BERNHARD ELIS MALMSTRÖM.
VI SUCKAR DET SÅ TUNGT UTI SKOGEN?
1. The folk-song style is apparent throughout this poem, the first distinctive mark being the superfluous use of the pronoun immediately after its antecedent, a manner of speech borrowed from the vernacular and incorporated with numerous popular ballads. Cf. lines 18, 19, 22.
8. hemsk uti sitt mod, apprehensive of danger; till mods is the idiomatic phrase.
10. tänkte stygga tankar, thought of grewsome things.
II. vilsegick, usually not compounded.
12. kär, properly kära.
13. Gud nåde mig, som liten är, a paraphrase of the second line from a common children's prayer beginning, Gud, som haver barnen kär; the poet also seems to have copied from this the irregular form kär, in line 12.
13. The home is so clearly in the lad's mind that the idea is adequately expressed by där.
18. trollena, a vernacular def. pl. form for trollen. This form in -a has been exploited by recent metropolitan writers, as also by Selma Lagerlöf, but without gaining general favor among the best stylists of Sweden.
22. vidan hed, archaic for vida heden. Cf. grönan ö (gröna ön), 45.
25. så, frequently thus interpolated in careless speech and here lending a savor of the common tongue.
39. hemsk (frightened),—till mods being mentally supplied from the second stanza.
50. den arma jord(en), the suffixed definite sign being frequently dropped in poetic style.
52. all … mord; the correspondence between qualifiers and nouns is sometimes lost in a series, as here, lögn and flärd (sg.) requiring all, but mord (pl.), alla. Analogous inconsistencies are found in the best literature, as in Tegner's Addresses (På Växjö gymnasium, 1836): "Den som sitter vid lästen och den som sitter vid statsstyret, vid svarvstolen eller på lärostolen, vid plogen eller lyran," the quotation conveying the incongruous idea of "sitting at the plow," as at the shoemaker's bench or the turning lathe.
62. Herren vill jag lova calls for a sharp distinction between lova (praise) and lova (promise).
ÖDMJUKER ER!
1. ödmjuker; the alternative form in -er (2nd person pl., imperative) is peculiar to solemn rhetorical style. Cf. lines 13, 15, 32.
2. himlens rand, usually the horizon, here has a vague and undefinable poetic meaning.
K. V. A. STRANDBERG.
BARRIKADER.
14. på sistone, archaic form of på det sista; modern style, till sist, at length.
MANING.
2. harar, the common metaphor to designate cowardice.
6. The red color indicating the liberalist party whose cause the poet pleaded.
9. Karlars blod, the blood of the Swedish kings of that name.
MITT DÖDA BARN.
12. karl; the rhyme here calls for the popular pronunciation, with the l mute.
44. Allusion to an ancient Greek custom. Thanatos, death, was represented as a human figure with a torch reversed.
TACK FÖR GOD VAKT!
This poem, written shortly before his death, was the poet's farewell to life. The title is characteristic, being a traditional form of greeting when guards were dismissed from duty and replaced by others.
9. Georg Stiernhielm (1598-1672), philologist and poet, was the foremost Swedish savant of his time. His noted place among Swedish poets was won through priority rather than by any great creative genius. Hakvin Spegel (1645-1714), archbishop of Sweden, was a noted religious poet, many of whose hymns are found in the present hymn book of the Church of Sweden.
39-40. The sentiment contained in these lines is fully borne out in the foregoing poem, Mitt döda barn, a touching expression of intense parental affection.
43-46. Though never suffering actual want, the poet for several years after his marriage in 1847 made a very meager living as a journalist, and the lines may be more poetic than true. "During these years his bread was not infrequently more than scarce, and want was often on the point of crossing his threshold," says J.A. RUNSTRÖM.
53-56. The poet faintly alludes to an attack of blindness in his youth which left traces for life.