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by Dag Hjalmar Agne Carl Hammarskjöld (1905 - 1961)
Translation by Leif Sjöberg (1925 - 2000)

Thus It Was
Language: English  after the Swedish (Svenska) 
I am being driven forward, into an unknown land.
The ground becomes harder, the air colder and sharper.
Touched by the wind from my unknown goal
strings are trembling in [their] waiting.
Still having questions I will arrive, 
where (the tone of) life dies away —
a clear simple note in the silence.
Smiling, candid, unbribable —
the body restrained and free.
A man who became what he could and was what he was —
always ready to gather everything in one simple sacrifice.
Tomorrow we will meet, death and I —
He will thrust his rapier into a man who is awake.
But how does not the memory of every moment 
that I wasted sting me.

Confirmed with Dag Hammarskjöld, Markings, trans. Leif Sjöberg and W.H. Auden., London : Faber and Faber, 1964


Text Authorship:

  • by Leif Sjöberg (1925 - 2000), "Thus It Was", subtitle: "1925-1930" [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

Based on:

  • a text in Swedish (Svenska) by Dag Hjalmar Agne Carl Hammarskjöld (1905 - 1961), appears in Vägmärken [text unavailable]
    • Go to the text page.

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: 2026-03-04
Line count: 15
Word count: 117

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