Sweden's Laureate: Selected Poems of Verner von Heidenstam/A Day
A DAY.
With twinkling stars the sky is crowned,Although the peasant with his lightIs stumbling on his farm-yard round.Now to the woods with deep, soft soundGoes fluttering the Bird of Night.The cottage clock is striking five,The streak of morn is gleaming,The factory wheels are all alive,The fire and sparks are streaming.
To north, where pine- and fir-trees float,The earliest rays have hurriedTo tinge the heath. A cow-horn's noteAcross the smooth lake is carried.The beams now touch a pale white peak,Or on some torrent settleThat frozen hangs on ledges bleak.Above a Lapp's tent whirls the reek,And flames leap round his kettle.Out on the snow, with branching hornsHis deer stand in a ring there.No house, no tower yon land adorns.Nor is there bell to sing there.Night seethes around, an ocean vast.For all things come to night at last.
Thou sun, whose might bestowethOn each least plant a quickening dower, Grant us thy bright creative powerAs long as day still gloweth!Keen is our heart, but time is short.Oh, hark to our imploring,—Thou whom our fathers once would court,—On us thy radiance pouring.Go forth, go forth, thou new-born day,With morning-song and hammer-play.May dusk-fear come not o'er us!Kindle brave strife, our hearth-stone guard;Send, lightning-like, a spirit swordTo flash the road before us!Shine far across our folk and land,Make rich our soul, make firm our hand,So that with gladness we may bearSuch years as age shall bring,And still like sowers onward fareInto the world's new Spring!