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Translated by William Sidney Walker
BRETHREN, join the social measure, | |
| Sing our sister-Danes beloved, | |
| While round each eye bedimmed with pleasure | |
| Swims the form his youth approved. | |
| And tell me not, that, cold to beauty, | 5 |
| Ye feel not yet her thrilling eye: | |
| The heart that ’s fit for friendship’s duty | |
| Is fit for gentle woman’s tie. | |
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| Hence away, the man who wringeth | |
| The soft heart on him bestowed; | 10 |
| Who, where love its fragrance flingeth, | |
| Turns to thorns the flowery road! | |
| And hence the man, whose faith is broken, | |
| Who loves not her he loved of old, | |
| Who coldly scorns affection’s token, | 15 |
| O, he will prove a friend as cold! | |
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| Glory to the spouse who traces | |
| Firm through sorrow’s rocky soil | |
| Him who shared her first embraces, | |
| Side by side, nor faints with toil! | 20 |
| The silent tear that darkly glances | |
| She kisses from him ere it fall, | |
| She shares each smile, each sweet enhances, | |
| His friend, his counsellor, his all. | |
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| Heaven’s own blessing rest upon her, | 25 |
| The nymph who wins without a wile, | |
| Her who turns a youth to honor | |
| By the magic of her smile! | |
| O, many a boy hath found in beauty | |
| His guardian power, his spirit’s aid; | 30 |
| How can he hate the paths of duty, | |
| Who loves them in his dearest maid? | |
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| Joy to him, the loved, the loving, | |
| To the husband and the friend! | |
| May they win their heart’s approving, | 35 |
| Who now in vain before her bend; | |
| May he who scorns the fair’s dominion | |
| Soon bow beneath her gentle chains; | |
| And Heaven’s own love, with fostering pinion, | |
| Watch ever o’er our sister-Danes! | 40 |
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