ical poet in the ranks of the
Phosphorists. His verses are wonderfully melodious and full of charm, in
spite of the fact that his tendency to the mystical at times makes him
obscure. Among the best of his productions are a cycle of lyrics
entitled 'The Flowers'; 'The Isle of Blessedness,' a romantic drama of
great beauty, published in 1823; and a fragment of a fairy drama, 'The
Blue Bird.' He introduced the sonnet into Swedish poetry, and did a
great service to the national literature by his critical work, 'Swedish
Seers and Poets,' a collection of biographies and criticisms of poets
and philosophers before and during the reign of Gustavus III. Atterbom's
life may be accounted long in the way of service, though he died at the
age of sixty-five.

THE GENIUS OF THE NORTH

It is true that our Northern nature is lofty and strong. Its
characteristics may well awaken deep meditation and emotion. When the
Goddess of Song has grown up in these surroundings, her view of life is
like that mirrored in our lakes, where, between the dark shadows of
mountain and trees on the shore, a light-blue sky looks down. Over this
mirror the Northern morning and the Northern day, the Northern evening
and the Northern night, rise in a glorious beauty. Our Muse kindles a
lofty hero's flame, a lofty seer's flame, and always the flame of a
lofty immortality. In this sombre North we experience an immense
joyousness and an immense melancholy, moods of earth-coveting and of
earth-renunciation. With equal mind we behold the fleet, charming dream
of her summers, her early harvest with its quickly falling splendor, and
the darkness and silence of the long winter's sleep. For if the gem-like
green of the verdure proclaims its short life, it proclaims at the same
time its richness,--and in winter the very darkness seems made to let
the starry vault shine through with a glory of Valhalla and Gimle.
Indeed, in our North, the winter possesses an impressiveness, a
freshness, which only we Norsemen understand. Add to these strong
effects of nature the loneliness of life in a wide tract of land,
sparingly populated by a still sparingly educated people, and then think
of the poet's soul which must beat against these barriers of
circumstance and barriers of spirit! Yet the barriers that hold him in
as often help as hinder his striving. These conditions explain what our
literature amply proves; that so far, the only poetical form which has
reached perfection in