LATE ARRIVAL ON EARTH
(1932)
FERRYMAN'S SONG (1941)
NON SERVIAM (1945)
STROUNTES (1955)
GUIDE TO THE
UNDERWORLD (1967)
Non serviam
I am a stranger in this land
but this land is no stranger in me!
I am not at home in this land
but this land behaves as if it where at home in me!
My blood can never be diluted
a tumbler-full in my veins!
And always the Jew, the Lapp, the artist in me
will seek his blood-brother: search the scriptures
make a detour around the desert’s sacred stones
in silent respect for something forgotten
sing in the wind: Savage! Nigger! -
butt against and cry to the stones: Jew! Nigger! -
beyond the law and under the law:
trapped in theirs, the whites, and still
- praise be my law – in mine!
So I have become a stranger in this very land
but this land has make itself cozy in me!
I cannot live in this land
but this very land lives like venom in me!
Once, in the short mild
the poor hours’ wild Sweden
there was my land! It was everywhere!
Here, in the long, well-fed hours’
over-furnished Sweden
where everything is closed for draughts… it is cold to me.
Songs of something else. Selected poems by Gunnar Ekelöf translated by L. Nathan & J. Larson. Princeton, 1982, p. 67
