Thursday 14 June 2018

Hjálmar Jónsson - Selected Poems


John Brown Press of Kansas, U.S.A. have published a book of my English versions of poems by the nineteenth century Icelandic poet  Hjálmar Jónsson ("Bólu-Hjálmar", 1796-1875), edited by Ólafur Gunnarsson. In addition to introductions and the poems themselves, the book also contains an Afterword consisting of a new translation of a biographical essay on Hjálmar by the Icelandic statesman, politician and poet Hannes Hafstein (1861-1922).

From the book:

A stream I heard within a gorge
it rushed on loud, and said:
I never halt, for time is short
to reach the goal ahead.

Thus does time cry out to me:
Take care now and beware,
I wait a moment for nobody,
for no one I wait there.

Hurry now, as I flow free
I'll move you, bear you high:
out to the sea of eternity
swiftly I do fly. 

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