Of the longer pieces of the volume none is so memorable as ``Nameless and Immortal,'' which at once took rank among the finest poems ever written in the Swedish language. It celebrates the unknown architect who designed the temple of Neptune at Paestum, next to the Parthenon the noblest example of Grecian classic style now in existence. On the eve of his return to their native Naxos he speaks with his wife of the masterpiece which rises before them in its completed perfection. The supreme object of their lives is now fulfilled, says the wife, her husband has achieved immortality. Not so, he answers, it is not the architect but the temple that is immortal. ``The man's true reputation is his work.''

The short poems grouped at the end of the volume as ``Thoughts in Loneliness'' is, as Professor Bo ^ o ^ k indicated, in sharp contrast with the others. It consists of fragmentary personal revelations, such as ``The Spark'': ``There is a spark dwells deep within my soul. To get it out into the daylight's glow Is my life's aim both first and last, the whole. It slips away, it burns and tortures me. That little spark is all the wealth I know, That little spark is my life's misery.'' A dominant motive is the poet's longing for his homeland and its boyhood associations: ``Not men folk, but the fields where I would stray, The stones where as a child I used to play.'' He is utterly disappointed in himself and in the desultory life he has been leading. What he really wants is to find ``a sacred cause'' to which he can honestly devote himself. This restless individualism found its answer when he returned to live nearly all the rest of his life in Sweden. His cause was to commemorate the glory of her past and to incite her people to perpetuate it in the present.