Poem by the Danish poet Ambrosius Stub (1705-58)

You rosebud sweet and fair

        You rosebud sweet and fair!

Close to, let me inspect you!

Each man must needs respect you,

        In you all nature’s art

        And splendour dwell apart;

Each petal’s coloured feather

Leaves us uncertain whether

        Apparel neat and trim

        Says more than splendour’s whim:

A maze where coloured petals –

In paths where each unsettles –

        Add fragrance to the air;

        You rosebud sweet and fair!

        Today, alas, you’re gone,

But yesterday with pleasure

I viewed your thorn-borne treasure;

        I plucked you, whereupon

        Today, alas, you’re gone.

Your bright shades fade and pall

Your dull red tells me all

        Your glory is but brief

        Your beauty held in fief;

You jewel of nature’s crown,

Where now is your fine gown?

        Your blossoming is done,

        Today, alas, you’re gone.

        Come, Phyllis, come and see

My rose does now invite you;

Your beauty won’t requite you;

        Come, Phyllis, come and see!

        Your image view quite freely!

All that’s a source of pleasure

Cheeks crimson beyond measure,

        That mouth, its honeyed ploy

        Those eyes, their sparkling joy

That neat body, those neat hands

That every favour do command

        Do fade; come, Phyllis, see

        Your image view quite freely!

        One beauty outlasts others –

When all else only withers –

And years and age outweathers,

        And gains eternal vales

        One beauty never fails.

Virtue, Phyllis, its name,

Seek it ere time’s no claim!

        And that a spirit true

        May dwell as is its due,

Live but to praise your maker

In virtue be its taker!

        So when all else does wither,

        Your beauty lasts forever.

Here is a translation of a Latin 'dies irae' by Thomas of Celano, 13th century

I can't resist this one - the last religious poem for a while, I promise! The translation dates from 1849 and is by William Josiah Irons, who turns out to be the son of the brother of my great-great-great-grandfather. It's all in the genes!

Day of wrath! O day of mourning!

See fulfilled the prophets' warning,

Heaven and earth in ashes burning!

Oh, what fear man's bosom rendeth,

when from heaven the Judge descendeth,

on whose sentence all dependeth.

Wondrous sound the trumpet flingeth;

through earth's sepulchers it ringeth;

all before the throne it bringeth.

Death is struck, and nature quaking,

all creation is awaking,

to its Judge an answer making.

Lo! The book, exactly worded,

wherein all hath been recorded:

thence shall judgment be awarded.

When the Judge his seat attaineth,

and each hidden deed arraigneth,

nothing unavenged remaineth.

What shall I, frail man, be pleading?

Who for me be interceding,

when the just are mercy needing?

King of Majesty tremendous,

who dost free salvation send us,

Fount of pity, then befriend us!

Think, good Jesus, my salvation

cost thy wondrous Incarnation;

leave me not to reprobation!

Faint and weary, thou hast sought me,

on the cross of suffering bought me.

shall such grace be vainly brought me?

Righteous Judge! For sin's pollution

grant thy gift of absolution,

ere the day of retribution.

Guilty, now I pour my moaning,

all my shame with anguish owning;

spare, O God, thy suppliant groaning!

Thou the sinful woman savedst;

thou the dying thief forgavest;

and to me a hope vouchsafest.

Worthless are my prayers and sighing,

yet, good Lord, in grace complying,

rescue me from fires undying!

With thy favored sheep O place me;

nor among the goats abase me;

but to thy right hand upraise me.

While the wicked are confounded,

doomed to flames of woe unbounded

call me with thy saints surrounded.

Low I kneel, with heart submission,

see, like ashes, my contrition;

help me in my last condition.

Ah! that day of tears and mourning!

From the dust of earth returning

man for judgment must prepare him;

Spare, O God, in mercy spare him!

Lord, all pitying, Jesus blest,

grant them thine eternal rest. Amen.

One of the classic hymns by the Danish bishop Thomas Kingo (1634-1703)

Weary of the world, and with heaven most dear

        Farewell, world, farewell

As thrall here I’m weary and no more will dwell,

The manifold burdens that on me have lain,

I wrest them now from me and do them disdain,

I wrench myself free, though am wearied withal:

        ’Tis vanity all,

        ’Tis vanity all.

        And what everywhere

Does this world embellish with visage so fair?

’Tis all merely shadows and baubles of glass,

’Tis all merely bubbles and clattering brass,

’Tis all but thin ice, filth and mischief withal:

        ’Tis vanity all,

        ’Tis vanity all.

        My years what are they?

That furtively dwindle and sidle away?

And what are my worries? My thought-troubled mind?

My joy or my sorrow? My fancies so blind?

