Odalbonden

On a mountainous ridge, there stands my house,
High above forest and lake.
There I saw the first light of day,
And there I will also die.

May anyone who wants to, go around the world:
be lord and servant to him who can!
But I prefer to stand on my own ground
and I prefer to be my own man.

I am not attracted by the name of honour.
However, she lives in my chest.
My harvest does not grow in the arms of rumour.
I cut it calmly every autumn.

He who masters the earth has a thousand legs
and a thousand arms besides.
But they are hard to move - my arm is not late
to bring out what I want.

I do not believe the false race of the wave,
who go without rest.
The solid earth, she is my hope,
she shows eternal faith.

She feeds me from her hollow bosom
the time that fate gave me.
I'm sure she gets me, she keeps me warm,
when I die, in a deep grave.

I don't love noise and banging.
What great things happen, they happen quietly.
Soon there will be no trace of the storm,
of the lightning, then it shone.

But quietly time adds moment to moment,
and yet thou dost not count his days.
And silently the bellow flows in the bottom of the sea;
though the rain stream's braying father.

So I too walk a quiet path:
I am not much questioned.
And my brothers resemble me,
each one up on his place.

We will find for the country the nourishing juice.
We feed it - the bread is ours.
Of us it has health, of us it has power,
and bleeds it - the blood is ours.

Each plague has its own cry,
but health remains silent;
therefore I am not spoken of,
as if I did not exist.

The mighty hosts with shouts and with roars
overthrow kingdoms and villages;
quietly build them the farmer and his son,
as so in blood-stained mush.

To me much learning is not heavy,
I only know where mine is.
What is right, I give to God and King
and enjoy the rest freely.

The learned, the rich, they break their wits
to know whose right is good.
I'm clean is the right that you've earned with your sweat
...and which they have protected with their blood.

I do not walk steadily around the cottage;
for it warms my heart,
I walk up to Svea ting
with the shield on my arm.

With many words our lawman does not speak
for the King in general.
But strongly is the almighty's yes or no
under the rattling of weapons.

And if to war one must make an appeal,
we'll get out of the yard:
where the king places his banner,
where the battle hits hard.

For the beloved panther in mother's arms,
for fathers, for homes we fight.
And do not know our obscure name,
Swedes know us.

- - -

So singing happily by the crackling stove
in the cold winter evening
the old man up on the farm
with sons his' in his tent.

He sits tending to the staff of his age.
May his lineage not in Sweden see an end!
Well the farmer's memory is sunk into the grave;
but his work lasts forever.

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