What can
be more delightfully--shall I say juvenile--than this reference to the
numerical superiority of the Muscovites:
"Many, are they? Well, then, of the many
Sweden shall drink the red blood and be free!
Many? We count not the warriors' numbers
Only the fallen shall numbered be."
[28]
"Vi Kaste var handske
Mot oedet sjelf."
It is with no desire to disparage Tegner that I say that this strain,
which is that of all his early war-songs, is extremely becoming to him.
It is not a question of the legitimacy of the sentiment, but of the
fulness and felicity of its expression. As long as we have wars we must
have martial bards, and with the exception of the German, Theodor
Koerner, I know none who can bear comparison with Tegner. English
literature can certainly boast no war-poem which would not be drowned in
the mighty music of Tegner's "Svea," "The Scanian Reserves," and that
magnificent, dithyrambic declamation, "King Charles, the Young Hero.
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