And what do my work, moil and toil all recall?

        ’Tis vanity all,

        ’Tis vanity all.

        Oh riches and gold,

You false earthly idol so bright to behold,

You are though among the deceits the world brings

That wax, wane and alter with all other things.

You are but vain glory whate’er may befall:

        ’Tis vanity all,

        ’Tis vanity all.

        Ah, honour – ’tis what?

Your crowns and your laurels proclaim what you’re not,

And envy consumes you and sits on your back,

You lack peace of mind and are prone to attack!

You stumble where others contrive not to fall:

        ’Tis vanity all,

        ’Tis vanity all.

        Ah, favour and grace

That mist-like enfold us, are gone without trace.

You fickle inflator that puffs up the mind,

You thousand-eyed creature that e’en so are blind,

When viewed ’gainst the sun one can see that you pall:

        ’Tis vanity all,

        ’Tis vanity all.

        Ah, friendship and trust,

That knows how to veer vanes to bliss with each gust!

You handsome deceiver, you fortunate pup,

That fails us so often in sorrow’s deep cup

You say what experience has us recall:

        ’Tis vanity all,

        ’Tis vanity all.

        Ah, joys of the flesh

That many have fatally snared in their mesh,

You quick-burning tinder, you spark on the wind,

Have sown flames eternal for those that have sinned,

Your cup seems like honey, the drink though is gall:

        ’Tis vanity all,

        ’Tis vanity all.

        Farewell, then, farewell

No more your deceits shall my soul now compel,

Oh world of delusion, I now you dismiss,

Consign to oblivion’s deepest abyss,

My grief and affliction no more me shall chafe:

        With Abraham safe,

        With Abraham safe.

        There all of my years

Will start in eternity’s spring without tears,

My days will not dawn with the rise of the sun,

Nor moon’s wax or wane tell when night has begun,

My sun is Lord Jesus with rays like gold staves:

        With Abraham safe,

        With Abraham safe.

        My riches and gold

Will always be mine both to have and to hold,

No robber can ever deprive me of them,

No bartering cause me to part with one gem,

I never will find myself left as a waif:

        With Abraham safe,

        With Abraham safe.

         My honour is won

From that throne my Jesus is sitting upon,

A crown filled with glory for me is in store,

With blood of the lamb it is gilt ever more,

’Tis mine though the devil me gladly would strafe:

        With Abraham safe,

        With Abraham safe.

        With grace I will shine

As one of the angelic host so divine,

No envious eye shall my face ever see,

God’s countenance gaze ever-smiling on me,

There will I pour scorn on death’s envious grave:

        With Abraham safe,

        With Abraham safe.

There I have a friend,

My Jesus who loves me I love without end,

My eye will regard him unclouded and fair,

The heavenly torch of his love proffered there,

In spirit Love’s blaze I eternal may crave:

        With Abraham safe,

        With Abraham safe.

        My rapture and joy

Are quickened when angels their trumpets employ,

But God is all joy both for me and their kind!

Rejoice then, my soul, all the world leave behind!

Mind well on your heart God his joy will engrave:

        With Abraham safe,

        With Abraham safe.

Poem by the Dutch poet Eva Gerlach

BUT THE ANT

I said to someone

Don’t think it will pass,

that if you pass on or away,

the grass will just come up as usual,

the magpie just pick up prunings

in its mouth, build a nest,

it’s not that easy at all.

No. When you’re no longer there,

when I no longer have your wakery

and sleepsomeness, all will

fall through. For then there will be

no more reason for things

to exist.

And someone began to laugh,

what’s with you, he said, still always

wanting to get somewhere, still

always convinced that in presence

a truth lives greater than that

of just the address?

But the ant, I cried, the way it

runs over the ground, how it

carries its grains of sand, eggs,

builds its nest under the plant, but the fruit

and the root that grows in the sand?

Someone wrote his name on

me right over mine, someone buried himself

in me somewhere I wasn’t aware

it was me.

Then he escaped, then

he never showed up and I stood in the light,

bursting white from my bark and spreading my branches.

