MY POOR YOUNG THING...
Afraid of the dark, my poor young thing, who met spirits of another kind, among the white-clad ever noticing others of evil mind, now I want to sing gentle songs to you, they deliver from fear, cramp, coercion rude. They do not ask that the evil should rue, They do not ask for the fight of the good.
Then you shall know that all that lives deep inside is of the same kind. As trees and plants it can grow hesitantly, by its own law upwards inclined. And trees may be felled and flowers be broken and branches die with their strength dried up, but the dream is concealed - wills to be awoken - in every living drop of sap.
Translated
into English by David McDuff in "Karin Boye: Complete poems".
Swedish original
Copyright © 2005:
Translation from Swedish into English: David McDuff
Published with the permission of:
David McDuff, translation.
May and Hans Mehlin, Layout.
For more information, please visit the website
of David McDuff and his
own pages with the translations.
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