It’s that time of year when there’s a mere hour of dusk, and soon we’ll be in sunlight around the clock. Everything is blooming. Whenever you leave the house, you walk past flowers that emerged since yesterday. Why go to bed when it isn’t getting dark? It is glorious.
White nights have so many poems of their own. This one by Aaro Hellaakoski (1893–1952), Kesäyö (Summer Night), is from his collection Huojuvat Keulat (Swaying Prows), first published in 1946. Herbert Lomas translated some of Hellaakoski’s poems for Books from Finland, but not this one, as far as I know. So I had a go myself.
Jazz musician Heikki Sarmanto (b. 1939), set it to music for a whole album of Hellaakoski’s poems, Syksy ja muita lauluja (Autumn and Other Songs, 1976). If you want to find more music based on his poems, there’s plenty out there.
I found this one because we’re singing it. If you’re in Jyväskylä tonight, come and listen!
Translator, editor, writer, reader
found in translation 
I admire how you kept the alliteration form.
Thank you! It wouldn’t scan to sing to the same melody this way but I had to choose…