Some poems of Nils Ferlin, Swedish poet and pessimist

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The excentric lord

It was the excentric lord,
who lived at the Midnight Hill,
- if you happen to know that mansion,
from north or south if you will.

In Africa - India - China
he stayed quite many years,
and when he came home to his own,
the rimfire colored his hairs.

A searcher he was, that'd looked
all over the spots of the Earth,
to find - what since long was known,
that all is just a nought.

He had this look that felt
so hopelessly lukewarm and stale;
but often nightly was litten
a pipe of opium.

It was the excentric lord,
one morning, 'fore the roaster'd waked,
in the token tree's shadow in the yard
he just exctinct his breath.

In springtime, when anemones awaken
and youth in the village feel joy,
in springtime it happened - but naked
the tree's branches stood 'gainst the sky...

It was the excentric lord,
he was measured by foot and inch
and taken to the graveyard
to get a sanctuarity -

In brooding mud of the dirth
he lies now, still and numb,
now he'll never more lit
a pipe of opium.

He rests like a bone in the earth
deep below the blue sky,
and the sun shines on the hill
and the sun shines in the village.

And swallows and seagulls are flying
like before of the shores of England,
and the bamboo scapes are singing
far away in Eastern land -

It was the excentric lord
that lived at the Midnight hill.
- A butcher bought the mansion
and built another floor.