THE BIRDS OF PASSAGE.
FROM THE SWEDISH.
Behold! the birds fly
From Gauthiod’s strand,
And seek with a sigh
Some far foreign land.
The sounds of their woe
With hollow winds blend:
“Where now must we go?
Our flight whither tend?”
’Tis thus unto heaven that their wailings ascend.
“The Scandian shore
We leave in despair,
Our days glided o’er
So blissfully there:
We there built our nest
Among bright blooming trees;
There rock’d us to rest
The balm-bearing breeze;
But now to far lands we must traverse the sea.
“With rose-crown all bright
On tresses of gold,
The midsummer night
It was sweet to behold:
The calm was so deep,
So lovely the ray,
We could not then sleep,
But were tranced by the spray,
Till wakened by beams from the bright car of day.
“The trees gently bent
O’er the plains in repose;
With dew-drops besprent
Was the tremulous rose;
The oaks now are bare;
The rose is no more;
The zephyr’s light air
Is exchanged for the roar
Of storms, and the May-fields have mantles of hoar.
“Then why do we stay
In the North, where the sun
More dimly each day
His brief course will run?
And why need we sigh—
We leave but a grave,
To cleave through the sky
On the wings which God gave;
Then, Ocean, we welcome the roar of thy wave!”
Of rest thus bereaved,
They soar in the air,
But soon are received
Into regions more fair;
Where elms gently shake
In the zephyr’s light play,
Where rivulets take
Among myrtles their way,
And the groves are resounding with Hope’s happy lay.
When earth’s joys are o’er
And the days darkly roll,
When autumn winds roar—
Weep not, O my soul!
Fair lands o’er the sea
For the birds brightly bloom;
A land smiles for thee,
Beyond the dark tomb,
Where beams never fading its beauties illume.
Anonymous Translation. Eric Johan Stagnelius, 1793–1823.