowing west!
How glad among men my life would be,
Were not "Obey!" our A and Z!
If the world had one mouth like a great black well
And should cry as loud as a booming bell:
"Obey, or in fetters double
Of iron and wood thou shalt straight be bound!" ”

“ The sherbet glass, and prate of man's oppression.
'Twas his worn hand that dug the well, where burst
The cooling streams that quench these women's thirst.
Their house—'tis man must bring the stones and rear it.
Aye, give to each his burden, as is right!
I grieve but, God, for this ... Oh, read my spirit!
I fain would be a woman that I might
Give unto man the love his virtues merit. ”

“ The great pearls down the polished stairway poured.
So Mahmoud Khan smiled grimly once again,
And to the gray old Brahmin answered then,
While the old man so shook to see his pelf
That the eleven bells which fringed his vest
Tinkled with ruby tongues their tiny best:
"When man's god is the priesthood's money-chest,
What shall I think, forsooth, of man himself?" ”

“ Ildis looked at him and said: "As thou art a writer of books, it is thy fortune to be unfortunate. As thou art so unfortunate as to pluck apart every impression, thou dost rob thy life of all joy.—Let us go further!" ”

“ As in the novels of George Meredith, the climaxes are often apparent anti-climaxes, as when in "Djufar's Song" the old poet is so overcome by the beauty of an oriental morning that he can only express it in weeping. The imagery is often daring, as when a negro's lips are compared to the crimson gash on a wine skin, but such realistic details are only used to verify the central idea. For instance, the negro just referred to is not made ultimately to forfeit our sympathy; he becomes for us not a comic or degraded man, but simply an actual man. ”

“ A bowl whereon wreaths of corn-flowers twine,
And along the rim these letters shine:
Not joy to the rich, to the poor man care;
Our toil and our pleasure alike we share.
"The crowd makes way for the carriage to come,
The murmurs grow silent, the people stand dumb;
Only the sound of the bells is rolled,
Like a seraph-song from the blue down-sailing. ”

“ Hymn of the Priests of Hator to Ptah.
As bounteous love shines bright in every thread
Of the rich robe the husband's hand hath spread
As gift for the beloved one of his soul,
So bright, O God, thy love shines from the whole. ”

“ Like most youthful poets, Heidenstam attacks superficiality, hypocrisy, and narrow moral restrictions. Most typical is the poem where Mahmoud Khan reveals by a blow of his sword that the people's god is the priests' money-chest. The chief inspiration of the volume lies in its positive revelation of beauty; not of remote, ethereal beauty, however, but of the beauty of actual, or vividly imagined scenes and people; the beauty perceived by the artist, though it may seem inextricably mingled with ugliness. ”

“ All those as well whom I have most despised.
When comes the day when, young and strong for strife
I may step forth and prove with eager passion
The tithe of greatness in my composition
And for a sacred cause yield up my life? ”

“ Another excuse for the delayed recognition of Swedish poetry is the fact that it has only very recently attained its zenith. Out of nine or ten stars of the first magnitude, six have arisen since 1870, and four of these since 1888. Although Heidenstam is unquestionably the most important living poet of Sweden, E. A. Karlfeldt is not far behind him, with his deep, quaintly humorous, but very delicately wrought lyrics of nature and peasant life. ”

“ To those familiar with his claims to the honor, it came as no surprise that in 1916 Heidenstam was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Where indeed is there in Europe today a writer of more sincerity and inborn originality? To be sure he is by no means always easy to follow. ”

“ Yet she, our cherished one, whom all night long
We lulled to sleep with flute-notes and with song
Has not awakened. Is she dead?
Stifled by incense fumes, behold!
She lies here,—incense that our love of old
Burnt to her as around some holy grave. ”

“ The fickle man's friendliness is the warm and sincere impulse of the moment and has therefore a peculiar charm. An affront from him is less grievous, because one knows that he will straightway turn around and make amends. Yes, I love the fickle man and am glad when I obtain his friendship, although I am compelled every day to win it anew. On the other hand, the friendship which I have enshrined in the constant man looks after itself ”

“ It is the man behind the poem that has won a nation for his audience. When he adjures his fellow-countrymen to emulate the deeds of their ancestors in the modern fields "of science and art and letters," he is heeded because he has himself shown the way. There are no finer modern poems of patriotism than the series entitled "A People," where Heidenstam prays for years of misfortune to "smite us and lash us into one." ”

“ Had love the worth of two rhymes in it,
Don Juan, who laughs as he leans on his blade,
Would not be the one man who boldly flayed
The avenger's back with his scourging wit.
Is thirst a fine thing because throats will thirst? ”

“ If a man were constantly clever or constantly high-minded, he would easily be looked up to as more than a common man. It appears therefore as if cleverness and highmindedness by a sort of destiny more seldom belonged to the constant character than to the fickle—who, however, always brings himself down to the level of a common man, because immediately after a clever speech or noble action he says something stupid or does something blameworthy. ”

“ One coin shall be thine. I am but a poor swineherd, seest thou, but the little that I earn I always divide with my friends on condition that they immediately spend it. Do thou buy a little tobacco and wine, and I'll knock at the house of the dancing-girls. A piastre is only a fish-hook with which one catches a little much-sought-after goldfish that is called Happiness. ”

“ It is to be regretted that we have had to make so long a preamble before coming to our immediate subject, but we have had to face the truth that most otherwise well-informed persons have never heard the name of a single Swedish poet. Nothing could be more unjust, in speaking of the merits of Heidenstam, than to give the impression that he is the only, or even the greatest, master his country has produced. The present writer has recently brought out an anthology of translations which, though by no means widely inclusive, contains lyrics by forty-five poets. ”

“ Meanwhile the ravine became so dark that nothing could any longer be distinguished. All sank back into the Orient's indescribable stillness, a stillness that has brought forth prophets. But from that evening I understood them who desire that no man shall possess an own fig-tree. ”

“ A foot I drew, a heel—with that 'twas broken.
Paris I wept not for, but jealous, lonely,
I bade farewell to that gay artist set,
Who with small genius of the soul had yet
A genius gathered in the eye-sight only. ”

“ But weak as a reed is his own frail form.
Die, die!—so echoes the cry
To him that creates with yearning passion.
All must perish,
All that is earthly must die, must die;
But no, 'tis himself that his strong hands fashion. ”

“ Whate'er our fate or fortune,
Our thoughts, like swallows crowding,
Fly home at evening duly.
A home! how firm its base is
By walls securely shielded,—
Our world—the one thing truly
We in this world have builded. ”

“ At the edge of the water his dripping snout.
With its reptile-like scales, yonder pine-tree's root
So deep in the mud seems a saurian's foot;
And others, like spiders, are poised unsteady
On the edge of the cliffs where the step grows giddy. ”

“ To swear the ancient troth again thy sons are thronging.
Fall, winter snow! And sigh, thou wood's deep breast!
Burn, all ye stars, from summer heavens peeping!
Sweden, mother, be our strife, our rest,
Thou land wherein our sons shall build their nest,
Beneath whose church-yard stones our noble sires are sleeping.
III.
Fellow-Citizens. ”

“ The grumbling rain in a foamy gray tide
From the rusty roof-spouts is welling.
Now, weather-cock, turn in the wind and hark
What the rain-spouts sing as the day grows dark.—
"Hoohoo!" comes his crow out-swelling. ”