Swedish Poetry 1
Anguish Anguish, anguish is my heritage, the woun
d of my throat, the cry of my heart in the world. Now the lathered sky congeals in the coarse hand of night; now the forests and the rigid heights rise barrenly against the dwarfed vault of the sky. How hard everything is how stiffened, black and silent! I grope about this darkened room, I feel the sharp edge of the cliff against my fingers, I tear my upstretched hands on frozen rags of clouds until they bleed. Oh, I tear my nails off my fingers, I tear my sore and aching hands on hills and darkened woods, on the black iron of sky and on the cold earth! Anguish, anguish is my heritage, the wound of my throat, the cry of my heart in the world. Pär Lagerkvist, from Ångest (Anguish), 1916 Translated by Frederic Fleisher SWEDISH POETRY 30