Animalistic Hymn

By Edith Södergran 1892–1923 Edith Sodergran

Translated from the Swedish by Brooklyn Copeland Read the translator's notes

The red sun rises

without intent

and shines the same on all of us.

We play like children under the sun.

One day, our ashes will scatter—

it doesn’t matter when.

Now the sun finds our innermost hearts,

fills us with oblivion

intense as the forest, winter and sea.

Source: Poetry (June 2011).