Janssen, "Autumn Song"

I met with no one on the long way home
The evenings grow cold and stretch far ahead
Come comfort me a little for I am tired now
And suddenly so dreadfully alone.
I never saw before that the darkness is so vast,
I walk and think of all those things I ought
There are so many things I should have said and done
And there’s so very little that I did

Hurry, beloved; hurry to love
The days are darker for every minute
Light our candles; night is close:
The flowering summer soon will be gone

I’m looking for something perhaps we’ve forgotten
which you might help me to find
One summer passes, and it’s always just as brief
It’s the dream of what we could have gained.
Perhaps you will come some time before the dusk grows blue
before the meadows are dry and empty
Perhaps we’ll find each other perhaps we’ll find then
a way to make everything flower

Hurry, beloved; hurry to love
The days are darker for every minute
Light our candles; night is close:
The flowering summer soon will be gone

The storm out there has slammed the summer’s door
It’s too late now to wonder and too late to search
Perhaps I love you less than I did before
But more than you will ever know
Now we see all the lighthouses down the long coast of autumn
and hear the lost waves wander
One thing only matters and that’s the heart’s desire
And to be together with one another.
Hurry, beloved; hurry to love
The days are darker for every minute
Light our candles; night is close:
The flowering summer soon will be gone

Tove Janssen

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