Eliot:

The awful daring of a moment's surrender,
which an age of prudence could never retract,
by this, and this only, we have existed...

Kallocain , a strange, nightmarish novel of cells and staircases and corridors, is open to several interpretations. On one level, it may be read as a political satire in the tradition of Zamyatin's We or Huxley's Brave New World : it concerns events within a World State of the future, which resembles both the Third Reich of the Nazis and the Soviet Union of Stalin. A central role is played by a truth serum ('Kallocain ') invented by Leo Kall , a worker in a state chemical plant, who seeks to overthrow the state and the lies with which it has indoctrinated humanity. On another level, however, the novel may be read as a meditation on inwardness and confession, or 'breaking-open'. It contains many passages of extreme power and evocativeness, underscored by the eerie presence of wartime Sweden, with its military personnel on the streets, its whispered conversations held in fear of being overheard.

When it appeared in the autumn of 1940, Kallocain met with enthusiastic reviews. Artur Lundkvist declared that it was in 'the international class', while another critic called it 'a thoroughly thought-through, thoroughly felt, one might even say thoroughly suffered work of art.' The poet herself wrote to Ingeborg Holst on 23 January 1941:

You asked me how it (the novel) had gone and how it had been received. It has had consistently excellent reviews and has even come out in a second edition... All kinds of people, friends and strangers alike, have written and thanked me...

As Margit Abenius writes in her biography, both Kallocain and the poems of The Seven Deadly Sins should be seen as the fruits of the liberation experienced by Karin Boye when she perceived that 'our most intimate and most extreme problems are and remain problems of life-philosophy and faith': 'It was an image of man that was formed in her view of life - an image that had probably always been there in rough outline - a Spinozan image, in which mankind is a multiplicity of countless forces that strive towards the 'unity' which it reflects in its broken life-utterances. In 'Man's Multiplicity' the prophetess speaks as out of a dark Middle Ages:

We were born of mothers of heaven and earth
and of powers with no end in view,
nocturnal wills and wills of light
with names that no one knew.

May one of the many
not gain power over us,
though she be of heaven's race
and shine in magnificence.

In us a multiplicity lives.
It fumbles towards unity.
Its capturing, gathering burning­glass
we were born to be.

Great is man's striving,
great the goals it has set ­
but much greater is man himself
with roots in universal night.

So give, that we shield a secret room
and never a flame do lack
on the altar of an unknown god,
that may tomorrow wake.

The last year of Karin Boye's life was one of tragic contrasts, paradoxes and deepening insight. Realizing the depth of her love for Anita Nathorst , she also realized that that love could not be returned to her. In a letter to a friend, she wrote:

That not even the times and the decline of the West should prevent one from collapsing like a house of cards and burning like a piece of tinder and that when one finally attains something that has lain in one for twenty years, the person concerned is dying of cancer and sufficiently exposed to radium not to have a spark of sex left. We agreed that life is macabre in a way that no reforms can ever remove, macabre to its innermost kernel.

Yet this was also the year in which she visited Denmark, which was now under German occupation. Conscious of the propaganda value of cultural visits, the German authorities in Copenhagen had arranged for a delegation of German writers and poets to come and give readings there. No one attended them. Then the Danish cultural authorities invited a group of Swedish poets and writers, including Karin Boye , to take part in a 'Swedish week' in the Danish capital. Karin Boye was introduced to the Danish royal family, and Kallocain was written about enthusiastically in the Danish press. This visit was perhaps the nearest the poet ever came to a direct political action, and it also set the seal on her fame and international reputation. She is now considered one of the major Swedish poets of all time, in the same tradition as Viktor Rydberg , Gustaf Fröding and Vilhelm Ekelund . She was also a seminal influence on the development of Swedish modernism, in particular the generation of 1940's poets that included Gunnar Ekelöf , Harry Martinson, Erik Lindegren and Artur Lundkvist .

The inner conflicts that split Karin Boye and which were reflected in her tortured love relationships gained the upper hand over the artist in her. Inwardly doubting about Anita, whose move away from Alingsås to Malmö may not have been entirely for medical reasons, and deeply ambivalent about Margot Hanel , who was still completely emotionally dependent on her, Karin Boye succumbed to an access of despair. On 23 April 1941 she left the house at Alingsås and walked off into the surrounding countryside, taking only a bottle of sleeping tablets with her. Some days later, after a police search of the district that proved fruitless, she was found by a passer-by, dead from exposure. A month later, Margot Hanel gassed herself. Anita Nathorst died of cancer in August.

