'Lysets Engel gaar med Glans' - one of Ingemann's famous 'Morgensange'

B.S. Ingemann's 'Morgensange for Børn' ( 1837) and 'Syv Aftensange' (1838) are among the most well-known poems in the Danish language, due in part to Weyse's fine musical arrangements of them. These morning and evening songs have a distinctly Romantic view of childhood and an idyllic atmosphere. Their language is on the whole simple, with the occasional archaic throwback to a 'kings and castles' mode. Aksel Schiøtz has recorded many of the songs, but, as so often happens with Weyse's 6/8 and 2/4 melodies, they are turned into plodding 4/4 and thereby lose a lot of their lightness and momentum. There is an interesting arrangement for soprano and contralto duet + piano of these songs by V.E. Bielefeldt - highly usable for church concerts I have discovered. Audiences gasp at the tempo, but the songs come to life.

Gleaming bright, light’s angel see

Gleaming bright, light’s angel see
pass through heaven’s portal.

All of night’s black shadows flee

at God’s angel’s radiance immortal.

God’s light in his eye, the sun

o’er the world is gliding:

see! God’s envoy has begun,

high above on golden clouds he’s riding.

O’er the earth the angel spreads

God’s skies in their gleaming,

in his cloak of gauze-like threads

he enfolds the world so gaily teeming.

Rich man, poor man, great and small,

on them both sun’s peeping,

from above he sees them all,

kisses infants in their cradles sleeping.

Us the angel from on high

too would be embracing;

us he smiles at from the sky,

as God’s heav’nly gleam he’s tracing.

Us too does our Lord hold dear:

on each soul he gazes;

in each sunbeam God is near

and he hears our joyous morning praises.

Poem by Co Woudsma. For non-madurodam fans, check this miniature world on the Internet!

MADURODAM

Nu ben ik groot genoeg,

de straat ligt aan mijn voet.

Beloop hier de essentie van het land:

een gracht met pand,

een koe met waterkant.

Alles houdt zijn maat:

het regiment, de dirigent,

de torenklok die steeds maar slaat.

De optocht maakt een zacht kabaal,

men fluistert Nederlandse taal,

ook Surinamers zijn op schaal.

Wij reuzen doen geen kwaad,

omhelzen kerken,

doven nog een waakvlambrand

en nemen afscheid van dit goede dal.

Het leven is er niet te groot,

de mensen gaan er heel klein dood.

MADURODAM

I’m big enough now, at my feet

lies the entire length of the street.

Walk through the essence of this land:

a canal that is house-hedged,

a cow down by the water’s edge.

Everything keeping time:

the march instructor, the conductor.

the bell-tower that must always chime.

Faint hubbub from the moving trail

though Dutch is whispered without fail

with Surinamese true to scale.

We giants do no harm,

take churches in our arms,

put out a pilot flame maybe

and from this good vale take our leave.

Life’s not too big there after all,

those who die there are really small.

B.S. Ingemann poem, set to music by Niels W. Gade

On Sjølund’s plains so pleasing

On Sjølund’s plains so pleasing

down by the Baltic shore,

where woods with wreaths are friezing

the flower-strewn meadow-floor,

where silver streams now softly

glide past the ruin’s foot,

in ancient times a lofty

royal castle there once stood.

In golden halls so stately

a merry life was led,

where all did pleasure greatly

and jesting words were said:

King Valdemar had built there

his stronghold to defend

his life against all ill there

until the world should end.

With hunters he went riding,

upon his milk-white steed,

o’er hill and dale, fast striding

no danger did he heed;

but at the hounds’ loud baying,

the horn’s shrill calls far-flung,

they all forgot their praying

no holy mass heard sung.

Long since deep in the earth has

King Valdemar been laid,

in legends strange and terse has

his Hunt though been portrayed.

The farmer, poor man, crosses

himself aghast from fright

when hounds and hunters’ horses

tear past him late at night.

Poem by the Dutch writer Co Woudsma

SMALL WORLD

Right here and here only. Powerlines seem clean

erased. The birds as if evaporated.

The low red-orange sun hangs drying, sated.

Things hurt less mixed with mist, the pain’s less keen.

More ditch is born for every move ahead.

The waters are becalmed by freezing weather –

Moroccan girls stand studying together

the surface of fresh ice. The fish want bread.

The world now trails the walker, rests alone

each time he strays inside the whitish night

and in the silence does not know what land

it is surrounds him and what coast unknown

is creaking. But behind a floating light

the gate waits of the Chinese restaurant.

A Komrij poem from 'Smoke without Fire'

PREACHER

What gain does man derive from all his toil?
He steps from stalk to stalk across the mire,
Derided by the rainbow as he goes.

He cannot get enough of empty shows,
A borrowed jacket still is his attire
When, with closed eyes, he’s destined for the soil.

He who as mighty despot just held sway,
As pious vicar or as sage well-read,
Who just paraded as spes patriae

With colour in his cheeks and springy tread,
It’s hard to comprehend, but anyway,
Is dead and dead and dead and dead and dead.

