Willful and cold my heart becamewhen I began longing for your caresses.My sisters have not yet feltthat I no longer look at them…I no longer speak to anybody…How often don’t I kissthe tiny kitten that sleeps near my breast.I’d want […]
Edith Södergran: Two Goddesses
When you saw the face of happiness you were disappointed:this sleeping woman with loose featureswas the most worshipped, the most mentioned,the least known of all goddesses,she who rules over tranquil oceans,blooming gardens, endless days of sunshine,and you decided never to […]
Edith Södergran: Do Not Let Your Pride Fall
Do not let your pride fall,don’t walk nakedto his arms in tenderness,walk rather away in tearsthat the world has never seenand never scorned. It was so easy and simple for pure childheartsto follow the trail of happiness,but our souls can […]
Edith Södergran: Evening
I don’t want to hear the sad legendthe forest tells.It whispers still between the conifers,it sighs yet between the leaves,yet long slides the shadows between the sinister trunks.Come out on the road. Nobody meets us there.The evening dreams pale red […]
Edith Södergran: The Foreign Lands
How my soul loves the foreign lands,as if it had no homeland.In distant countries stand the big rocksthat my thoughts linger on.It was a stranger who wrote the strange wordson the hard screen called my soul.Days and nights I lay […]
Edith Södergran: The Song on the Mountain
The sun went down over the foam of the sea and the beach sleptand up in the mountains someone was singing…When the words fell into the water they were dead…And the song disappeared behind the firs and the twilight led […]
Edith Södergran: The Low Beach
The light birds high in the airdon’t fly for me,but the heavy stones on the low beachrest for me.Long did I lay at the foot of the sinister mountainand listen to the wind’s commandin the strong branches of the fir. […]
Edith Södergran: The Mysterious Sea
In the depths glide strange fishes,unknown flowers shine on the beach;I have seen red and yellow and all other colours, –but the vast, vast sea is the most dangerous to behold,it makes me thirsty and awoken for waiting adventures:what happens […]
Edith Södergran: The Mourning Garden
Oh, to observe windowsand recall walls,that a garden can be knowingand a tree can turn around and ask:Who hasn’t come and what isn’t good,why is the emptiness heavy and says nothing?The bitter carnations stand close along the waywhere the darkness […]
Edith Södergran: Nordic Spring
All my castles in the air have melted like snow,all my dreams have flowed away like water,out of everything I have loved I have but little left;a blue sky and some pale stars.The wind passes quietly through the trees.The emptiness […]
Edith Södergran: Early Morning
The last stars of night shine faintly.I see them from my window. The sky is pale,you barely sense the day in the distance.A silence rests over the lake,a whisper lurks between the trees,my old garden listens absent-mindedlyto the breath of […]
Edith Södergran: We, Women
We, women, we’re so close to the brown earth.We ask the cuckoo what it expects of the spring,we embrace the naked trunk of the firand search for signs and advice in the sunset. I loved a man once, he believed […]
Edith Södergran: The Light Daughter of the Forest
Was it not yesterdaythe light daughter of the forest celebrated her weddingand everybody was so happy?She was the light bird and the bright spring,she was the hidden road and the laughing bush,she was the intoxicating, fearless summer night.She was immodest, […]
Edith Södergran: Joycat
I have a joycat in my arms,it purrs and spins the thread of joy.Joycat, my joycat,get me these things:get me a golden ringthat says I’m happy;get me a mirrorthat says I’m beautiful,get me a fanthat waves away my sinister thoughts.Joycat, my joycat,purr […]
Edith Södergran: In the Vast Forest
In the vast forest I long wandered lost,I sought the fairytales my childhood had heard. In the tall mountains I long wandered lost,I sought the dream-castles my youth had built. In my beloved’s garden I didn’t get lost,there sat the […]
Edith Södergran: Forest Darkness
In the melancholy forestlives a sick god.In the dark forest the flowers are paleand the birds shy.Why is the wind full of warning whispersand the road dark with sinister premonitions?In the shadow lies the sick godand dreams bad dreams…
Edith Södergran: The Path To Happiness
Nobody should understand itwhen the miraculous happens –there’s no road to happiness,nobody remembers a lucky paththat leads to the door of happiness. Oh, to chase the bird of happinessis to wander without pathsand to grasp without hands.To become king in […]
Edith Södergran: Words
Warm words, beautiful words, deep words…They’re like the scent of a flower in the nightthat you can’t see.Behind them lurks an empty space…Perhaps they are the curling smokefrom the warm hearth of love?
Edith Södergran: The Starry Night
Unnecessary suffering,unnecessary waiting,the world is as empty as your laughter.The stars are falling –cold and lovely night.Love smiles in its sleep,love dreams of eternity…Unnecessary fear, unnecessary pain,the world is less than nothing,down into the depths slides from the hand of […]
Edith Södergran: The Forest Lake
I was alone at the light beachnear the pale blue forest lake,a lone cloud floated in the sky,on the water a lone island.The ripened sweetness of summerwas dripping from every tree,down into my open heart rana tiny droplet.