The eternal

Esaias Tegnér

A poem about the immutability and immortality of ideas

Well does the strong man with the sword shape his world,
Well fly as eagles his rumors;
But sometime the wandering sword is broken
And the eagles are felled in flight.
What violence may create is difficult and short,
It dies like a gale in the desert away.

But the truth lives. Among cars and swords
Calmly she stands with a beaming brow.
She leads through the night world
And still points to another.
The true is eternal: Around heaven and earth
To echo from generation to generation its words.

The right is eternal: Not rooted out there
From the earth its trampled lily.
Evil conquers the world in the end,
So can you the right however want.
Is it pursued except you with cunning and violence,
Its sanctuary it has in your breast hidden.

And the will, which was closed in lowly breasts,
Takes manhood, like God, and becomes action.
The right gets arms, the true gets voice,
And the peoples stand up for transformation.
The sacrifices you brought, the dangers you ran,
They rise like stars out of Lethe.

And the poem is not like the fragrance of flowers,
Who dyed the bow in clouds.
The beauty you create is more than dust,
And the age of its ankle renews.
The beautiful is eternal: With a happy memory
We fish its golden sand out of the wave of time.

So take all the truth, so dare all the right,
And form the beautiful with joy!
The three shall not die out among the seed of men,
And to them from the time we appeal.
What time gave you, may you give back,
Only the eternal lives in your heart yet.

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