Well-known midsummer poem by the Danish writer Ulf Hoffmann

Sweet is Denmark’s fragrance

at midsummer’s coming

feel the light, scents, humming

almost whisper: Stay!

Starlings, thrushes, hear them,

joy will soon draw near them,

new life come to cheer them,

though the leaves soon must,

all too soon be dust.

Dust and dust and dust.

Sweet is Denmark’s fragrance

in midsummer’s night now,

dream that you’re eighteen, how

your hair’s moist with dew.

Elders lining pathways

and a shawm’s glad forays:

would you own them always

ere all disappears

for how many years?

Years and years and years.

Sweet is Denmark’s fragrance

in midsummer’s showers,

find at daybreak bowers

in a haze of wine.

Nightingales still hidden,

from sweet slumber risen

hear you ask unbidden:

Will you be my own?

I am yours alone.

Yours and yours alone.

Biørn Christian Lund - unknown author of one of Denmark's best-loved hymns

It was the clergyman Biørn Christian Lund (1738-1809), strongly influenced by the Moravian Brotherhood, who wrote the original hymn in 1764. It had 31 verses, the first of which was this:
 

 

Naar jeg gethsemane her faaer

I øie og dens frugt

jeg i et paradiis da gaaer

Og lugter livsens lugt.

[When here Gethsemane my eyes

should glimpse, likewise its fruit

I then walk in a paradise

And smell life’s scented root.]

 


As early as 1778, the poem was shortened to the last four verses, which then were passed on by word of mouth until gradually knowledge of the original author was lost. It was in this way that Grundtvig eventually came into contact with the hymn and – with the exception of some later adjustments – gave it its present-day form.

Music to the hymn was later written by Carl Nielsen, who also immortalised the tune by using it as a theme with variations in his wind quintet, op. 43.

Min Jesus, lad mit hjerte få

en sådan smag på dig,

at nat og dag du være må

min sjæl umistelig!

Da bliver nådens tid og stund

mig sød og lystelig,

til du mig kysser med din mund

og tager hjem til dig.

Mit hjerte i den grav, du lå

til påskemorgen rød,

lad, når det aftner, hvile få

og smile ad sin død!

Før så mig arme synder hjem

med din retfærdighed

til dit det ny Jerusalem,

til al din herlighed!

Oh Jesu mine, may my heart learn

for you to hunger so

that night and day my soul will yearn

you never to forgo!

Then mercy’s time and hour shall be

most sweet and joyous too,

until one day your kiss takes me

from this life home to you.

In that same grave where you did bide

till Easter morn’s first breath,

may my heart rest at eventide

and smile at its own death!

Then take me home, poor sinner I,

in righteousness and love

to your Jerusalem on high,
to glory up above!

Spring poem by the Danish writer Johan Ludvig Heiberg (1791-1860)

Nu løvsalen skygger
og dagen er lang;
hver småfugl nu bygger
i blomstrende vang.

Kun kærlighedsguden,
den stakkel, er blind;
han flagrer mod ruden,
man lukker ham ind.

----------------------

Now bowers offer shadow

and days need less rest,

in spring’s flowering meadow

each bird builds its nest.

Love’s god’s on the wing, though

he’s blind as can be;

flits there at the window,

is let in for free.

A poem by the German writer Ludwig Tieck (1773-1853)

Im Herbste

Feldeinwärts flog ein Vögelein
Und sang im muntern Sonnenschein
Mit süßem, wunderbarem Ton:
Ade, ich fliege nun davon.
Weit, weit
Reis ich noch heut.

Doch als ich Blätter fallen sah,
Da sagt ich: Ach, der Herbst ist da,
Der Sommergast, die Schwalbe, zieht,
Vielleicht so Lieb' und Sehnsucht flieht
Weit, weit
Rasch mit der Zeit.

Doch rückwärts kam der Sonnenschein,
Dicht zu mir drauf das Vögelein,
Es sah mein tränend Angesicht
Und sang: Die Liebe wintert nicht.
Nein, nein!
Ist und bleibt Frühlingsschein.

In Autumn

Into the fields a small bird flew

And in glad sunshine it anew

Did sing with sweet and wondrous tone:

Farewell, for I will soon be gone:

Away

I’m bound today.

Yet when I saw the leaves all fall,

I said: Ah, autumn’s cruel call,

The swallow, summer’s guest, departs,

As love perhaps and longing hearts

So fast,

Their time won’t last.

The sunshine though returned again

And right up close the small bird came,

It saw my face so full of tears

And sang: Love does not winter here.

Oh no!
It's always springtime's glow.

One more von der Recke

In springtime there buds a lime so green

In springtime there buds a lime so green

with lilies and violets too;

where sits a maiden fair as a queen

who sews with the sun in view.

With spring sun one could her best compare

like apples her cheeks are round;

When at the mirror she shakes her hair

like lime-blossom does it float down.

She is a mirror of purest glass,

no flaw or stain dulls its shine;

she plays on the strings with a hand as fast

as sunlight on branch of lime.

As sunlight’s caught in the lime-leaves’ dance,

she captures both sense and mind,

her magic spell has me quite entranced,

my heart is to her consigned.

And my heart is to her consigned.