Page:Von Heidenstam - Sweden's laureate, selected poems of Verner von Heidenstam (1919).djvu/144

Aye, close to a cliff let our people stand
Where a fool his poor neck may shatter.
There are other things, men, to hold in your hand
Than a brim-full Egyptian platter.
It were better the plate should be split in two
Than that hearts should rot when still living.
That no race may be more great than you,—
That 's the goal, why count we the striving?

It were better to feel the avenger's might
Than that years unto naught should have hasted,
It were better our people should perish quite
And our fields and cities be wasted.
It is braver to take the dice's hap
Than to mope till our fire is expended;
It is finer to hear the bow-string snap
Than never the bow to have bended.

I wake in the night, but I hear no sound
Save the waters seething and churning.
Like a soldier of Judah, prone on the ground,
I could pray with passionate yearning.
I ask not years when the sun shines bright,
Nor for golden crops I importune.
Kind Fate, let the blazing thunderbolt smite
My people with years of misfortune!

Yea, smite us and lash us but into one,
And the bluest of springs will follow.
Ye smile, my folk, but with face as of stone,