The Birds of Passage - Erik Johan Stagnelius

Behold! the birds fly 

From Gauthiod’s strand, 

And seek with a sigh 

Some far foreign land. 

The sounds of their woe 

With hollow winds blend: 

“Where now must we go?

Our flight whither tend?” 

’T is thus unto heaven that their wailings ascend. 

“The Scandian shore 

We leave in despair. 

Our days glided o’er 

So blissfully there; 

We there built our nest 

Among bright blooming trees, 

There rocked us to rest 

The balm-bearing breeze: — 

But now to far lands we must traverse the seas. 

“With rose-crown all bright 

On tresses of gold, 

The midsummer night 

It was sweet to behold; 

The calm was so deep, 

So lovely the ray, 

We could not then sleep. 

But were tranced on the spray, 

Till wakened by beams from the bright car of Day, 

“The trees gently bent 

O’er the plains in repose; 

With dew-drops besprent 

Was the tremulous rose: 

The oaks now are bare, 

The rose is no more; 

The zephyr’s light air 

Is exchanged for the roar 

Of storms, and the May-fields have mantles of hoar. 

“Then why do we stay 

In the North, where the sun 

More dimly each day 

His brief course will run? 

And why need we sigh? 

We leave but a grave, — 

To cleave through the sky 

On the wings which God gave; — 

Then, Ocean, be welcome the roar of thy wave!” 

Of rest thus bereaved. 

They soar in the air. 

But soon are received 

Into regions more fair; 

Where elms gently shake 

In the zephyr’s light play, 

Where rivulets take 

Among myrtles their way, 

And the groves are resounding with Hope’s happy lay 

When earth’s joys are o’er. 

And the days darkly roll. 

When autumn winds roar, — 

Weep not, O my soul ! 

Fair lands o’er the sea 

For the birds brightly bloom;

A land smiles for thee, 

Beyond the dark tomb, 

Where beams never fading its beauties illume!

---

Erik Johan Stagnelius (1793 - 1823) Sweden

Translator not stated

Source: The Poets And Poetry Of Europe by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1887