Page:Von Heidenstam - Sweden's laureate, selected poems of Verner von Heidenstam (1919).djvu/22

 Swedish poetry; he not only represents with inimitable spirit the life of the peasant, he can also—in moods ranging from whimsical humor to deep pathos—reveal the tragedy of his own brief career. This most brilliant of Swedish poets, who is still today the idol of his countrymen, broke down from dissipation in 1898 and, though he recovered his reason and lived on until 1911, never regained the lost magic of his art. Oscar Levertin, of Spanish-Jewish descent, has a more mystical and aesthetic bent. He is the typical poet of the ivory tower, a notable critic and finished stylist, whose ill health gave his imagination a somewhat morbid tinge. He died in 1906. The genius of Heidenstam, if not the most dazzling, has at least proved itself the most healthy and robust of the group. Though he was the eldest of the three, he has survived them both and still preserves his full physical and mental powers.

We now pass to the external events of Heidenstam's life. He was born July 6, 1859, of noble family, in southern Sweden, the seat of one of the earliest continuous civilizations in Europe. Families of that region trace back their descent a thousand years or so and reach no record of having come from anywhere else. The landscape is mostly flat, but broken by many lakes and largely covered by the wild forest of Tiveden. Within sight of the poet's