A poem by the Dutch writer Jacobus Revius (1586-1658)

CREATION

God with his wires invisible has strung the world

As ’twere a lute, with all of its accoutrements.

The welkin is the bowl, full-ribbed from end to end,

The rose, the sun and moon whose orbits round us twirl.

The two coarse bass strings that forever boom and roar

Are earth and ocean: the high chanterelle, so sweet

Upon the ear, the sky: the others that complete

The choir are the trees and beasts of every sort.

This lute th’Almighty plucked with His accomplished fingers,

The angels then joined in as His proficient singers,

The mountains listened rapt, the rivers all stood still:

And man alone hears neither singers nor the strings,

Unless it please God to reveal to him such things

According to His prudent plan and heav’nly will.

Poem by the Dutch writer Nachoem M. Wijnberg

THE RACKET IN RODIN’S STUDIO

His apprentices’ sole task is making hands

and placing them in boxes, ordered as to type,

while he himself kneads the remaining clay bodies

attaching to them the hands already prepared.

He prises apertures open and moistens the clay

with spit from his mouth, to save himself some time.

He moves between the heaps of clay and the models

kneeling on sheets while the apprentices watch him

and hold onto hands that grip and let go.

First verse of 'Solstice Song' by the Danish poet Johannes V. Jensen

Solstice song

Our sun has now grown cold,

we are in winter’s hold

the days are waning.

        Now, past the deepest night,

        our hope burns bright –

        yes, hope burns bright,

        for now the sun will right,

now light will soon return, the days again are gaining.

A poem by the Swedish writer Vilhelm Ekelund (1880-1949)

After rain the chestnut trees...

After rain the chestnut trees

wearily incline the blossom

of their heavy sceptres.

The large wet

clusters of the lilacs

gently rock.

Shyly and hesitantly

the nightingale

already starts to call.

Heart, and you feel

the endless balm of

rebirth and of silence

flowing over you:

heart, and yet your song

is this minor –

this mute song of longing.

A poem by the Dutch poet Hanny Michaelis

This afternoon - the room

filled to the brim with sun

and sweeping baroque music –

I thought unawares

of what you once said

to me about

sorrow being the keynote

of existence.

That night tears

came to my eyes. Now

I just slightly

moved my head

like a donkey

plagued by flies.

Yesterday's poem on the Dutch Meulenhoff calendar, by Gerrit Komrij

THE WORLD UPSIDE-DOWN

In order to collect the doubtful prize

For all the pain she caused that’s gone before,

The holy trinity adopts the guise

Of three air pilots, sticky still with gore.

And Destination Hell’s their aircraft’s mission

“The devil waits with fat cigars and bourbon.”

The airmen’s journey seems an endless prison.

For years the blood-red airscrew whirring’s droned on.

Not far from Saturn, a ring her station,

Combing her hair, they see a raffish belle.

Clearly they display their admiration

But nowhere can they rest. There is no hell.

Danish translation of yesterday's poem

Havet ælter sine minder

Havet ælter sine minder,

indtil de bliver glatslebne:

og alligevel betyder de så lidt.

For havet selv er en eneste
stor hukommelse
et eneste stort nu.

Derfor: forlang af frasen

det fuldkomne blads fløjlsbløde glans,

eller tving den til at forme sig til en klippes knæskal!

Hvor lykkeligt intet at huske,

intet! Og dog være et vidnesbyrd

om noget forgangent– et vidnesbyrd i ansigtets

dristige linje, i håndens frigjorthed,

i mundens lukkethed – et vidnesbyrd i stemmen.

Og hvad du siger er ligegyldigt

som de knuste æggeskal i en forladt rede.

Poem by the Swedish-language Finnish writer Rabbe Enckell (1903–74)

Havet ältar sina minnen

Havet ältar sina minnen,

tills de blir glattslipade:

och ändå betyder de så litet.

Ty havet självt är ett enda

stort minne

ett enda stort nu.

Därför: avkräv frasen

det fullkomliga lövets sammetsmjuka glans,

eller tvinga den att forma sig till en klippas knäskål!

Hur lyckligt ingenting minnas,

ingenting! Och dock vara ett vittnesbörd

om något gånget – ett vittnesbörd i ansiktets

djärva linje, i handens frigjordhet,

i munnens slutenhet – ett vittnesbörd i rösten.

Och vad du säger är likgiltigt

som de krossade äggskalen i ett övergivet näste.

The sea kneads its memories

The sea kneads its memories

until they are smoothly polished:

and yet they mean so little.

For the sea itself is a single

great memory a single great now.

