Sweden's Laureate: Selected Poems of Verner von Heidenstam/"Grant That We Die Young"
"GRANT THAT WE DIE YOUNG."
Give the full happiness our tongue
Would quaff, but only sips in stinted measure;
Pour us a brimming draught of pain, of pleasure,
And grant that we die young!
Would quaff, but only sips in stinted measure;
Pour us a brimming draught of pain, of pleasure,
And grant that we die young!
Man doth not ever find amid the grasses
A plant that wind and frost more quickly slay,
Nor doth he form a vessel out of clay
More brittle than himself—so soon he passes.
What though he build the structure stone by stone
Of all his knowledge, thought, and will, and yearning?
Ere on his grave the grass to green is turning
His crumbling temple unto dust is blown;
Like a dry branch the spire is overthrown.
A plant that wind and frost more quickly slay,
Nor doth he form a vessel out of clay
More brittle than himself—so soon he passes.
What though he build the structure stone by stone
Of all his knowledge, thought, and will, and yearning?
Ere on his grave the grass to green is turning
His crumbling temple unto dust is blown;
Like a dry branch the spire is overthrown.
'Tis day as yet, and joyful songs are sung
By temple maidens dancing on the mead.
When it is dark, then let us homeward speed;—
Oh, grant that we die young!
By temple maidens dancing on the mead.
When it is dark, then let us homeward speed;—
Oh, grant that we die young!