The absent-minded traveler

Have a translation. Roland Holst was one of the poets in the Dutch Neoromantic movement of the first half of the twentieth century, of which some of the other notable names are Bloem and Slauerhoff. Characteristic of this movement is the combination of a masterfully controlled, almost precious usage of traditional poetic forms, and a Romantic yearning for the elsewhere and the unbound life.

Much of Holst's work uses a complicated and very personal code of symbolism, but the poem translated beneath is in a fairly direct style somewhat uncommon for him. It is among his better known.

I have slightly changed the sense in parts in order to keep the rhyme: most notably I have made ‘the wild wind’ out of ’the wind’. In Dutch, as in German, wind and child (kind) rhyme with each other, and these words and their rhyme repeat throughout the poem.

Link to the poem in Dutch.

Wanderer’s love

Let us be kind to one another, child -
For oh, the measurelessness that the wind
Blows over our travel-weary limbs
Under the stars of emptiness and wild.

Oh, let us be kind, and let us not
Pronounce the proud and mighty word of love,
For many hearts have had to break thereof
Under the wind with helpless grief distraught.

We are but as the leaves that in the wild
Wind rustle at the edge of the old wood,
And all things are uncertain, and how should
We know what but the wind knows, child -

And let us now because we are alone
Incline our heads towards each other, knowing
And share our silence while the wind is blowing
And within a last dream become one.

Much love has been lost when the wind blows wild
And what the wind wants we will never know;
And - before we forget one another - so,
Let us be kind to one another, child.

This is my singable translation of the song Zeur niet! (Don’t complain!) by Annie M. G. Schmidt, set to music by Harry Bannink.
Annie M. G. Schmidt (1911-1995) was a Dutch writer whose children’s books are still very well known. Her work for adults is a lot less known these days and often discounted, but at her best it’s brilliant, combining an undauntable sense of humor, a somewhat world-weary compassion, and absolutely scathing social commentary.
This song lists some things she’d prefer you do instead of complaining, and some of the reasons one might have for wanting to complain nevertheless. It is, I’m afraid, one of the things that give the best sense of who the Dutch are as a people: I’ve long wanted to be able to show it to non-Dutch speakers. The version linked is sung by Conny Stuart, one of the greats of Dutch song and a long-time interpreter of Schmidt.
The translation is, as per usual when I do these things, a compromise: it mostly rhymes, it mostly fits the tune, and it mostly makes sense. I hope you enjoy it nevertheless.

Connie sings for you

( Don't complain... )