© by Karin Boye (1900 - 1941)
Translation by David McDuff (b. 1945)
The night's deep violoncello
Language: English after the Swedish (Svenska)
The night's deep violoncello hurls its dark rejoicing out across the expanses. The hazy images of things dissolve their form in floods of cosmic light. Swells, glowing long, wash in wave upon wave through night-blue eternity. You! You! You! Transfigured weightless matter, rhythm's blossoming foam, soaring, dizzying dream of dreams, blindingly white! I am a gull, and on resting, outstretched wings I drink sea-salt bliss far to the east of all I know, far to the west of all want, and brush against the world's heart - blindingly white!
Confirmed with David McDuff, karinboye.se/verk/dikter/dikter-mcduff/the-nights-deep-violoncello.shtml, Karin Boye Sällskapet
Text Authorship:
- by David McDuff (b. 1945), "The night's deep violoncello", appears in Karin Boye: Complete poems [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]
Based on:
- a text in Swedish (Svenska) by Karin Boye (1900 - 1941), "Nattens djupa violoncell", appears in För trädets skull, Bonniers, first published 1935, copyright ©
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
- [ None yet in the database ]
Researcher for this page: Joost van der Linden [Guest Editor]
This text was added to the website: 2026-01-14
Line count: 16
Word count: 88