Friday 24 August 2012

Tor Jonsson (1916-1951) - a poet who wrote in Neo-Norwegian


Så stig da i meg, einsemd

Så stig da i meg, einsemd,
storm mitt jordlivs siste skanse
og øyd min tæringsdraum om lykke her.
Du avgrunnssvimre jord,
ver du ei onnor verd,
gjev all din løyndom
i denne gjennomlyste morgonstund,
i denne timen føre dødsens store dag
når einsemdrøysterropar meg attende
til atterføding or ein annan grunn.

No stormar all mi einsemd mot si grense.
Mitt liv var draum forytan dagklår visse
og difor eig eg ikkje jorda meir –
Men livet skal eg aldri, aldri, misse –


Then rise up in me, loneness

Then rise up in me, loneness,
storm my earth-life’s last entrenchment
and spill my wasting-dream of human bliss.
You chasm-dizzy earth,
be other world than this
tell all your secrets
in this transluscent dawn where light abounds
in this brief hour before death’s mighty day
when loneness’ voices call me back again
to birth anew and from some other ground.

Now all my loneness storms towards its limit.
My life-dream had no day-clear faith to fuse it
and therefore I no longer own the earth –
Life, though, I know I’ll never, never lose it –

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