She sat beside his couch, oppressed With anxious cares that leave their trace, And fastened on his pallid face A look well worth a realm’s acquest. She sat as in the groves of Greece (That land of beauty overthrown), The wild rose blooms in noiseless peace By prostrate Hercules in stone. At last he wakes to consciousness, And looks around him in distress. Alas! his eye before so mild Now glares deliriously wild. “Where am I? Girl, why art thou here? To King Carl’s service I am bound, And must not look on thee; thy tear I will not have within my wound.— My sire beyond the milky way Is wroth: he heard the oath I took. How fair, though, is the tempter’s look! How winning! Satan, hence, away!— Where is my belt and my commands? I took them from my king’s own hands. My father’s sword is good, it smites With special hate on Muscovites.— Oh! what delight it was to slay! I would the king had seen the fray: Like prostrate harvests lay the dead. It almost seemed I also bled.— I bore dispatches from the war, My honor stands in pledge therefor. Waste not a moment more,—away!” She heard his ravings with dismay, While swooning sank her hero then Exhausted on his couch again. Thus grappled life with death anew Till life had won the youth at last, And slowly was the danger passed, When Axel now could calmly view With glance restored, though weak and dim, The angel bending over him. She was not like the idyl’s queen, Who roves and sighs in groves of green, The counterfeit of languishing, With locks bright gold like suns of spring, And cheeks deep-dyed as Julian flowers, And eyes like blue-bells after showers. She was an Oriental maid. Her dark, rich locks which fell unstayed, Seemed midnight round a bed of roses; And on her brow was throned the grace Of cheerfulness, as in the face An Amazonian shield exposes,— The face and mien of victory. Its hue was like Aurora’s haze, Which artists paint with clouds of rays. Of form so shapely, gait so free, She seemed a Dryad from the grove; And high and deep her bosom’s sea Of youth and health swelled ceaselessly. A body all divinely wove Of roses red and lilies white, A soul of only fire and light,— A summer and a southern sky With fragrance filled and golden beams. She cast on all a glance as proud As looks Jove’s eagle from the cloud, Yet mild as are the doves that bear The car of Venus through the air.