Drowsy feather-grass. Beloved lowlands,
Wormwood fresh and of a leaden hue.
There's no other country that so wholly
Calms my soul and warms me through and through.
This would seem our common dispensation
And at one conclusion we arrive:
That, rejoicing, suffering and raging,
Still we feel it's good to be alive!
Magical, far-reaching is the moonlight.
Poplars whisper, willows sadly weep.
Land we love forever, life in tune with
Plaintive cranes that through blue heaven sweep.
And when life today is boldly throwing
On my fate a light unknown before,
I still feel that I remain the poet
Of the timber cottages of yore.
Every night I dream a confrontation
With a sturdy foe of stern design,
Alien youth come spreading innovation
In these fields and forest glades of mine.
Still, though novelty may cramp and crowd me,
My impassioned verses voice my cry:
In the homeland that I love allow me,
Ever loving, peacefully to die.