Clouds (1922)

CLOUDS

See the mighty clouds, whose distant lofty tops

proud, shimmering rise, white as white snow!

Calmly they glide on, at last in calm to die below,

slowly dissolving in a shower of cool drops.

Majestic clouds - smiling onward they go straight

through life, through death in brilliant sun,

in ether so clear and pure, dark care unknown,

with quiet and grand contempt for their fate.

Would I were granted, festively proud as those,

to climb where the bustle of worlds does not tread

and bear the sunlight's golden wreath around my head

no matter how angrily round me the storms' roar goes.

A BUDDHIST FANTASY

Unlocked is the world's copper gate.

High in its gate-vault here I stand,

and what I see is infinitely great,

and no sight is so without end.

However deep I look, however far,

my gaze receives no help beneath.

All that I know exists no more -

not great, not small - not life, not death.

One single step on pathways free,

and for me all return is closed...

Why do you quake? Up, follow me!

For the universe's copper gate is forced!

THE NIGHTJAR

Half awake the summer night broods

quietly on dreams that no one knows.

The tarns' glistening floods

reflect a twilight sky's

infinity, pale, morose,

Whiter grow the stars on high.

Afar, afar

the nightjar

sings alone her toneless, comfortless melody.

Never boldly, towards the heights she swings,

because of her lowness hovers low.

Downy twilight wings

seem bound to the earth,

by dust and soil weighed down below.

Woe to him whose wings in pair

cannot rise,

only linger,

helplessly drawn to the mud, whose colours they bear.

But the whitest of white among swans,

that travel in morning's bright space

their royal lanes,

never cherished a yearning

such as the nightjar has.

None has a longing so true

for the distant and far

as the nightjar

for the ever beckoning, ever yielding blue.

TO A SPHINX

You are like the mollusc in chilly ponds

where sunbeams never get.

She never creeps out from her shell,

her prison she cannot forget,

she can only hide

her deepest essence

and dream of exploits great

among the waterweed,

but never wholly

and undividedly

empty herself into word or deed.

With irony your speech full spills.

You try to cover

with pretended cold

life's warmth that inside dwells.

But your voice trembles,

is strangely weak,

A blush hovers

behind each pale cheek.

A sea of fire burns

in a secret place

that no one knows,

no one can trace.

You are too frail and too weak and tame

for all the discords that sever:

to wear armour you must endeavour

in life's hard-handed game.

You are like the mollusc in chilly ponds

that never creeps out of her shell,

so unattainable,

so incomprehensible,

that no one will near you, ever.

IDEA

Here I go not. This is not I.

This is a lying reflection alone,

asking, wondering where I have gone,

yearning one day to meet its reality.

The legend tells: far in a distant land

flows a mirroring flood from invisible source.

Thousands of beings, blessed, holy souls,

lean like lilies o'er the banks of sand.

Light without limit envelops their eye,

air trembles, sated by a beauty without like.

In this realm perfect spirits walk,

There stands in eternal light my true I.

The reflection is gone from the glittering surge.

It was once torn away by the angry stream,

wanders around, unreal as in a dream,

unfinished, broken, of itself in search,

Do I not hear the flood's waves far away?

Deep from my inmost depths its water flows.

There, where life's swell into day breaks and goes,

it waits for me concealed, my god-begotten I.

EVENING PRAYER

No time is like this one,

the evening's final, silent hour.

No sorrows burn any longer,

no voices crowd any more.

Then take now into your hands

this day that is past, like a token.

For I know: into good you will turn

what I have held or broken.

Evilly I think, evilly I act,

but all things you heal and cleanse.

My days then you transform

From gravel to precious stones.

You must lift, you must carry,

I can only leave all things behind.

Take me, lead me, be close to me!

Show me what you next may intend!

CROSSROADS

Candles I saw burning, yes, holy candles on the eternal                 

                                                                mountaintops.

Blessed ones walked there in a trembling mystic light,

radiant with God as with the sun the falling drops,

radiant with sleep in worlds where time was not.

Woe is me, my foot is too heavy for those giddying high paths,

woe is me, who was formed from clay and whose thought is steel and

                                                            stone!

Never will I find a place among those dreaming holy silent ones,

never will my head by seeing's halo be crowned.

You will I seek, my God, in the simple, the grey, despised,

you will I seek in the world, in the everyday's striving and

                                                     plight.

