Ode to Reykjavik
Your tongue belongs to you, o mysterious isle
It sets you apart, makes you seem serious
There is the basalt church which watches from on high
The perpetual days that you promise me
The flowers, and the trees, the cinnamon and the incense
A cold and gentle rain that awakens the senses
The foxes, the birds and lastly the horses
Know the dusky insomnia and daytime slumber
The young and the old both love to walk around
The new and the ancient cohabitate here everyday
The taxis which prowl in the midnight sun
The boys who play a game in the rain
The city of Reykjavik postpones the night
The rain your pitiless rain
The rain which would freeze the heart of a devil
There is the nightclub where you tell me
A story of a rakish blond who was covered in shame
There is the nightclub where you drink and you dance
Here the pure air makes distances deceptive
There is the picturesque square where you see the photos
The eyes of my eyes and the skin of my skin
The blonds and redheads, tall and beautiful like they should be
I see the traces of a people of a thundering race
Your houses painted with bright and ardent colors
Your Viking blood of which you are proud
Completes your joy like the music of a prayer
There is Laugavegur Road, avenue of souvenirs
You stretch out and you watch the tourists come
You live in a dream where I cannot be
And still a florist smiled at me through her window
It is you, Dawn, o cruel and bitter goddess
Without sleep you watch over this city by the sea
And you, seated on the chest of your lover
You beg him, your eyes on him, like a song
You repeated his name with tenderness and love
While I was watching day break
You, magnificent, glorious and ardent
You repeated that word with a fervent and soft voice
Hali
Hali
Hali
Hali
A word a name more precious than gold
You filled my heart with hope like Pandora’s box
And when you both had at last gone
I cried I cried for these two lovers
And your song echoed in my head in my heart
Louder than a beautiful hymn murmured by a choir
Hali
Hali
Hali
Hali
At a famous café I eat waffles – what a meal!
Before leaving I must do some shopping
You amaze me, little town, moreover you surprise me
I have no desire to leave you in haste
And if I return one day, will you accept me?
A poet whose language you do not know?
Where has the old gentleman from the beginning of summer
Gone who said hello and smiled at this foreigner?
You are large, little town and more beautiful than ever
It seems to me that you wanted to banish the night
But one day the night and its darkness will return
And you will fall asleep like the flower I have bought
I want to cry over the six months I have lost
I could have filled your bay with the tears I shed
I could have covered your mountains with a gray hopelessness
And melted your glacier with an unbelievably hateful fever
I say my farewell to the fire and ice of this isle
My heart henceforth filled with a feverish longing