Shroud your splendor! Spare my heart
this last trace of light!
Joy’s flash in clouds of dark
but crushes my fragile might!
This Now which you do brighten
will slay you — you, earth’s friend!
The dark hurries — death hastens —
no Almighty makes it end!
Shroud you now — O! shroud your glee.
Dilute it not with clouds of dun.
Wrapped in darkness I will weep,
to my beloved’s foes will run.
In a groundless gloom be gone
every glint that comforts me.
Merciless whirling storm
deafen my wretched scream!
—Johannes Ewald (18 November 1743 – 17 March 1781; born and died in
Copenhagen, Denmark.) Ewald has been called “Denmark’s greatest lyrical
poet” as well as “the first modern poet in Danish literature.”