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    IDYLL

     
    Your voice and your footsteps fall soft as dew on my 
    working day.
    Where I sit there is spring in the air around me from your
    living warmth.
    You flower in my thought,  you flower in my blood, and I 
                                                  wonder only
    that my happy hands do not blossom into heavy roses.
    Now the space of the everyday closes around us two, like a 
                                                  soft, gentle mist.
    Are you afraid of becoming a prisoner, are you afraid of drowning in the greyness?
    Do not be afraid: in the everyday's innermost depth,
    in the heart of all life,
    there burns with quietly humming flames a deep, secret
    festival.
     
     

    Translated into English by David McDuff in "Karin Boye: Complete poems".

    Swedish original



    Copyright © 2005:
    Translation from Swedish into English: David McDuff
    Swedish original: Ulf Boye

    Published with the permission of:
    David McDuff, translation.
    Ulf Boye, copyright of the Swedish original.
    May and Hans Mehlin, Layout.

    For more information, please visit the website of David McDuff and his own pages with the translations.