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.