NEVER IS THE FOREST HAPPY AS NOW...

Never is the forest happy as now in sun and rain,
never so overflowing with delicate scents and glitter,
never so playfully consoling - only me it does not reach,
though I seek and pray. My pain is too bitter.

Drink, my eyes, gold lights I myself do not see.
Breathe deeply, my lungs, the wet moss's vapour.
I am a dead stone. Forget me, live for yourselves,
gather in golden chambers all that you can capture.

Inaccessible that room where day's harvest will ripen
soft with shimmers and scents and sighs. When the hour 
                                                           is here
a thickened splendour will burst its cell. Over me will pour
fresh and wild as a waterfall, pain's memory.

Translated into English by David McDuff in "Karin Boye: Complete poems".

Swedish original

For more information, please visit the website of David McDuff and his own pages with the translations.