Sthephan G. Stephansson Poetry
UNCEASING BATTLE
I
When the age of man first rose on the world
they met in the glow of the dawn
and marched at each other leading their fold
as enemies – yet as brothers were born.
The brothers were Hogni and Hedinn, to whom
all fortune and honour were granted –
to monsters and trolls they had meted out doom
and in warfare were equally skilled.
But strong-minded Hildur, who was Hogni's wife –
Hedinn abducted her and fled.
They met and fought for the cursed gold of the Rhine
in inescapable, ceaseless battle.
Close by in the daytime Hildur sat on a hill
watching the heroes falling and writhing
hacked down, when the sun set in the woods,
in heaps of corpses, all bloody.
At dawn when the sunbeams filled the valley with light
and coloured the mountaintops red,
she waded the bodies like a spectre of night
and woke up the corpses of dead.
Through the ages in unending battle they fight
for as long as the day and night end.
They battle in daytime and die by the night
until the doom of the world will descend.
II
In the world of men, advances and tenacity
mobilize for endless battle,
and brother inadvertently killed his brother –
then we all fight and slump down.
Advances are too instable and disruptive
to stay with steadfastness and keep it –
with their slavish tenants and their funds
they go to distant, unconquered lands.
But tenacity does not leave chaos to rest,
it follows behind for the fray –
our world and the sweep of our ideals will grow
if the battlers attack and defend.
And the battlefield is our own world
and as wide as the notion can fly.
And the task of the team that breaks free and defends
is finished when the generation falls.
And nature, the queen, does not flinch,
it shows no pity to men.
Though in the evenings the side falls down
the battle begins in the day.
Through the ages in unending battle they fight
for as long as the day and night end.
They battle in daytime and die by the night
until the doom of the world will descend.
Written in 1895
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