Therefore: demand from the phrase

the velvet-soft lustre of the perfect leaf,

or force it to form itself into a rock’s patella!

How fortunate to remember nothing,

nothing! And yet to be a testimony

of something bygone – a testimony in the bold line

of the face, the emancipation of the hand,

the reserve of the mouth – a testimony in the voice.

And what you say is of no consequence

like the crushed egg-shells of an abandoned nest.

Another poem by the Danish writer Schack von Staffeldt

Initiation

I sat far out on the sound’s still shore,

        The skies were smiling;

And filled with longing I gazed down o’er

        The waves beguiling.

The sun slipped into the sea’s embrace,

The coast and sky joined in blushing grace.

With sweet foreboding a harp I heard,

        The clouds now rending;

The muse descended, in sunlight girt,

        Her lyre extending.

She sealed my lips with kiss of fire

And sank down into her shimmering pyre.

Then all around me the world was new:

        The winds spoke softly;

From pale clouds drifting before the moon

        Called spirits lofty;

In all creation a loving heart beat,

My own reflection in all did I meet.

Since then the earth each thought and desire

        Does now imprison;

Though dreams ease longing, as do song’s lyre

        And premonition,

The kiss consumes me, no peace can see birth

Before the skies I bring down to earth!

To see the original poem, go to here

Another poem by Edith Södergran

Ingenting

Var lugn, mitt barn, det finnes ingenting,

och allt är som du ser: skogen, röken och skenornas flykt.

Någonstädes långt borta i fjärran land

finnes en blåare himmel och en mur med rosor

eller en palm och en ljummare vind—

och det är allt.

Det finns icke något mera än snön på granens gren.

Det finnes ingenting att kyssa med varma läppar,

och alla läppar blir med tiden svala.

Men du säger, mitt barn, att ditt hjärta är mäktigt,

och att leva förgäves är mindre än att dö.

Vad ville du döden? Känner du vämjelsen hans kläder sprida,

och ingenting är äckligare än död för egen hand.

Vi böra älska livets långa timmar av sjukdom

och trånga år av längtan

såsom de korta ögonblick då öknen blommar.

Nothing

Calm now, my child, there’s nothing there,

and everything is as you see it: the forest, smoke and ever-receding rails.

Somewhere far off in a distant land

there’s a bluer sky and a wall with roses

or a palm and a more temperate wind –

and that is all.

There’s nothing there except the snow on the spruce tree’s branches.

There’s nothing there to kiss with warm lips,

and in time all lips grow cool.

You say though, my child, that the heart is powerful,

and that to live in vain is less than dying.

What did you want of death? Do you feel the repugnance his clothes spread,

and nothing is more repulsive than to die by one’s own hand.

We ought to love life’s long hours of illness

and oppressive years of longing

just as the brief moments when the desert is in flower.

Short poem by the Dutch (and Frisian) writer Tsead Bruinja

a choir sings

a choir sings

and compassion makes the air around us

as thick as syrup

then the record stops

all the entrails

fall out of the song

we are looking at

as if our first manger

was a guitar case

A poem by the Danish Romantic poet Schack von Staffeldt

By the lake

– And while all the waves are borne off apace,

I feel as if I there too had my place,

And staring into the image-filled lake,

In some strange longing my parting would take.

From still azure depths me greeting, I spy

A different nature, different sky;

All is ethereal there and ideal,

Like things in their pristine form more real.

My very first I from the purest blue,

My once purer self then whispers anew:

Why did you leave me, just leave me and go?

Oh, how I do love you, I love you so!

How strangely afraid and aching I seem,

My spirit escapes to more than a dream:

There appear to be gods and humans who

Embrace and mingle in depths of pure blue.

From Digte (1804). To see the original, go to here.

Another Swedish-speaking Finnish poet: Edith Södergran

The world bathes in blood

The world bathes in blood that God should live.
That his glory may persist, all else must perish.
What do we humans know of the eternal one’s pining
and what the gods drink to renew their strength.
God will create anew. He will reshape the world into a clearer sign.
Therefore he girds himself with a belt of lightnings,
therefore he wears a crown of flaming spikes,
therefore he envelops the earth in blindness and night.
Therefore he observes cruelly. His creator’s hands forcefully squeeze the earth.
What he creates no one knows. But it passes like a shudder
through half-awake minds. It is like giddiness at the sight of the abyss.
Before rejoicing choirs break out in songs of praise
it is quiet as in the forest before sunrise.

(1918)

An early poem by the Swedish writer Gustaf Fröding

Guitar and accordion

Two neighbours reside in my dwelling

– the one sentimental in vein,

– with loud voice I hear him declaiming

of sorrow and life’s pain.

