To my country - Jens Immanuel Baggesen

Thou spot of earth, where from the breast of woe 

My eye first rose, and in the purple glow 

Of morning, and the dewy smile of love, 

Mark'd the first gleamings of the power above: 

Where, wondering at its birth, my spirit rose, 

Call'd forth from nothing by his word sublime, 

To run its mighty race of joys and woes, 

The proud coeval of immortal time: 

Thou spot unequal'd! where the thousand lyres 

Of spring first met me on her balmy gale, 

And my rapt fancy heard celestial choirs 

In the wild wood-notes and my mother's tale: 

Where my first trembling accents were address'd

To lisp the dear, the unforgotten name, 

And, clasp'd to mild affection's throbbing breast, 

My spirit caught from her the kindling flame: 

My country! have I found a spot of joy 

Through the wide precincts of the chequer'd earth 

So calm, so sweet, so guiltless of alloy, 

As thou art to his soul, whose best employ 

Is to recal the joys that bless' d his birth? 

Oh! nowhere blooms so bright the summer rose, 

As where youth cropt it from the valley's breast 

Oh! nowhere are the downs so soft as those 

That pillow'd infancy's unbroken rest. 

In vain the partial sun on other vales 

Pours liberal down a more exhaustless ray, 

And vermeil fruits, that blush along their dales, 

Mock the pale products of our scanty day; 

In vain, far distant from the land we love, 

The world's green breast soars higher to the sky; 

Oh! what were heaven itself, if lost above 

Were the dear memory of departed joy? 

Range ocean, melt in amorous forests dim, 

O'er icy peaks with sacred horror bend, 

View life in thousand forms, and hear the hymn 

Of love and joy from thousand hearts ascend, 

And trace each blessing, where round freedom's shrine 

Pure faith and equal laws their shadows twine: 

Yet, wheresoe'er thou roam'st, to lovelier things 

With mingled joy and grief thy spirit springs; 

And all bright Arno's pastoral lays of love 

Yield to the sports, where through the tangling grove 

The mimic falcon chased the little dove. 

Oh! what are Eloisa's bowers of cost, 

Match'd with the bush, where hid in berries white 

Mine arms around my infant love were cross'd? 

What Jura's peak, to that upon whose height 

I strove to grasp the moon, and where the flight 

Of my first thought was in my Maker lost? 

No! here — but here — in this lone paradise, 

Which Frederic, like the peaceful angel, gilds, 

Where my lov'd brethren mix in social ties 

From Norway's rocks to Holstein's golden fields; 

Oh, Denmark! in thy quiet lap reclined, 

The dazzling joys of varied earth forgot, 

I find the peace I strove in vain to find, 

The peace I never found where thou wert not. 

The countless wonders of my devious youth, 

The forms of early love, and early truth, 

Rise on my view, in memory's colours dress'd; 

And each lost angel smiles more lovingly, 

And every star, that cheer'd my early sky, 

Shines fairer in this happy port of rest! 

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Jens Immanuel Baggesen (1764 – 1826) Denmark

Translated by William Sidney Walker

Source: Poems, from the Danish selected by Andreas Andersen Feldborg and translated by William Sidney Walker, Thomas Dobson, 1815