Sthephan G. Stephansson Poetry

Wide, lovely, peaceful and quiet, fair-blue sea!
Without a hint of a wave
under the sun's cheek
it gently ebbed.

Calm sea, clear with sunshine, wraps the earth in its arms.
With a handshake it greets
the taut arc of the heavens
across island and fjord.

The merciful ocean quells zeal and reconciles.
And in peaceful meeting
along bays and sounds
three worlds intersect.

Strand and land rest their hands in your lap, sea,
mountains kneel in worship,
in blue veils they drape
the deep valleys' choir.

Written in 1897

Translated by Bernard Scudder.