Eino Leino: The Harp-of-the-Wind

Translated into English by Leevi Lehto (stressing the Finnish stress on the first syllable of words)

The others got heart, I got the harp.
They grieved, had fun, me not, me not.
O wretched me, can't live, nor part:
my heart throbs not, but tingles, and rings!

O dire fate, the hardest lot:
no peace grants the night, the day no less,
no mercy shows time, nor eternity:
just a jeering and tingling heart-less-ness.

My heart is a harp-of-the-wind, of-the-wind,
its strings are a seat for a ceaseless song,
when in night, and in day, alone, alone,
it sounds to the air, ever-shivering.

Here on earth so cursedly familiar
are the yards of the clouds, the huts of the winds.
No brothers nor sisters I ever can have:
As strange is my self, just tingles and rings!

And the winds of the sky their music they play!
Comes the Spring, then Fall, after Summer so short.
One after one, generations decaese:
just the harp stays back, to tingle, resound.

Lo! the Northern wind! How it storms! How it storms!
Then the Western again, so soothing and warm,
Now the Eastern harsh brings weepings long,
from the tingling, for me, not a fleeting rest.

A window is opened by a virgin cute.
The moon it is shining, of gold is her hair.
What is this tingling in night, so mute?
She listens, and listens, her hand to her heart.

She looks back to her lover from a time gone by. -
Just the harp-of-the-wind there, nothing more!
No soul does it have, nor sense, oh my!
never weeps it, nor laughs, just tingles and rings!

My country of birth, it will listen too -
wake up one day, and rattle its chains.
Is it time for the freedom, so fair and fine?
No, the harp-of-the wind just tingles and rings.

O bitterest curse, O the cruelest gods:
Being slave, I of freedom keep harping on,
without love, for its praise I sing my song,
being numb, I give rice to feelings, sense.