LATE ARRIVAL ON EARTH
(1932)
FERRYMAN'S SONG (1941)
NON SERVIAM (1945)
STROUNTES (1955)
GUIDE TO THE
UNDERWORLD (1967)
5.
”Give me poison to die or dreams to live” – Just now
more than dreams to live I want poison to die
Captain without crew, for they all
have eaten of the lotus, turned to swine I refuse to command –
Alone, exhausted steersman, -I too was driven ashore
On a beach strange to me, with these corpses as carco
Give me water! I have had nothing but brine
Give me the magic water that will wash away the blood
Give me back the island where I was sunk in dreams
There I walked under freedom’s yoke, in golden reins
He who has once been stranded in its sucking cleft
doesn’t struggle with the rudder, hasn’t hands to sail
What he must do is teach them to caress –
Like the prince who once dipped his head in a spring
for one momont felt the vertiginous welling of time
back in Time, 1001 years back, I see you mirror
yourself in your glance that is mine. So have I been stranded
with the Nymph who gives poison to die or dreams to live
With no chart, with no stars, with and against currents
I have oncee been stranded on the island of the red-blonde nymph.
Gunnar Ekelöf: Guide to the Underworld. Rendered from the swedish by Rika Lesser. The University of Massachusetts press, Amherst, 1980, p. 11
