Your sweetheart forever leaving,
Friend, you swear me to love!..
And in lands of boring living
To preserve the pledge above!..
Outside our Denmark, happy,
Your dark shores lay in grief...
And the tide, enraged and gabby,
Washes tears on a reef...
Dressed not in the silk and silver,
My sweet hero will come back...
In the coffin just will shiver
Bands and feathers — black...
Разлучаясь с девой милой,
Друг, ты клялся мне любить!
Уезжая в край постылый,
Клятву данную хранить!..
Там, за Данией счастливой,
Берега твои во мгле…
Вал сердитый, говорливый
Моет слезы на скале…
Милый воин не вернется,
Весь одетый в серебро…
В гробе тяжко всколыхнется
Бант и черное перо…
«I’ll get me cap and jacket / me kitbag and I’ll pack it / and chuck it on me shoulder: / it’s great to be a soldier. Life’s all by easy stages — / no need for work or wages. / I’ll swing it like I told yer: / it’s great to be a soldier. And if you get the order / there...»
«Get up at the dawn's first glimmer / when the milkman’s on his rounds / and you'll see the happy drummer / with his drumsticks in his hands. Midday comes with reeking clamour / clanging trams and tramping feet: / hark — you’ll hear the happy drummer / marching, marching down the s...»
«Do not trust the disciples. They will betray the cause / They will break it apart, will take it, will make off with it / They will dishonour the spirit, they will bury the body / They will not suffer the bones to mourder at rest in the clay. Do not trust the disciples. Put them from you in pe...»
«Fears, jeers, tears / And all that caper / Aren't worth the ink / Aren't worth the paper. / Blots and smears / Aren’t worth the ink / Nor what gives off / A moral stink. / Go and write odes / Where "liberty" / Lamely rhymes / With "brotherly". / Go and write ballads / Whe...»