Jens Bjørneboe: Ballad of Hiroshima Town

Jens Bjørneboe
Ballad of Hiroshima Town (From The Bird-Lovers)
Translated by Esther Greenleaf Mürer


It was a lovely morning
In Hiroshima town,
One summer morn in nineteen five and forty.
And the sun, how bright it shone
From a sky without a cloud,
One summer morn in nineteen five and forty.

The little girls they played
‘Neath the trees and on the grass,
And everything they did just like the big ones.
They dressed their dollies up
And they washed their dollies’ dresses
And the women sliced the bread back in the kitchen.

And there were many children
Yet lying in their beds,
For this was still an early morning hour,
And the dew lay on the meadow
In the lovely slanting sunlight
And the crowns had barely opened on the flowers.

It was a lovely morning
In Hiroshima town,
One summer morn in nineteen five and forty.
And the sun, how bright it shone
From a sky without a cloud,
That summer morn in nineteen five and forty.

--
Jens Bjørneboe, Samlede Dikt, 1995 ed, p 150f (Fugleelskerne, 1966)
©1977, 1995 by Gyldendal Norsk Forlag. English translation ©1997 by Esther Greenleaf Mürer