A poem from 'Rib Cities' by the Swedish writer Eva Ström

To let your pen write on

So delightful to scribble on paper

let your pen write on without stopping to think

enjoy the strokes, the black on the white

neither thinking nor not thinking

just let your hand and thought run on

abreast for a while, out of step for a while

then the hand runs ahead of the thought

then the thought runs ahead of the hand

then they run abreast

then they get tired

a hare zigzagged across the fields

in the colours of last year’s leafs at first invisible

then he became a shadow

gained outline and being

until once more he was swallowed up by

the dusk-grey colour of the land

so delightful to scribble on paper

let something, anything

emerge from the grey

like the hare

without any warning

rush off unknown in a direction one does not

understand

be swallowed up

disappear

while the house found shelter from the north wind

where it crouched behind the mountain

pressed down by the fist of the oak

it even shook in squalls

the swans mated hissing

galloping over the surface of the water

took over clattering with outstretched wings

but the hare with its lonely brown eye

and the pen that runs over the paper

in the singing wood of the tiled stoves

runs and runs

comes to a halt

stops

gets itself ready for the night

like an animal

just stops

flattens a circle

and goes to sleep

A poem by Hugo Claus

DE VOERSTREEK*

It is recounted that when the noblemen of Flanders

were received at the court of the French king

they were shabbily asked to sit on wooden benches.

At which the gentlemen divested themselves of their coats,

folded and rolled up

those coats of velvet, brocade and ermine

and then sat on them as on cushions

which they left lying there after the assembly.

- ‘Oh, hello there, seigneurs flamands,

you’re forgetting your beautiful expensive coats!’

The Flemings shrugged their shoulders

and said: ‘French gentlemen, regard this

as a small present for your king.’

That was in the thirteenth century, people say.

Today you can hear at night

in the palaces of Brussels our seigneurs flamands

busy with their language conflict,

baiting, snarling, geo-politically opportune.

They grind their teeth

for they’re thinking of their voters

Ye, my lords, see what ye do

and so leave that drab jacket of de Voerstreek

lined with rancune,

sewn in impotence

woven in interests,

behind on the Walloon wooden bench.

A small present.

*De Voerstreek/Les Fourons [Fr.] is an area which is a symbol of the conflict between the Flemish and Walloon peoples.

Danish version of a poem by Eva Gerlach

SOM ALLE TING

“Sol qui illustras omnia solus”

(Bruno, Cantus Circaeus)

Hvad var det du sagde, noget om geddefiskeri
tidligt om morgenen i vinter da mørket
lukkede sig om dig og din far hver især
på knallerten, og hver hakkede
sin våge og du kastede din hvad for en stang,
med en eller anden slags krog, dit alt for lille
agn fra spanden: aldrig fanget
en eneste gedde. Fandtes der ikke en lampe,
hadde vi den ikke siden hen, sådan en
ståmodel, skjoldet metal, den ku’ også hænge.


At holde alt, alle ting i sine
tanker, tid og sted, substans, mængde
og beskaffenhed. At være en
gud som sætter det i bevægelse.
                 Undertiden så du én
hængende i dybden, med sådan en spids
snude som de nu engang har, grå pletter.

To see an English translation of this poem, go to here

Title poem of a collection by the Norwegian poet Thor Sørheim

HERON HEIGHTS

In the tops of the black alder trees the nests sway

like dark suns, on the edge sits the male heron

sharp as a dagger, keeping a watchful eye on rats and mice

creeping below in the marsh, the moss that crawls

over tree-trunks and stones, it is early

March, and suddenly wings unfold from the nest,

hoarse screeches creak like rotten trees, there is a smell

of bogwater, bird droppings and frogs, the heron gazes

fixedly at the dangers on the forest floor, it is still

so early on yet that a screech makes sense

for those guarding the eggs just a few metres

from the cars that change strategy twice a year,

and when the herons leave the nest in April

to stand motionless in the reeds before lunging for fish

they still have the heron heights close by, the place

where life begins hoarsely and secretly,

with a bird’s-eye view of the catch

and the certainty that danger is never over.

Poem by the Dutch poet Erik Menkveld

KEEP GROWING

Don’t bloody care, keep growing

up everywhere, filmy or knotted,

upright or skewed, to laws no

human can fathom. And the reasons?

To make lanes out of streets, villages

pricy and posh? To block the light or

view of the prettiest places?

OK, you can find one so splendid

on some winter’s day, hours later it still

stands out in the cyclist who saw it.

But close together they have

hardly a chance to command any attention.

Too old hat moreover

for stove or shipyard, they increasingly

get in the way. And that smidgen

of oxygen they are producing!

Yet never is the usefulness of

trees something you hear questioned.

They’re even grown to serve

as trays on people’s bureaus.

Poems from 17 and 19 September in Klaus Høeck's '1001 POEMS'

        and it was a great

relief to give the words back

        to their right source to

        their primary cause

nature perhaps or god (who

        knows) a relief to

        release them to set

them free like butterflies for

        a moment and then one

        self to remain be

hind in the empty poems

        and in the silence

        but i was not yet

strong enough to keep silent

        even silence de

        manded its own word

so i marshalled the words to

        gether in the po

        em once more like the

animals in the fields and

        birds in the air like

        the country swallows

that have alighted on this

        line of poetry