Herre, du har skabt os til dig, og vort hjerte er uroligt, indtil det finder hvile hos dig.
Lord, you have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.
(St Augustine, Confessions)
When I first started learning Danish last year and was looking for anything to help me, I stumbled across an eerily beautiful song called “Urolige Hjerte” by Kloster. Though all I could tell you about the song at the time was that it had something to do with hearts, I was drawn to the song from the start, finding it strangely comforting. Then I learnt that the song was a hymn by 19th-century Danish pastor, poet and educational philosopher N.F.S. Grundtvig. I’ve since written about Grundtvig on this blog and have had a wild stab at some translation of another of his texts. But all this time I’ve been working away at translating “Urolige Hjerte” into English, finding no other full translation of it anywhere online (only this paraphrase, which was still very helpful for some of Grundtvig’s trickier expressions.)
Thanks go to Mikael Rahbæk Andreasen of Kloster, both for first introducing me to this hymn and for giving generous help and guidance in the translation.
Restless Heart (Urolige Hjerte) – N.F.S. Grundtvig
Restless heart, what ails you?
What makes you feel so much pain?
Is He not your very good Father,
Who over everything reigns?
Does He not know your every thought?
Has He not counted the hairs on your head?
Has not He chosen you to be
His very closest friend?
And have you not that precious gift,
That rare, cherished hope?
Or don’t you remember your baptism waters,
And the words that Jesus spoke?
Words that only fit the ones
Who enter God’s heaven, true?
Weren’t the words He spoke to you,
“Peace be with you”?
What then, my soul, can harm you
When you’ve the peace of God?
God’s angels are all joyful,
Forever, on and on.
Will you not join the heavenly shout?
She holds wide the door, God’s loveliest bride.
Won’t you, joyful, come inside,
Embraced by their, “Welcome from God”?
The heavenly bride now enters;
She firmly takes her hold,
With all the bold ones, the warriors,
The ones who strive for their God.
Where the bride has her house, there God’s angels will be.
Where she dwells in stillness, there all worries will end.
There lives all our hope,
And our faith is firmly held.
Restless heart, hold fast:
Let the peace of God enclose you.
Soon all of our pain will dull
And fade away from view.
God’s peace is like a much-prized queen;
Who binds to her is truly wise,
And where she sits upon her throne
Is God’s paradise.
The Consolations of Writing 
Thank you so much for sharing this. The music itself is beautiful and very soothing. It is lovely to hear God’s praises in other languages and to realize that God is at work in our Christian brothers and sisters all around the world.
The translation you and your friend made is very pleasing and encouraging to read. I have noticed that in attempting to translate poetry that a sometimes impossible tension arises between trying to preserve both the meaning of the original writings and preserving the rhyme scheme. Not speaking any language beyond English, I nevertheless feel that you have walked this fine line with a high degree of literary excellence: the translation you and your friend so carefully crafted is easy to read yet retains a very pleasing poetic structure. Good on you! And your friend!
Keep up the good work!
Thankyou! You are very right about the tension that arises in translation. I once heard a poet define poetry as “that which is lost in translation”. Still, I felt like Grundtvig’s words were too beautiful not to be available in English. Thanks for your encouragement and I’m glad you enjoyed the music too!
I like that definition of poetry!