The Herdsman's Mountain Song

Words and music by Adolf Fredrik Lindblad.
First published in America as: "'The Heardsman's [sic] Mountain Song.' Pa Berget. Rendered into English from the Swedish by Lindblad by J. Wrey Mould.
Composed by A.F. Lindblad." This appeared as one of a series in the American Edition of Jenny Lind's Swedish Melodies (New York: William Hall & Son [ca. 1851-54]) for voice, with English and Swedish text, and piano. Here, the song is sung in the original Swedish. The flute part is not in the original edition.

The Herdsman's Mountain Song

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Adolf Fredrik Lindblad (1801-78), teacher and friend of Jenny Lind, was a prolific composer of songs that made him as famous in his native Sweden as Foster was in America. Jenny Lind's American tour helped popularize them here, though their Scandinavian character--melancholic, lyrical, and tending to shift into the minor mode--may have limited their ultimate success in this country. Writing home on April 22, 1851, she asks: "Would you be so very kind to send to New York all the sets of Lindblad's songs, as soon as can be? M. Benedict is so very much charmed with them; and as I have got them all imprinted in the head, as well as in the heart, I did not bring them with me to America" (H.S. Holland and W.S. Rockstro, Memoir of Madame Jenny Lind-Goldschmidt [London: John Murray, 1891], 2:424.

The Swedish text is taken from the version in Sånger och Visor vid Pianoforte af A. F. Lindblad (Stockholm: Abr. Hirsch [n.d.]), since the Swedish text engraved in the American edition has numerous errors and omissions of diacritical marks.

Högt här uppå berget
sjunger jag så mången qväll.
Långt bort ned i dalen
skådar jag hvad mig gör säll.


Öfver skogar blå
Mina blickar nå,
Dit der linden grön
Speglar sig i sjön,
Dit der hyddan står,
der den hulda går,
Som om mitt hela hjerta rår.


Dock, hon ej vet,
Hvad jag blott vet,
Och skogen vet,
Och Echo vet,
Om vindens sus,
Om vågens krus
Ej yppat har min hemlighet.


Ack nej!
Ty ensam högt här uppå berget
sjunger jag så mången qväll,
Och långt bort ned i dalen
skådar jag den mig gör säll.


Öfver skogar blå
Mina blickar gå,
Attså, attså
Deras ro de vinna må.


Here the misty mountain
Hearkens to my evening song;
Toward the peaceful valley,
Happy spot! I gaze and long


Onward flies my view,
Where an azure hue
Tints the distant gree
Where in glist'ning sheen
Still the lakelet lies,
And my bosom's prize
Doth shame its blue with bluer


She little knows
The earnest vows
That echo mocks,
Unto the rocks;
The forest grove
Alone doth prove
A true confession of my love


For ah!
Alone the barren misty mountain
Hearkens to my evening song;
Toward the peaceful valley,
Happy spot! I gaze and long


Onward flies my view,
Toward the distant blue,
Fraught with hopeful pray'r
That she dwell 'neath Heaven's care.
Credit: Library of Congress, Music Division.