I am broken, I am broken inside,
My soul swallowed by the Nordic sea.
When am I but to see the Northern Light;
Their lights are ahead, above me.
Who says I shan’t sing but shall here,
For singing and hearing are inseparable,
Like the lonely souls of aging and youth;
Whose ends stand irreplaceable.
Who says I shan’t read but shall hear,
For reading and hearing are the same,
And so are the poesy and prose within me;
They all see through me alike.
And who says love is of insipid youth,
Had I given thought to your love;
Whose songs make me but hungry again,
Suspicious about me, unlike the rose.
And who says love is a sordid poem,
A phony line any may have writ,
And who one like me has in her room,
One that has not much wit.
And who says ‘tis not my Helsinki,
Within too much of a single beat,
None is faster than my heartbeat,
To love once more, like young poetry.
And who says old Helsinki shan’t love,
He has had much to understand,
That love is in his hold beyond reason,
A reason I shall see again.
And who says my Helsinki shan’t live,
Within too much of a long sigh,
Pampered by the bread of cold nights,
Asleep by the cheerful Northern Lights.
And who says my Helsinki is cold,
All the evil within their bold,
Too much have I hated and cried,
Too much have I seen the worst night.
And who says my Helsinki is bare,
I like the cool and safe midnight air,
With the green and silver trees there,
I have no time to waste its fair.
And who says my Helsinki is there,
With no love nor tune to love me,
All poems are a secret flute,
An eternity that waives sick truths.
And who says my Helsinki is sick,
Like a word chain tame and meek,
That I shall kiss his lucky cheeks,
That I shall seek to love.
And who says my Helsinki is red,
The twisting end that shan’t be met,
Whose winter smells like a summer lily,
Whose lavender blooms like a rose.
And who says my Helsinki has sinned,
As a lover I shan’t have seen,
Who might you be as a true lover,
Who might you be to love me, better.
And who says my Helsinki is late,
All was too young to receive their fate;
A bud raised in the summery hate,
Too small to be, naughty to the moon.
And who says my Helsinki is old,
There was a reason to behold,
That once appeared and spread again,
That once loved, and demanded love.
And who says my Helsinki is wild,
To climb the cooling clouds too high,
Bewitching youth on a Northern night,
Funny and bewildering like a poem.
And who says my Helsinki befalls,
We all hate longed for fields of fall
And the invigorating rain’s song,
After a fairy heat, for long.
And who says my Helsinki loves worse,
None is worldly in the wind of words,
Nor shall any witness the fall of me,
The fading of youth, its sallow skin.
And who says my Helsinki shan’t read,
With a simmering false that cheats,
Who says such immature threat,
That rains raise in their odd feeling.
And who says my Helsinki shan’t say,
All is rain in the Nordic West,
And the love prisons who want to see,
Charms those who linger to stay.
And who says my Helsinki shall fail,
None is so lithe, nor a fallen ill,
None has its least of temperaments,
None can adjust, all shall leave.
And who says my Helsinki is dust,
For dirt and debt cometh from the sun,
Such like desire—and the worst of lust,
With a love come undone.
And who says my Helsinki is free,
Whose soul is not bound to be,
Whose charm is thin that all see,
Whose love is vague.
And who says my Helsinki is a dream,
But reality truer than its own self,
That such words of his are precious,
A letter to read, a canto to my love.
And who says my Helsinki is a verse,
But a story that has heard the worse,
And who shall dream of which and the sea,
Who shall dare to mention the sun.
And who says my Helsinki shall age,
But a wise forgiver to all sins,
That age itself seems foreign,
That love itself matures, hence.
And who says my Helsinki loved once,
But not a voice to love again;
That love itself seems to listen
That misery itself shall laugh.
And who says my Helsinki is trodden,
And who says within which is disgrace,
A passion for fire is who is evil,
Ill as daylight, and tormenting.
And who says my Helsinki but echoes,
Within such a world of failed heroes,
I have but to me my deranged throes,
Which love to lay low about me.
And who says my Helsinki shan’t reside,
Ever since, have not I held my sight
And raised again to the Sun Kingdom,
I might choose not to retell my poem.
And who says my Helsinki is pride,
This heart is too open and too wide,
But I shan’t live again on the English side,
Nor ponder the Yorkshire suburbs.
And who says my Helsinki shan’t tell,
Ever since, have I hated farewells
That longed to put their hands in my arms,
Lulled to the night by my poet’s charms.
And who says my Helsinki is a curse,
Since then, have I hated bad wills
As though I myself would not again feel;
Feel a starry night still to far away.
And who says my Helsinki is not me,
With all my tunes too rich for a single verse
That shall excite nor tune to me not,
You are not much dearer, but worse.
And who says my Helsinki shan’t dream?
For I writ much only of a dreamer,
A dreamer that bathes in solitude,
A dreamer that warms, one that charms.
And who says my Helsinki shan’t stay,
The world has grown out of its way,
That the evil sun has rinsed itself again
And shall slowly **** the cold days.
And who says my Helsinki is dry,
That in his life that lies in the sky
No warmth shall come to life,
With a heart that shall love us not.
And who says my Helsinki is shy,
Rules but its own magical, sour song,
Basked in its reserved poetic triumph;
Not much of its own soul, not the poem.
And who says my Helsinki is far,
Farthest from the poet’s closed heart,
And shall be awkward, should it remain;
Their hearts shan’t live to sicken again.
And who says my Helsinki isn’t fair,
With none but a wrong air to feel,
Not a heart, nor a hand that feels not
Life and love are dead in the cold.
And who says my Helsinki loves autumn,
That all is beautiful is left in town,
And they may die of ugliness,
That all wander on their own.
And who says my Helsinki loves winter,
With northern lights icy-clear,
With three rainbows drawing near,
With white and fierce snowstorms.
And who says my Helsinki loves summer,
With a love not from the heart,
With a word not from the poet,
With a spear that can hurt.
And who says my Helsinki loves spring,
Who shall be there but the poet to sing,
Like the chained melodies in her words,
The Christmas tales in her sweet worlds.
And who says my Helsinki but myself,
The paint and poet together at once,
That a word is so bright as its colour,
That the colour makes its hours light.
And who says my Helsinki but my heart,
Who shall open it a door to cold nights,
To the heart that yearns for cold rains,
To the soul that misses the clouds.
And who says my Helsinki but my art,
Who shall make it a comfort today,
For the words that are patiently passed,
For a promise that is never wrong.
And who says my Helsinki but my soul,
Who shall present it with joy tonight,
Who shall bring it life and thought,
Who shall cheer it, who shall love it.
And who says my Helsinki but my blood,
Who shall amend its present sight,
Who shall condemn all that’s amiss,
Who shall wed it, shall give it bliss.
And who says my Helsinki but my might,
And sends to me another silent poet,
The son of cold, the offspring of dark,
The child of solitude that embraces me.
And who says my Helsinki but my sight,
That all afternoons are a night triumph,
That all that is sick becomes my poem,
That all long nights become my lullaby.
And who says my Helsinki but my sigh,
That I can love on moaning nights,
That I am the chaste that shan’t hide;
To come and again, in an immortal light.
And who says my Helsinki but my light,
That I can stay versed in such frights,
That I shall stay stern and not wobble,
That I shall stay here, and adore still.
And who says my Helsinki, but my love,
All in my verses are a blessing,
All blessed be, an innocent King,
All a cold dark, a sweet morning.
