In short, Björck and Snoilsky sang of water and drank wine, and in this were just the opposite to the poets of our time, who are said to sing of wine and drink water. A poet's life always seems to be at variance with his teachings. Why? Is it that, in composing, he wishes to escape from his own personality, and find another? Is it a wish to disguise himself? Or is it modesty, the fear of giving himself away, and of self-exposure? This is a weighty problem for future psychologists to unravel.
Björck composed poems both for the reformation of the constitution in 1865, and for the restoration to power of the King. He saw harmony everywhere, and when he celebrated the restored union between Sweden and Norway in 1864, he was extremely melodious. He also praised Abraham Lincoln; negro-emancipation and white slavery--that is the ideal of freedom of the Holy Alliance! Revolution certainly, but legal revolution by the will of God! Well, he knew no better, and few did at that time. Therefore we do not judge the man but only his work, the motives inspiring which are a matter of indifference to posterity.
Young men read these poets, many of them with great edification. They proclaimed no new era, but prophesied after the event that now the millennium was come, the ideal realised, and lines of demarcation obliterated once for all. They looked with satisfaction on their creations, rubbed their hands, and found them all good. An atmosphere of peace had spread itself over the whole of Upsala and its neighbourhood; now one might sleep till Doomsday was the belief of old and young. But then discordant sounds began to be heard, and in the days of universal peace fire-beacons began to be seen on the neighbouring mountain-tops. From Norway open water was signalled and the revolving lights were kindled. Rome captured Greece, but Greece re-captured Rome. Sweden had captured Norway, but now Norway re-captured Sweden. Lorenz Dietrichson was appointed as professor at the university of Upsala in 1861, and he was the forerunner of Norwegian influence. He made Sweden acquainted with Danish and Norwegian literature, then almost unknown, and founded the literary society which produced poets like Snoilsky and Björck.