“To Dalecarlia’s tented fields repair,
    And seek the Danish host assembled there. 
    With seeming safety and false hopes destroy
    Their watchful care, and melt them down to joy;
    And, while they sleep in the delusive charm,
    Unstring each nerve, and weaken every arm;
    So shall their fears, not Vasa, strike the blow,
    And ready Conquest meet the coming foe.”

      He spoke.  Incumbent on the boundless night,
    To upper air they wing their echoing flight: 
    Thence swift to earth their airy voyage bend,
    Where the cold North’s unmeasured tracts extend: 
    O’er pine-clad Norway’s wilderness of snow,
    O’er the huge Dofrine’s cloudy tops they go,
    Thro’ many a fertile province urge their flight;
    And on Dal-Elbe’s uncultured plains alight.

      Thro’ the majestic forest’s leafy pride
    The murmurs of the recent tempest sigh’d,
    The shades of eve were closed, and pattering showers
    Shed added gloom o’er midnight’s starless hours. 
    Sleep in his downy car o’er Mora rode,
    And soft-winged Silence ruled the calm abode. 
    Lull’d by the distant gale’s unequal sound,
    The peasants press their beds, with rushes crown’d,
    From daily toil and fear a respite steal,
    And dream of joys the waking may not feel.

      High blazing on the Danish castle’s brow,
    The beacon redden’d all the fields below. 
    From its tall battlements, o’er moat and dell,
    Chequering the light, uncertain shadows fell. 
    On high, the warder tunes his martial song;
    The rocks, the dales, the cheerful notes prolong.

      On a broad plain the rising structure stands,
    The work of Dalecarlia’s mountain bands,
    In ancient years, ere Margaret ruled the clime,
    Majestic still it stands, and unimpair’d by time. 
    The Western height primeval rocks inclose;
    Low-murmuring to the south a river flows: 
    The rest with towers and tower-like works was crown’d,
    And cast a various shadow o’er the ground. 
    Unnumber’d outworks, lessening by degrees,
    Sloped to the plain:  wide quivering to the breeze
    The Danish standard, on the heights unrolled,
    Inflames the air with many a waving fold. 
    Stupendous gates the massy fabric crown’d,
    That rough with iron studs impervious frown’d. 
    Oft had the rocky cattle’s rugged form
    From its steep sides roll’d off the martial storm: 
    And whirlwinds, wasting all the neighbouring plain,
    Spent their loud anger on its walls in vain. 
    Lofty it stood, impregnated with war,
    And seem’d a craggy mountain from afar.

      Fast by a fire, whose half-extinguished rays
    Shot here and there a fluctuating blaze,
    The warriors’ languid eyes in slumber closed;
    Their arms, beside them, gleam’d as they reposed. 
    The guards alone, still cautious of surprise, }
    Watch’d at each gate, and gazing on the skies, }
    Repell’d unwilling slumber from their eyes. }