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LINES TO SIGRUN, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: You vexed me with your vainness
Last Line: And slumber in love on the clouds' snowy pillows.
Alternate Author Name(s): Bjarn


YOU vexed me with your vainness
Of view just now, my Sigrun.
I bade you boldly seek me
If borne from life before me --
And falsely you affirmed then
That feebly I would kiss you,
Claimed that I would not clasp you
When cold and pale and shrouded.

The maiden surely mocks me:
Remembrance would be fleeting
If, as she feigns to fancy,
I'd fail to love her phantom.
Your lips as your own would linger
Though lacking warmth and sweetness;
Your cheeks would warm my vision
Though chill and white I saw them.

Clings not the snow, caressing,
To kiss the face of winter,
Even as scarlet sunshine
The summer-rose embraces?
Pale is the purest lily.
Pale are you as the snowdrift.
Must you be mantled poorly
Though mouth and cheeks grow pallid?

If blood of human blooming
Blench from your lips and vanish,
Breezes of deathless beauty
Would breathe on them still forever.
Fair as the face of angels
I'd find your cheeks unblemished,
As fresh and fine as I knew them
Though the flame of life were ashes.

Leave me not then, my loved one,
Alone in the world of sorrow
If you should flee before me
To the fold of eternal quiet.
Come when the frosts grow keener
Cold in the autumn gloaming!
Come when the moon of midnight
Is masking its face in fog-murk!

Then may that moon in mercy
Remove from its pallid forehead
Its veil, when I see you vivid,
A vision that smiles upon me.
Follow, O follow, my fair one!
Float on a cloud to claim me!
Touch me in tender pity
With tips of your soft white fingers.

So when my ardor answers
And I open my arms to hold you,
Cast then your cold white bosom
Quickly upon my heart, dear!
Press on my pulses closely,
Press till your passion shall loosen
My soul from the flesh and its fetters
To follow you upward forever.

Then gladly we'll glide through the infinite spaces,
Kiss with the gleam of the night on our faces,
Ride the Aurora and swim its light-billows
Rosy as flames in a heaven of blisses,
Dance in the star-shine that floods the abysses,
And slumber in love on the clouds' snowy pillows.






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