The sky's golden stillness, to which my heart aspired,

is it better than your labour, your holy, burning fight?

Lord, your bliss is yours. You gave, and you took,               

                                     and you hide yourself.

Give what you offer - not peace, but your fight, and             

                                     your spirit to fulfil.

Lord, on the world's battlefield like sword or bow I follow you.

Give me a throne, if you wish, or a cross, if you will!

THE BEST

The best that we possess,

we cannot give away.

we cannot write it either.

and neither can we say.

The best that is in your mind

no one can make unclean.

It shines there deep inside

for you and God alone.

It is the glory of our wealth

that no one else can gain it.

It is the torment of our poverty

that no one else can attain it.

MORNING SONG

This is life's silent hour,

sunny and blessed,

laughing white in power-conscious peace.

The rejoicing and the songs fell silent,

for Joy overflowed the shores.

Hail to you, Joy, Joy,

in your silent, vainglorious smile!

You alone can plumb

the secret of the worlds.

O bubbles, bubbles, o foam, foam

are all our care, all our grief,

yes foam on measureless expanses,

bubbles on the ocean

is that which we chase and cherish and fear,

but Joy, Joy is the world's foundation.

How do I dare...? And yet!

Do you think that life's flower,

carved a thousand times by suffering.

would continue in darkest darkness

to shine in beauty in spite of everything,

were not its root and heart

heavy, yes, brimful of bliss?

O bubbles, bubbles, o foam, foam

is all our pain, our blind grief.

Joy alone knows more than others.

Yes, in its holy white hours

rests in the leaves' quivering daylight

the reflection of godlike depths,

smiling, smiling.

Like tidal waves, like thunderclouds

day's care will soon envelop me.

Let me remember in tears and greyness,

that clarity's blinding moment

forced me to say to life and death,

to the whole world and even to myself:

'Amen, amen,

happen, then!'

EARLY SPRING

(A PAINTING IN PRE-RENAISSANCE)

A veil-light mist stands over the meadow,

and pearl-grey dew sprinkles pale leaves -

a spring morning, cool and melancholy-glad,

when airy flowers unfold from humid groves.

In the grass narcissi dully gleam in rows.

From fragile chalices a scent of spring spreads down,

when over them with dreamy gaze there goes

a noble boy from Arno's town.

A happiness of wonder rests upon his face.

His walk is full of awkward charm and pliancy.

A book he bears, as careful as a sage.

He scarce perceives the meadow's paradise,

but stares foreboding-pale as the spring day

at mysterious distance, hidden in morning haze.

A PAINTER'S WISH

I would like to paint a meagre fragment

of the shabbiest everyday, so worn and grey,

but radiant with that fire that made

the whole world leap from the Creator's hand.

I would like to show how what we disdain

is holy and deep and the Spirit's attire.

I would like to paint a wooden spoon in such a way

that people had an inkling of God!

TO AN UNKNOWN DESCENDANT

I broke my bread which others' hands had to bake,

and drank my wine, which I did not prepare.

Those who had the toil never got to taste

its fruit, before they trod on dark roads there.

What I have sown, tomorrow you will harvest.

Oh may my seed an hundredfold bear deep!

They bear delight, who bear others' burdens.

they harvest life, who others' harvests reap.

INWARDS

My God

and my truth

I saw

in a strange hour.

People's words

and commands were silent.

Good and evil

my soul forgot.

My God

and my truth

I drank

in the hour of my angxiety .

My God

was salt darkness,

my truth

hard metal.

Deeply I shook.

Naked I stood,

washed by waves

of cold truth,

cold, strong,

contemptuous truth -

my Truth

and my God.

BARE FROST

Gold and pale copper!  Hoar frost on fields of brown gold!

The wide and golden world is glittering cold.

Through the clouds I see rivers, of sun and gold they are made,

forcing through, laughing chill as their wills' sharpened blade.

Smiling, defiant, breaking forth through the spaces it goes,

sunbeam-yellow and frosty round meadows and fields it flows.

Hear, sound it acquires, and the clear expanses rejoice!

Hear how, to reply, the whole world receives a singing voice!

A thousand times beaten and sacked and put to the knife

defiant she sings the songs of eternal desire for life.

THE SPRING'S EXPECTANCY

Do I not walk here drunken with fragrance of roses

- yet no roses have come! -

Does not all tremble, wrapped in divine gossamer?

The reflected light whispers secret promises.

