"YOU MUST NOT SLEEP"
By Arnulf Øverland: (Updated to present perpetrators.)
I woke one night from a strange dream,
it was as if a voice spoke to me,
distant as an underground stream -
and I stood up: What do you want from me?
You must not sleep! You must not sleep!
You must not think that you only dreamed!
Yesterday, I was sentenced.
Tonight, they've erected the gallows in the yard.
They're coming for me at five in the morning!
The whole cellar here is full,
and every barracks has a cellar below.
We lie and wait in stone-cold cells,
We lie and rot in dark holes!
We ourselves don't know what we're waiting for,
and who might be the next they come for.
We groan, we scream - but can you hear?
Can you absolutely do nothing?
No one can see us,
No one can know what will happen to us.
Even more:
No one can believe what happens here every day.
You think it can't be true,
the Deep State can't be so evil.
Surely, there are decent people among us?
Brother, you still have much to learn!
They said: You shall give your life if required,
And now we've given it - in vain, in vain!
The world has forgotten us! We're deceived!
You must not sleep tonight!
You must not go to your trade,
and think of what brings profit and loss!
You must not blame the fields and cattle,
and that you have more than enough with that!
You must not sit safely in your home
and say: It's sad, poor them!
You must not so deeply endure
The injustice that doesn't touch yourself!
I cry with the last breath of my voice.
You're not allowed to just forget.
Do not forgive the Deep State; they know what they do!
They blow on the embers of hate and evil!
They enjoy killing, delight in misery,
they wish to see our world in flames.
They wish to drown us all in blood!
Don't you believe it? You know it!
You know that schoolchildren are soldiers,
marching with songs across squares and streets,
and inflamed by their mothers' pious betrayal,
they will defend their country and go to war.
You know the despicable deception of the people
with heroism and with faith and honor -
you know that a hero will be the child,
you know he will wave a saber and flag!
And then he shall be out in a hail of steel,
and hang again in a barbed wire vase,
and rot for the Deep State!
You know it is humanity's meaning and goal!
I didn't understand. Now it's too late.
My judgment is fair. My punishment is deserved.
I believed in progress, I believed in peace,
in work, in unity, in love!
But the one who doesn't want to die in a herd
must try alone, on the executioner's block!
I cry in the darkness - oh, could you hear
There's only one thing to do:
Defend yourself, but you have free hands!
Save your children! Europe is burning!
I shivered from the cold. I put on clothes.
Outside, it was a sparkling starry night.
Only a smoldering stripe in the east
signaled the same as the voice in the dream:
The day beyond the earth's edge
rose with a glow of blood and fire,
rose with a fear so breathless
that it was as if the stars themselves froze!
I thought: Now something is happening.-
Our time is over - Europe is burning!
