Postcards from a Madman

Dreams in Hades: IV

I saw a sleeper’s
Chin uplifted
From which a black beard
O’er silent mail
Flowed soft and graceful,
Above the collar
Arose a visage
Proud and pale.

I saw a singer’s
Mournful forehead,
Dark hair encircling
The features all,
And vision-haunted
Were lips that erstwhile
Had sung perchance in
King Arthur’s hall.

I saw his death-dim
Eyes unclosing
To seek for some one
He found not there;
Once more they shut then,
And in that moment
The apparition
Dissolved in air.

But for long after
I heard soft accents
Telling melodious
The old sad tale,
A half-forgotten
Minstrel saga
From some far Irish
Or English dale.

Did I not love a maiden
Was kind and fair to see
Did I not sleep, and, dreaming, lay
My head upon her knee,
While the red sun behind the oaks
Was sinking mistily

And had I not a bridal night
Graced by the stars’ pale sheen,
While o’er us leafy branches waved
Their canopy of green,
And soft winds blew and wavelets beat
The reeds and rocks between

She gave me her husband’s royal
Gold chain, my heart knows how
She fitted it about my head
And wound it o’er my brow;
Her soul she gave, and for my sake
She broke her holy vow.

Long, long our eyes were forced to drink
Of bitter tears their fill,
What time with melancholy smile
We loved through good and ill,
We loved in sin and happiness,
In shame and joy loved still.

At length I heard a monkish voice
Proclaim with accents dread :
”Fair is this life to look upon,
The cheeks of love are red;
But now thy loved one’s hue is pale,
Osviva now is dead.

”Osviva now shall slumber
Full long in cold repose,
For slumber, dreams, and death at last,
All these she freely chose,
And unrepentant, never
To heaven her spirit goes.”

Monk, ’tis but tales and legends,
By fools alone ’tis said
That, till the latest autumn
Its latest leaf has shed,
The Great Deliverer visits not
The city of the dead.

Have ages sighed above my soul
Since I was dead and gone ?
I feel the day within me,
I know it soon will dawn,
And The Delivering Spirit
Will free us every one!

Like seas in motion
When the winds drive them,
Like a wave speeding,
The whisper went,
To tell of dawn in
The night of Hades,
A mystic message
Of wonderment.

Soon sank the murmur
Deep in the darkness,
Where on dream-pinions
My spirit soared,
Then the strange phantom
Rose again toward me,
I saw the vision,
I caught the word.

Over the features
Fell for a moment
A gleam of brighter
Light than before,
But it was soft as
A ray of moonlight
Falling from Life’s night
Through Hades door.

- Gustaf Fröding, translated.
Interpreted by Mando Diao on their new album “Infruset”