From far away a wind reached me lately,

light as a held-back breath,

full of a fragrance of shyly trembling expectancy.

Ever since then I have sensed a miracle.

I know nothing - walk as in a far-off land,

walk as in a dream, a dream of roses.

All is as before - yet all is changed.

Strange mystery over things!

WISH-NIGHT

If a star comes loose

and falls white through the air,

then, it is said, she answers our prayers, that reach

that short glimmering path.

I wait and wait. It is April,

a warm and sharp-eared night in April,

when the grass grows and the stars listen -

tonight they go so peacefully their way,

and not one trips and falls!

But if I fall asleep, it matters not at all:

if a star tears itself loose tonight,

then she must feel my prayer, where she descends,

even though I sleep -

for all the silent, silent night

all of wide, wide space

is completely full of my only wish!

O A BLADE...

O a blade,

yieldingly supple and strong,

o a lithely dancing blade,

proudly obeying the sternest law,

the rhythm's hard law in the steel -

o a blade

I would be in body and soul!

You I hate,

you my wretched willow-being,

you that twine, you that twist,

patiently obeying others' hands.

You I hate,

you my lazy dreamer-being.

You shall die.

Help me, my hatred, you sister of longing,

help me to become

a blade, yes a blade,

a dancing sword of hardened steel!

YOU

Cool is your voice as murmur of springs, and your being

tartly fresh as the autumn's fragrant fruits.

Clear in your eye rests

high September's chill merriment.

A fountain you are, whose sunnily glittering beam,

beautiful in its equilibrium, beautiful in its form-strict arc,

beautiful in its strength, possesses

the power to love limits and noble dimensions.

Hail to your playing calm, your springtime health!

Hail to your spirit's sweet, godlike nobility,

drawn in your features' purity

and the singing harmony of your limbs!

MORNING

When the morning's sun steals through the window-pane,

happy and cautious,

like a child who wants to surprise

early, early on a festive day -

then I stretch full of growing exultation

my open arms to the coming day -

for the day is you,

and the light is you,

the sun is you,

and the spring is you,

and all of beautiful, beautiful

waiting life is you!

DREAM

Twilight over an unknown path...

Colourless earth-plants,

great mushrooms

sprout from the ground, where sound is choked.

Winding naked trunks

stretch up and vanish in the darkness.

Hear the fearful roar up there,

that never falls silent!

Just now in the sun

I sang on flowering meadows

Pan, Pan, the great Pan.

Scornfully whisper now

the marshes' murmuring bubbles:

'Here in the forest of the secret depths,

here too is his dwelling!

Do you still dare to sing

Pan, the great Pan?'

Help, my foot is sinking!

Quagmire is the ground.

Brooding lurk

black waters, half in sleep,

unmoving, unfathomable,

in wait for me, their prey.

The snakelike trunks of the alders,

grown out of the wet marsh,

twist wailing this way and that.

Fear stretches from muddy water

hands, black and gnarled,

like the damp-dripping

rotten branches on which the moss grows.

Help, oh, help, what secret

depths, that desire me!

Yet - is that not the scent of flowers?

All around above dark marshes

buds gleam,

white buds -

oh, they unfold, they shimmeringly unfold!

My foot finds a hold among white chalices,

and over the depths moves a light -

the sweetest mocking smile.

Bow down, heart,

bow down and pray!

Here in the forest of the secret depths

I sing Pan

I sing trembling

Pan, Pan, the great Pan!

TO BEAUTY

When our gods fall

and we stand alone among wreckage,

as much without a hold for our feet any longer

as spheres in space -

then you are dimly seen for a moment, lofty Beauty.

Then, only then.

As stern as fire you speak consolation:

'Whatever else falls - I remain.'

O stay, stay, holy one,

and save my soul

from the falsehood of a measureless sorrow!

MEMORY

Quietly would I thank my fate:

never do I lose you entirely.

As a pearl grows in the mussel,

so within me

grows your dewy essence sweet.

If at last one day I forget you -

then you will be blood of my blood,

then you will be one with me -

may the gods grant that.

THE EXHORTATION

'Child!' said Life to me one day.

'How young you are! A little unripe fruit...

I want to teach you the adornment of youth:

modest discretion,

lowered eyes and quiet voice.

Go softly now - go on tiptoe over the meadows!

Silent, be silent - hold your breath and listen!

If Joy greets you, if Pain greets you,

don't make such a dreadful fuss (you usually do)!

