I.
One day, while on the Ocean blue
The glittering sun-beams pour,
With vessel light, and scanty crew,
We gaily left the shore.
Black rose the storm, and in the hold
The frothing waters lay,
But toil their whelming force controul’d,
And clear’d them all away.
Then swift we flew before the wind,
And gain’d the distant isle;
The omen fair I hop’d to find
Of beauteous Aura’s smile;
But yet, my toils, though fortune crown,
Has all I love forsworn me,
My constancy sustains her frown,
The Russian maiden scorns me.
II.
In manly sports, and manly toils,
Twice four, I proudly shine,
And kinder nymphs, with rosy smiles,
For me the garlands twine.
’Tis mine to dart the gleaming lance;
To curb the bounding steed;
To tune the pipe, the mazy dance,
With graceful step, to lead;
To ply the oar, to rove the deep,
And, o’er the frozen wave,
On volant steel, like winds, to sweep;
To meet in fight the brave;
But ah, though great in arts and arms,
From love’s blest hope she warns me,
Not all my well-won glory charms,
A Russian maiden scorns me.
III.
On Norway’s wintry mountains high
My natal morn arose,
Whose sons can teach their shafts to fly,
Unerring from their bows:
But o’er the lone sea bends my course,
The bounding ship I guide,
Where, ’mid vast rocks, with fatal force,
Surges the confluent tide.
On every sea my flying sails
The rising winds have caught,
And though to tempest swell’d the gales,
No sheltering harbour sought;
But ah! though courage speed my prow,
And subject seas have borne me,
A frozen heart impels, I know,
The Russian maid to scorn me.
IV.
Around Calabria’s winding shore
My dark ships grandly ride,
With mariners, a numerous store,
Their youthful leader’s pride.
Devoted to the clang of arms,
Victorious in their strife,
I gloried in their loud alarms,
And liv’d a warrior’s life:
Nor dreamt that long indulgent Fate
Would ever cloud her brow,
And with a peevish woman’s hate,
My fondest hopes o’erthrow.
Now rival chiefs my woes deride,
And generous friendship mourns me;
Hates (while it chides my vanquish’d pride,)
The Russian maid that scorns me.
V.
O! wou’d this charming maid recall
The wonders of that day,
When near the southern city’s wall,
I join’d the bloody fray;
When Drontheim’s armies trebled ours,
And thunder’d o’er the plain,
While every wave its river pours
Ran purple to the main;
When conquest, on her eagle-wing,
Flew hovering o’er my shield,
And Drontheim’s long-resistless king
Lay breathless on the field;
Yet, yet, to blight my youth with cares,
Has all I love forsworn me,
The garland of the war she tears,
The Russian maiden scorns me.