At times he is gloomy and bitter,

and melancholic, bizarre,

at times soulful, quite elegiac,

and sings at times to his guitar.

The other is sprightly and cheerful,

bucolic and coarsely burlesque.

For him are all sorrows and troubles

distortions, mere fancy, grotesque.

He broods not at all – for life is

a joke he just chortles on,

and whistles and sings while playing

his old accordion.

– You soon tire of hearing such antics

– and yet I’ve grown used to the pair;

the one quite resembles my present;

the other my past laid bare.

And sometimes, when sadness oppresses

and days to me seem too long,

I write down in music notation

small snatches of both their songs.

And should people say that the music’s

melodically poorly turned,

and isn’t quite all that it should be

where harmony’s concerned,

it comes from the fact that guitar song

and accordion song can quite

often both strike up at the same time

and come from left and right.

To see the original poem, go to here

Poem by the Finnish writer Johann Ludvig Runeberg (1804–77) who wrote in the Swedish language

Joy and sorrow

Joy and sorrow both

resided in my heart,

joy in the one chamber,

sorrow in the other.

irreconcilably separate,

first the one ruled

then the other, solely.

Since the one and only came here,

she’s opened, it would seem, the door

and has united both,

for my joy is sadness

and my sorrow bliss.

Translation of a poem by the Swedish poet Esaias Tegnér (1782-1846)

Spleen

I stood where my life’s slopes had reached their summit,

Where watercourses strain and would untwine

And with their foaming wave would downwards plummet;

There it was clear, and standing there was fine.

I gazed towards the sun and all its planets

Which, after setting, in the sky did shine;

I looked down at the earth, so green and fair,

And God was good and man was honest there.

An evil spleen-filled elf appeared, who merely

Bit without warning deep into my heart;

Lo, all at once the world was void and dreary,

And sun and stars quite suddenly went dark;

My once gay landscape lay autumnal, weary,

Each grove grew dun, each flower stem broke apart,

All vigour died within my frozen mind,

All joy, all courage shrivelled up and pined.

What’s it to me, reality’s dead matter,

So dull, oppressive and so coarsely raw?

How hope’s once rosy hue has, ah, grown flatter!

How memory once blue, ah, clouded o’er!

And poetry itself! Its idle patter,

Its tight-rope saltos I would have no more.

Its vain illusions none can satisfy,

But skimmed from surfaces of things nearby.

For you, mankind, I should be praises saying,

You in God’s image made, how apt, how true!

Two lies though you are guilty of displaying,

Woman is one and, by her, man makes two.

Of faith and honour the old song needs praying,

Best sung when we deception would pursue.

You heaven’s child! What’s true, I would maintain,

Is, branded on your brow, the mark of Cain!

So legible a mark, writ by God’s finger,

Why did I fail to notice such a sign?

Through human life a corpse-like stench does linger

Which poisons spring’s air, summer’s pomp maligns.

That smell comes from the grave and seeks to injure;

Graves are walled up, by marble guarded fine.

Alas, though, foul decay is on life’s breath,

No guard shuts out its constant reek of death.

Tell me, you watchman, how the night progresses!

Is it unceasing, will it never end?

The moon, half-eaten, through the sky’s still presses,

The tearful stars still through the heavens wend.

My pulse beats fast as in my youth’s successes,

Hours of affliction though it cannot mend.

Each pulse beat’s pain, how endless and how raw!

Oh, my poor heart, devoured and bleeding sore!

My heart? Within my breast I none discover,

’Tis but an urn wherein life’s ashes lie.

Show pity on me, Hertha, you green mother,

Oh, let that urn be buried by and by;

In air earth’s pain erodes but still will smother,

In earth, though, surely it must cease its cry,

Perhaps time’s orphan, when earth’s school is done,

Will see its father – far beyond the sun.

To see the original, go to here.

Maybe the best-known Swedish poem! C.M. Bellman's 'Gubben Noach'

            No. 35

            Old boy Noah ://:

            was a decent man.

            Once the ark had grounded

            in the fields he founded

lots of vineyards, lots of vineyards:

            Noah had a plan.

            Noah rowed out://:

            from his ancient ark,

            bottles he bought plenty,

            maybe more than twenty,

meant for drinking, meant for drinking

            in our green new park.

            He ne’er doubted ://:

            that all humans are

            by their nature thirsty

            like the beasts, so first he

planted vines, yes, planted vines, yes,

            growing near and far.