Be infinitely quiet! Listen! Listen!

Then perhaps you will

find the way home to my rose-garden.'

RECOVERY

You who are called by the names of flowers,

now I want to give you another:

The Surgeon's Knife.

A cold, hard name.

But so gleamingly hard

is your image in the silent hours.

I am doomed when I see you,

doomed like one who is sick

before your health of springtime morning.

It is good that one suffers and sickens.

You are refreshingly free from mercy

towards torments of pathos.

Afar, afar you smile mysteriously.

I would breathe your lofty air.

I would tread those dewy paths

where you walk.

THE DOORS

I love those white mountains, the marble white

with foreheads rinsed by the heavens' high blue repose,

and the storming glitter of the salt sea,

and Doric temples, and thought's cool crystal.

But I have also lingered by doors left ajar

and seen inside, into sounding twilight depths,

where the shimmer of altar candles quietly rejoiced

in the face of trembling time, Advent,

while the winter morning stared dark through vaulted windows.

Those radiant saints, those who overcame,

could be sensed, blessed, beyond the darkness,

and God's yearners

bent their knees in prayer, lonely in their hosts,

and saw with closed eyes the Only One's brilliance,

the soul's innermost worlds,

and mystical truths they learned listening.

If you have ever listened near burning altar candles,

then you will never forget God's silent, blossoming gardens -

you will kiss the stone of the gate-arch and turn away.

White mountains, marble white in dazzling sun,

beloved, distantly-seen, my home in presentiment,

I come to you!

Life is to cut and to break so that something may grow.

Everyone is so many people,

but more than one road no one goes.

HOMELESS

To lose the soul's home and to wander far

and then be unable to find anything else,

and feel that one's forgotten what truth is,

and fancy one is made of nought but lies,

be sickened by oneself and hate oneself -

yes, that is easy, that is very easy.

Sorrow is easy, but joy is proud and hard,

for joy, it is the simplest thing of all.

But he that seeks for himself a home

must not believe that it exists just anywhere -

he must go wandering homeless for a time;

and he that's made of lies and would be well,

must hate himself until the day he knows

of truth what others as a gift receive.

What point is there in grieving so for it?

Wait then, my heart, and have some patience yet!

IF THIS LIFE IS THE ONLY ONE...

If this life is the only one...!

Oh, these short hours...

An hour - how much an hour can become!

Those deep springs where no one yet has drunk,

the light-expanses no one yet has fathomed,

And we, we dully doze in cowardice.

Oh, these short hours...

O world of hidden possibilities,

O God in the becoming,

give us an undaunted piety,

a pure will,

and initiate us to the adventure of the spirit!

SMALL THINGS

If you cannot manage one step more,

cannot lift your head,

if you are sinking wearily under hopeless greyness -

then be thankful for the kind, small things,

consoling, childish.

You have an apple in your pocket,

a book of stories there at home -

small, small things, despised

at the time, that radiated living

but gentle footholds during the dead hours.

SAVED

The world streams with dirt, emptiness fills it.

Wounds that the day made heal when evening is at hand.

Calm, calm, I lean my head

on a holy vision, your lingering memory.

Temple; refuge; purification;

my sanctuary!

On your steps saved from the darkness

secure as a child I fall asleep.

AWAKENING

Life acquires a different hue -

trembling, trembling it listens and is silent,

when like the shimmer from V„ttern's stone in the folktale

the thought of you from the depths

rises wholly through-annealing all the world.        

Newly-woken I see reality,

where aching dreams burdened me just now.

The air is living, life I breathe,

life from you, from you.

EXPLANATION

In your beauty submerged

I see life explained

and the dark riddle's answer

made plain.

In your beauty submerged

I want to say a prayer.

The world is holy,

for you are there.

Endless with brightness,

light-engorged,                    

I would die with you,

in your beauty submerged.

YOU ARE MY PUREST CONSOLATION

You are my purest consolation,

you are my firmest protection,

you are the best thing I have,

for nothing hurts like you.

No, nothing hurts like you.

You smart like ice and fire,

you cut like a steel my soul -

you are the best thing I have.

THE MAPLE

Hail to those warriors who bleed in the battles,

in spite of scars and wounds shining,

hail to their hard struggle,

hail to their dearly bought victories!

But O young tree, you blossoming maple,

you I love more than warriors' scars.

Your unacquired , happy nobility

is greater than their won battles.

