Page:Von Heidenstam - Sweden's laureate, selected poems of Verner von Heidenstam (1919).djvu/133

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Pilgrim's Yule Song
No man knows of
Him who strays from the phantom's place.

Never can I with my old delight
Speak of the hour that passes;
Thoughts will be groping day and night
Down in the deep crevasses,
Where no flickering
Torch gives other
Light than a subterranean glare.
Gaily bickering
Friend and brother
Never with me the board will share.

Screaming cranes have already flown.
Snow-flakes are deftly laying
Bolster and pillow on ledge and stone.
Windows, the huts betraying,
Shine forth clouded. A
Sparrow is winging
Toward the barn with its sheaves of wheat.
Evening-shrouded, a
Boy is singing
Yule-tide songs from his waggon-seat.

Voices of childhood years, toward you
Now through the snow I stumble;
But to my heart you have lost the clue
And in my ears but mumble.
Oh, ye cumberless,

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