"Beneath a soldier's cap She hides away her ringlets, dark as night; In a buff vest her slender form is laced; Alas, for such fair form in such array! O'er shoulder, known by Grecian poet's song, Death's spy-glass, the dread carabine, is hung."[3] The expression, "death's spy-glass," for the dread carabine, is picturesque, and so far not bad; but none the less must it be said that the figure is not altogether appropriate. Not only has it nothing whatever to do with Mary's form, but it answers only to a gun in general, not to the particular weapon on her shoulder; for this would scarcely kill a Swede. Upon me this figure produces the same effect as if I were to see on the margin of the text, a carefully executed miniature of the dismal skeleton, with the scythe in one hand, and holding the carabine to its eye with the other, in order to take aim. In the "Children of the Lord's Supper," the old priest beseeches the children he is about to confirm, to choose prayer and innocence as the guides of their lives. Both are personified with a few strokes, and then the figure is engraved in a small biblical relief, of the kind that is seen in Italy on the bronze doors of churches and baptisteries. "Innocence, child beloved, is a guest from the world of the blessed; Beautiful, and in her hand a lily; on life's roaring billows Swings she in safety; she heedeth them not, in the ship she is sleeping."[4] Or an example may be taken from Tegnér's epistolary style. He waxes eloquent (1817) against the European reaction. "Gaze at the signs of the times from the North, and from the South! Do you know any vulgarity, any barbarism, any insane prejudice their regeneration does not promise? The serpent of time often sheds its skin; but more perverse than at this precise moment, it has never been, as far as history extends, even though it hissed nothing but hymns, and though its back were as completely covered with biblical texts as a tombstone." Is there not in this energetic but thoroughly unaffected effort at clear perception, something that reminds us of chromatic sculpture. Do we not see before us, in due form, the serpent of time, with its red outlines; and does not its back, all covered with peculiar ciphers, look like the image of a god, in the shape of a beast, covered with hieroglyphics, or tile inscriptions, on some ancient Assyrian or Egyptian wall? And when finally the similitudes are read with which Tegnér, in "Fridthjof," endeavors to paint female beauty, can it not readily be comprehended why attention should be called to the hard metallic glow of the coloring of an antique idol? "The bards praise Gerda's fair cheeks too high, Fresh snows which playful north-lights dye! I cheeks have seen whose daylights clear, Two dawnings blushing in one sphere."[5]