Fresh in life's morning you sprouted from the earth,

fresh, fresh you grew calmly in sun and rain;

anguish you did not know, nor remorse,

nothing of all our sickness.

You blossom in gold and gold vine; in sighings you laugh,

when the wanderer kisses your trunk.

His kiss is a prayer to the eternal beauty

your lovely blossoms thought in the day.

Blessed be, blessed be, fair-growing maple!

You do not need the combatants' victories.

In you is the repose of lonely forests.

In you is sun of divinity.

DREAM VISION

Dream vision, dream vision,

sun-clear revelation,

lit for my gaze by a single

human creation,

dream vision, dream vision,

sweet among fighters maimed,

sweet in a torn-apart

world of pain.

dream of a race

growing forth through the ages,

proud people, who play their way to

victory in battles' rages,

flowerlike grown

unhesitatingly harmonious from each root,

trusting calmly in a holy

earth beneath each foot,

whose flesh is spirit,

whose spirit is flesh -

flowerlike grown

like a strange person I met.

THE GODS

The gods' chariots

do not shake the clouds,

they glide silently

forward like rays.

The gods' steps are

as hard to hear

as the grass's scarcely

perceived murmur.

Cautiously, cautiously

follow those paths

that smell of their

healing closeness.

Call no names!

They will fly, they will leave you

word-filled

in an empty world.

TO CAROLINA REDIVIVA

I see a glimpse of you,

O Carolina, my friend, behind the birch's frosty twigs,

quietest light falls on my road

like sun in mist.

Stern and distinguished

you are like one whom life has given a protecting armour,

but by a sceptical mildness's light

sprinkled over -

like an old man's

smile of light, light snow and autumn-gentle irony,

thoughtfully, with warmth and wisdom underneath

and inside meek humility.

ANXIETY

Deceit, deceit -

other was never my life.

All my shame,

pen, poor thing, write.

Write of roads far, far

from my truth away,

write of a wall round all that was best...

No, stay.

Threat of unfathomed darkness

fills my mind.

thunder-oppressive budding time

is still mine.

I want to be still,

wait and see a while,

wait for the sun,

softly smile.

What is happening in the darkness,

as I smile in vain?

Is my soul dying?

Will I never come home again?

God, God,

only keep secure

a glint of my intention

pure, pure!

VIA MEDIA

I once asked for joy without limits,

I once asked for sorrow, infinite as space.

I wonder if modesty grows with the years?

Fair, fair is joy, fair also is sorrow.

But fairest is to stand on pain's battlefield

with stilled mind and see that the sun is shining.

WINTER NIGHT

Sparkling creaking hard crust.

Lonely, lonely is the night sky over white roads.

I am filled with a angry thirst

for the winter sky.

Will you not soon leap up before my foot,

deep earth-cold water that sometimes chilled me,

O strong darkness that

my star conceals?

Then dizzyingly hard and pure

you will drown putrid lies as before you mercilessly did.

Where are you, bitter sea

of ice and truth?

SPELLBOUND

When you are gone, then wildly hungers my soul.

When you are near, I yearn even so -

in despair I see,

stiffened, closed,

how empty and vain

the minute flows.

Your being's proud, royal flower-scent fine

I would secretly drink, a holy wine -

but mortally heavy I stand

as in dreams,

with thirst like Tantalus'

in clear, bright streams.

In solitude's time my tongue has burned

to tell you the beautiful things I knew and dreamed -

but in your nearness

my thought drowses, dumb.

my gate is closed,

and my heart goes numb.

THE NAMELESS

Many things hurt that have no name.

Best to keep silent and accept all the same.

Much is secret, with danger obscure.

Best with respect and caution endure.

Best in the secret to firmly believe

And not to poke at the growing seeds.

'Here thought never went out searching.

All-mother, guide me with sure exhortation!'

Good to heed one's Mother's voice near -

wordless concern receives wordless cheer.

PRAY FOR ONE THING

Pray for one thing:

deep earnestness

- that which proved fatal to many -

But pray for one more thing more,

a thing that only the strong are granted:

taciturnity of heart.

  Hidden Lands (1924)

ELEMENTAL SPIRITS

We, we are older than you,

you earth's children, proud and young.

Chaos' age-old voice are we,

Chaos' formless song we sing.

We, we are wind, we are water,

we are clouds in flight,

lamenting softly, lamenting shyly

far through the black late autumn night.

We, we are falsehood and play,

with tears a restless, playing call.

