The most beautiful flower (Fegursta blómið) – ALBUM 2026
Translations
SIDE A
THE MOST BEAUTIFUL FLOWER
- PEOPLE STAND DEFENCELESS
People stand defenceless before love. (Salka Valka) - IN THE MORNING SHE LOOKED AT HIM
In the morning, she looked at him with her deep blue eyes—like a spring sky devoid of clouds, holding endless promise, yet expressing nothing that could be put into words. (World Light) - NOTHING ON EARTH IS AS WONDERFUL
Nothing on earth is as wonderful as true love […] in fine weather on a spring night, when the horses have fallen asleep in the meadows. (Salka Valka) - THIS IS WHAT IT MEANS TO BE IN LOVE
Whenever I see or hear something beautiful, I forgive everyone for everything… (World Light)
Love can also make people courteous. (Salka Valka)
The kind of love that demands nothing but beauty itself and lives in selfless adoration—like when he envisioned Guðrún of Grænhóll in the landscape—is a love that no disappointment can conquer… (World Light)
A longing to lose honour and happiness, body and soul—everything in a single instant—that is what it means to be in love. To sit on the steps outside a lover’s door unable to get in, to wander the city in the dark like a drunken whore in her despair—that is what it means to be in love… (The Great Weaver from Kashmir) - WAS THIS, PERHAPS, LIFE?
No one understands the heart—least of all the towering mountains, shrouded in mist or swirling gales, reigning god-like over this narrow strip of shore by the icy-cold green fjord. (Salka Valka)
Was this, perhaps, life: to have loved for one summer in one’s youth—without realizing it until it had passed—a few wet footprints on the floor […], the scent of a woman, soft, loving lips in the summer-night dusk, […] and then nothing more—gone. (World Light) - THE MOST BEAUTIFUL FLOWER
The most beautiful flower lives in a hidden place; few ever get to see it, and many overlook it; […] those who discover it will never see another flower again. One thinks of it all day long. One dreams of it while asleep. One dies with its name on one’s lips. (World Light)
-Halldór Kiljan Laxness (1902-1998)
SIDE B
1. AUTUMN DAYS DRAW NEAR
Autumn days now draw near,
twilight drapes the evening;
echoes of unwritten melodies,
a multitude of unsung notes.
Gentle autumn breezes play,
flowers have fallen into slumber,
a snowy crown adorns the peaks,
migratory birds glide past.
Wrapped in a gentle veil of silence,
the ancient land rests in repose;
the calm, mist-free ocean
kneels at the shore.
-Sæmundur G. Jóhannesson (b.1899)
2. SLEEP NOW
Now the little flowers slumber
through the bright July night;
growing on slender stems,
they gently sway their heads.
And the little bird rests in silence,
its head tucked beneath its wing,
dreaming of songs of sunshine
in its bed of moss.
A breeze sighs softly through the birch crown,
whispering its dreams in low tones.
Sleep, sleep. My blessed child.
In the morning, gentle and dear,
your eyes will smile brightly at me again.
Sleep, sleep. My blessed child.
-Margrét Jónsdóttir (1893-1971)
3. TIME AND WATER
Over the sleeping earth, I have borne the white tidings,
and my words fell into the ice-blue water like the rain of a spring night.
The sun, the sun was beside me like a slender woman in yellow shoes.
Upon a burning face falls the blue rain of the veil-winged days,
and time and water flow pathlessly toward depletion.
And time vanished like a tear falling upon a white hand—
flowing water, a towering blue day, a voiceless night.
Tonight I shall sleep beneath a seven-starred sky by the unfordable estuary;
I feel the resistance of time sinking powerlessly through the softness of the water.
I have made my resting place in the half-closed eye of eternity.
-Steinn Steinarr (excerpt) (1908-1958)
4. SPRING NIGHT
The blue June night enfolded the glaciers,
and silver-clear springs welled up from the earth.
We shared a spring that never fades away,
kindling its fires beyond the seas.
Long ago, we knew such a night,
and life still promises that same spring.
I can still go there to seek that fire,
and flowers still bloom in every footprint.
A blessing rests upon sea and countryside,
and bliss flows out to every fingertip.
Two silent souls pledge sacred vows,
and hearts comprehend every mystery.
And I can still go there to seek that fire;
long ago, we knew such a night.
-Davíð Stefánsson (excerpt) (1895-1964)
Helgi R. Ingvarsson 