            Old girl Noah ://:

            was a decent wife;

            she let him drink early,

            if I’d such a girlie,

I’d get married, I’d get married,

            ere you could say knife.

            She ne’er scolded ://:

            Oh, you naughty man,

            put that pitcher down then,

            No, she didn’t frown when

at one draught he, at one draught he

            quaffed wine by the can.

            Old boy Noah ://:

            Had hair thick as thatch,

            chubby chins and goatee,

            cheeks so pink and rosy;

he could down it, he could down it,

            Cheers and down the hatch!

            Times were good then ://:

            on our earth so fair;

            food and drink ne’er lacking,

            no parched throats a-cracking,

all sat glaring, all sat glaring

            at a spread so rare.

            Formal toasting ://:

            people gave a miss;

            no one said at leisure:

            May I have the pleasure!

No, you drank it, no, you drank it

            at one go – like this!

 

Poem by the Danish poet F.P. Jac (1955-2008)

i’ve been on the booze

i’ve been on the booze ever since i could make head or tail of myself,

a late-flowerer i refused war threats abstained from being for or against

christ and began to take my own pictures straight from the skin, dis–

appeared at every crucial moment so as to find peace at some outer place,

find value perhaps next to a girl’s temple that clearly reflected orgasm.

i had to get away from noise with a finger in my mouth and flowers in my hair,

find a corner and down a massive finger of gin while the leaves came out on all

the trees i mean i’m best on the whisky and porter boundary,

and no picture will be able to surprise me in my window haunt at night,

nix i’m a drunk but i carry around with me one of the biggest and the

tenderest of earthly hearts i’ve innumerable black cats on that, just ask the

girls on the street they know what state i’m in they know how i like to have

my neck caressed they know how the tongue’s to be laid out along the nose,

they will be able to attest to my decline be able to light up the beauty,

they will be able to admit that i am the last thing from the aesthetic universe,

i’ve been on fear longer than the tulip would probably put up with,

i have loved more glitter pictures than most people could possibly understand

in sorrow and confusion i have seen the rooms fall down like artificial ice,

i was on the booze long before the poem and love ever became

a possibility and i have seen a mother who changed her nature while she cried,

i have seen them dying emptying themselves while they called out in desperation for a

father who did not exist i have seen the pulse completely open one early morning

and i don’t want to get out of it don’t want to be subdued i bloody want to see the

girls when they entrust me their genital opening and ask me to clip,

let me be a damned sight more precise i want to radiate the seamy side i want to make

everyone beautiful and they are all to come and see the flower shoot from the very

lump of shit there’s no difference between soil and fertiliser there is life,

no one’s to deny me my boundlessness i belong to a cultural pause

i belong to an empty space inside the world i belong of a world,

The poem really does end with a comma! For a review, go to here.

Another poem by Nils Ferlin

 

Not a single

Not a single grey little songster

that chirps on a green-leafed bough

is found in what lies beyond here

and the prospect seems sad right now.

Not a single grey little songster

and never a birch that stands white –

But on summer’s most beautiful day I’ve at times

even so wished it were in sight.

A haunting poem, partly because of the music by Lille Bror Söderlundh to which it is often sung. The language of the original is extremely simple and difficult to capture in English. The author has deliberately introduced an archaic, folk-song like tone by adding an inflectional ending to the word for 'green'.

To see the original Swedish, go to here. To hear Sven-Bertil Taube sing a snatch from it, go to here.

Poem by the Swedish poet Nils Ferlin

Couplet

Dedicated to Victor Arendorff, Högalid

In Arendorff’s day

skies were vast, never grey,

with the stars almost touching your hat.

People laughed til they dropped;

if at night you got copped

there was nothing so special in that.

And high spirits were there for the telling,

though a barrel made do for a dwelling.

And you starved and you froze

but you won by a nose.

There was nothing so special in that.

But now life is plain hard

in both street or backyard

in a pub or café or small flat.

You sit quiet as can be,

like a bust or a tree:

can you see something special in that?

No, in Arendorff’s day you breathed freely,

mixed with barons and counts ten times yearly.

If you spoke like a lout

well, you soon got thrown out:

There was nothing so special in that.

Times were quite debonair,

but with sleek head of hair

social levelling came in to bat.

We became, hardly odd,

just like peas in a pod.

Can you see something special in that?

People pay all their taxes, are civil,

but all recklessness shun like the devil.

Now life’s zest has been quashed

like a hat that’s been squashed.

I see nothing so special in that.

Yes, you live without pause

off the body that’s yours

and then whoosh, one-two-three, that was that.

And in some makeshift dray

you’re then carted away.

There is nothing so special in that.