The moon, our lord, stands piningly pale.

King Ves „ll , he attracts and bewitches us all.

Children of the earth - when the rain grows cruel,

hearths and bright homes you build.

A power you have that frightens us sore,

the hard steel in hands surely held.

Come, taste the pale enchanter's drink,

drink us out of the moon's bowl,

submerge yourselves in Chaos' formless power,

throw by the wayside your firm steel!

But to the sun in storming autumn

you build temples to shield against the night.

We seek woe like a drunken solace -

we are water, we are wind in flight!

THE THORN

Adeptly do you prick, thorn.

Well do you bite, cruel small arrows of the earth.

Slack, slow, carelessly heavy

my foot rests on the road.

Compelled harshly to tension,

when thorns sting,

my smarting foot flexes to run -

in flight onward it runs.

SUMMER DAY

The sea rests morning-still,

never does it seem to have had storms,

like a mighty spirit

sunnily morning-still,

heavy with devotion - light

with clarity's strength.

Sharply and exactly is mirrored

the cliffs' naked precipice.

Transparently simple

lie the wide depths.

Clear-lined,

light and pure all stands,

drawn surely in airy calm,

washed in the fragrance of salt.

Clear-lined,

even and pure, with thought alone

the day strides into the sky's light,

fine as a precious stone.

THE WAY HOME

I know a way that leads home.

It is hard to go that way.

Every traveller there grows poor

and small and ugly and grey.

I know a way that leads home.

That way is bare, pure-blown.

It is like leaning one's warm cheek

against unmerciful stone.

But he who has felt that stone

on his cheek's frozen blood,

will perceive how gentle its hardness is,

how faithful and firm and good.

And he will thank the stone

and the hardness love will he,

and praise the only battle

that was worth his victory.

TO THE SEA

O sea, sea,

how strong that drink you brew!

Your great cold

is holy purification clear.

Your light-embrace

is cool health for human children, for us who love healing.

For you, sea,

beaming soft, roaring hard

false, and faithful always,

are a beautiful simile for beautiful things:

for the bold heart's salt-foamed way in the world.

GUIDING PRINCIPLE

You my day! I do not want

to be only night, and hard dross, too -

for from your cheek spreads sweetly untouched

spring mornings' brilliance of dew.

You my sun! I do not want

to be only autumn and wind blowing cold -

for in your gaze smiled triumph-glad

blue crystal that spring skies hold.

You my peace! I do not want

to be only defiance, war's obstinacy -

for too young and budding golden

was the new life you gave to me.

THE STARS

Now it is over. Now I awake.

And it is calm and easy to go,

when there is nothing left to expect

and nothing to suffer any more.

Red gold yesterday, dry leaf today.

Tomorrow nothing will be there.

But stars burn silently all around

tonight in the sky as before.

Now I want to give myself away,

so I have not a fragment left.

Say, stars, will you receive

a soul of treasures bereft?

With you is freedom without flaw

in peace of far eternities.

He never heaven empty saw

who gave you his battle and dreams.

THE UNKNOWN ONE

I have never seen your healing hand.

You come in the dark, when no one knows.

I wait in silence and reliance shy

in loneliness.

You my sister and mother, you and I and not I,

your name is night, an enigma's dark sun,

I sense you immense and mighty and blind

and soundlessly dumb.

You know depths of horrors I have not seen,

I tremble to break your law's secret way,

But you know a solace mild denied to me

by sunbright day.

I have silently hidden in you my wound

and ached among thorns till my soul was bare.

In the darkness you touched the bush - it leapt

into wild roses there.

HAPPY HE THAT HAS GODS

Happy he that has gods,

he has a home.

Solace and a sure ground

are granted only by them.

Pledge yourself as a warrior

at an altar there.

Delivered is your soul

in the hour of prayer.

Rest there awaits you

only in battle's stress.

Only between the shields

is there rest.

Compulsion to shiny weapons,

peril and faith, as well -

then will a home be raised for you,

where you can dwell.

TO A POET

You knew, then...!

For had you not known,

you would never have been able to say such things.

Strange twilight joy, that you also knew

all this heavy grief.

Your lost friendship wanders through centuries.

It calms fever's fire.

And when I fall asleep consoled,

it feels as though you sat by my bed, like father,

                            and held my hand.

THE GREAT MULTITUDE

They have won. They rest. How their crowns shine.

Their long, long rest has no end.

They have tasted darkness.