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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Russia: Vol. XX. 1876–79.

Lapland

Lapland

By Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)

(From The Destiny of Nations)

AS ere from Lieule-Oaive’s vapory head

The Laplander beholds the far-off sun

Dart his slant beam on unobeying snows,

While yet the stern and solitary night

Brooks no alternate sway, the Boreal Morn

With mimic lustre substitutes its gleam,

Guiding his course or by Niemi Lake

Or Balda Zhiok, or the mossy stone

Of Solfar-kapper, while the snowy blast

Drifts arrowy by, or eddies round his sledge,

Making the poor babe at its mother’s back

Scream in its scanty cradle; he the while

Wins gentle solace as with upward eye

He marks the streamy banners of the north,

Thinking himself those happy spirits shall join

Who there in floating robes of rosy light

Dance sportively.