Page:Von Heidenstam - Sweden's laureate, selected poems of Verner von Heidenstam (1919).djvu/30

 include three very notable longer compositions. The first is the "" reprinted from Hans Alienus. This poem symbolizes the way in which Alienus (or Heidenstam) has become lost in the "world of shadows" through which his travels led him. With deep imaginative truth the poet depicts the mind which has been so filled with visions of the past that the present becomes unmeaning and unreal. The compressed description and beautiful handling of a difficult stanza form render the poem in all respects a masterpiece.

More unusual is the long narrative "." The story of the girl who breaks her engagement with the man she loves because, after a long separation, she finds herself too old for him, is partly paralleled by the case of Louise Smith in Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology.

In Heidenstam's poem the heroine does just what Louise Smith should have done, she lets her love grow into a beautiful sorrow. There is, furthermore, a courage in the Swedish woman's renunciation which is no less memorable because it is so quiet. But the most original passage of the poem is where