Should a bird feel the urge to start trilling

at your passing, t’would be almost thrilling.

Though the vicar’s no bird,

mumbles hardly a word,

there is nothing so special in that.

To hear a snatch of the wonderful Sven-Bertil Taube LP, with Lille Bror Söderlundh's music arranged by Ulf Björlin, go to here. To see a recent YouTube version, with the old man still going strong, go to here. To see the original text, go to here.
 

And a self-epitaph by the Danish writer Johan Herman Wessel (1742-85)

The poet’s epitaph upon himself

He ate and drank, was never glad,

He wore his boot heels down one side;

Ambition – that he never had,

And finally just upped and died.

An epitaph written by Anna Maria Lenngren

Epitaph

Here rests Lieutenant Spink, a hero death did tear

away, alas, and to ancestral tombs dispatch.

His span of years was short, his feats though few could match:

he shot a sparrow once and rode to death a mare.

Another searching Swede! Johan Olof Wallin (1779-1839)

Where is the friend I search for without ceasing?

Where is the friend I search for without ceasing?

At sunrise, all my longing’s but increasing;

At sunset, still he does elude my yearning,

Though my heart’s burning.

I see his trace in every force revealing

In fragrant flowers, in ears of corn now kneeling.

With every sigh I take, each breath expended

His love is blended.

I hear his voice where summer winds are blowing,

Where woods are singing, rivers swiftly flowing;

I hear it in my heart most gently singing

And solace bringing.

Yet even so a mist from me obscures him:

My prayer but not my every gaze conjures him.

Ah, were I face to face where nought can sever,

Embraced for ever.

Ah, when in every vein of all creation

And life there’s beauty found in every station,

How beauteous then, with clarity eternal,

The source supernal!

Oh source of life, of peace, of bliss inspiring,

When will your wave so pure sate my desiring?

What can e’er lead me to your flowing fullness

But death’s still coolness?

My spirit, be consoled, hope, pray, stay fasting,

Your friend waves to you: you shall see, be tasting

How sweet he is and in his arms be sinking,

His mercy drinking.

Soon like the ark’s tired dove shall you be making

For distant shores on which no wave is breaking,

Like frightened lamb the shepherd’s bosom seeking,

And his safe keeping.

A real 'evergreen' - a poem by the Swedish writer Dan Andersson

I’m waiting…

I’m waiting by my log-fire while the hours gently wander,
while the stars all are roaming and nights come and go.
I’m waiting for a woman who comes from far yonder –
the dearest one, the dearest one with blue eyes aglow.

I thought of a roaming and snow-covered flower
and dreamt of a teasing laugh trembling and slight,
Imagined my dearest came here to my bower
through the forest, over moorland one snow-laden night.

Glad-hearted I’d bear in my arms this my dream-love
through brushwood to there where my small hut lies near,
and cry out rejoicing to my at last seen-love:
Oh, welcome, you awaited these lonely long years!

I’m waiting at my coal-stack while the hours stray and wander,
while the forests are singing and clouds come and go.
I’m waiting for a woman who roams from far yonder –
the dearest one, the dearest one with blue eyes aglow.

To hear the original poem sung, go to here

A poem by the Swedish writer Kristina Lugn (b. 1948)

I want you to come now!

I want you to come now!

I want you to come right now!

Bring your pocket calculator with you.

And the Steinway grand piano.

Bring along elastoplast aspirins eau de cologne and sanisept

a bottle of Ramlösa a bottle of gin a bottle of whisky and

a toothbrush mug

a bottle of Ajax and a large packet of sleeping pills a pot plant and

a pizza

and a respirator.

I want you to come right now!

Just you are to come right now!

And take me by storm.

You’re to switch off the ceiling lights.

And light the candelabras.

You’re to pull the phone out of its socket.

And inflate the rubber mattresses.

You’re to dry my tears and speak sense to me.

When the sun sets behind the Opera House.

And it’s time to go home.

That’s when you’re to come to me.

With your heart.

And your shot-gun.

So I never lose my head again.

In a tastefully furnished living room..

So I never stand once more on the window ledge.

And seem a bit nutty.

With a briar rose in my hand.

So I never crawl once more through the subways.

With an awful song.

On my cracked lips.

You must come now, you must come right now!

Quite simply because I can’t stand it otherwise.

Quite simply because it’s so bloody insistent.

Quite simply because I’m a completely ordinary woman.

Perfectly healthy and moderately overweight.

Quite domesticated, helpful and nervous.

Nice and kind and very frightened.

With general interests and an unexploited literary vein.

To see the original poem, go to here