WELCOME AND FAREWELL
(1771; 1789)
My heart beat fast, a horse! away!
Quicker than thought I am astride,
Earth now lulled by end of day,
Night hovering on the mountainside.
A robe of mist around him flung,
The oak a towering giant stood,
A hundred eyes of jet had sprung
From darkness in the bushy wood.
Atop a hill of cloud the moon
Shed piteous glimmers through the mist,
Softly the wind took flight, and soon
With horrible wings around me hissed.
Night made a thousand ghouls respire,
Of what I felt, a thousandth part—
My mind, what a consuming fire!
What a glow was in my heart!
You I saw, your look replied,
Your sweet felicity, my own,
My heart was with you, at your side,
I breathed for you, for you alone.
A blush was there, as if your face
A rosy hue of Spring had caught,
For me—ye gods!—this tenderness!
I hoped, and I deserved it not.
Yet soon the morning sun was there,
My heart, ah, shrank as leave I took:
How rapturous your kisses were,
What anguish then was in your look!
I left, you stood with downcast eyes,
In tears you saw me riding off:
Yet, to be loved, what happiness!
What happiness, ye gods, to love!
ROSEBUD IN THE HEATHER
(1771)
Urchin saw a rose—a dear
Rosebud in the heather.
Fresh as dawn and morning-clear;
Ran up quick and stooped to peer,
Took his fill of pleasure,
Rosebud, rosebud, rosebud red,
Rosebud in the heather.
Urchin blurts: “I’ll pick you, though,
Rosebud in the heather!”
Rosebud: “Then I’ll stick you so
That there’s no forgetting, no!
I’ll not stand it, ever!”
Rosebud, rosebud, rosebud red,
Rosebud in the heather.
But the wild young fellow’s torn
Rosebud from the heather.
Rose, she pricks him with her thorn;
Should she plead, or cry forlorn?
Makes no difference whether.
Rosebud, rosebud, rosebud red,
Rosebud in the heather.
PROMETHEUS
(1773)
Cover your heaven, Zeus,
With cloudy vapors
And like a boy
Beheading thistles
Practice on oaks and mountain peaks—
Still you must leave
My earth intact
And my small hovel, which you did not build,
And this my hearth
Whose glowing heat
You envy me.
I know of nothing more wretched
Under the sun than you gods!
Meagerly you nourish
Your majesty
On dues of sacrifice
And breath of prayer
And would suffer want
But for children and beggars,
Poor hopeful fools.
Once too, a child,
Not knowing where to turn,
I raised bewildered eyes
Up to the sun, as if above there were
An ear to hear my complaint,
A heart like mine
To take pity on the oppressed.
Who helped me
Against the Titans’ arrogance?
Who rescued me from death,
From slavery?
Did not my holy and glowing heart,
Unaided, accomplish all?
And did it not, young and good,
Cheated, glow thankfulness
For its safety to him, to the sleeper above?
I pay homage to you? For what?
Have you ever relieved
The burdened man’s anguish?
Have you ever assuaged
The frightened man’s tears?
Was it not omnipotent Time
And eternal Fate,
My masters and yours?
Or did you think perhaps
That I should hate this life,
Flee into deserts
Because not all
The blossoms of dream grew ripe?
Here I sit, forming men
In my image,
A race to resemble me:
To suffer, to weep,
To enjoy, to be glad—
And never to heed you,
Like me!
IN COURT
(C. 1774–75)
Who gave it me, I shall not tell,
The child I’ve got in me;
Call me a whore, if you like, and spit:
I’m an honest woman, see?
He’s good and kind, I’ll not say who,
My sweetheart that I wed,
A chain of gold on his neck he wears
And a straw hat on his head.
Chuckle and scorn to your heart’s content,
I’ll take the scorn from you;
I know him well, he knows me well,
God knows about us, too.
Lay off me, folks, you, reverend,
You, officer of the laws!
It is my child, it stays my child,
And it’s no concern of yours.
(1775)
And fresh nourishment, new blood
I suck from a world so free;
Nature, how gracious and how good,
Her breast she gives to me.
The ripples buoying up our boat
Keep rhythm to the oars,
And mountains up to heaven float
In cloud to meet our course.
Eyes, my eyes, why abject now?
Golden dreams, are you returning?
Dream, though gold, away with you:
Life is here and loving too.
Over the ripples twinkling
Star on hovering star,
Soft mists drink the circled
Towering world afar;
Dawn wind fans the shaded
Inlet with its wing,
And in the water mirrored
The fruit is ripening.
AUTUMN FEELING
(1775)
More fatly greening climb
The trellis, you, vine leaf
Up to my window!
Gush, denser, berries
Twin, and ripen
Shining fuller, faster!
Last gaze of sun
Broods you, maternal;
Of tender sky the fruiting
Fullness wafts around you;
Cooled you are, by the moon
And from these eyes,
Of ever quickening Love, ah,
Upon you falls a dew, the tumid
Brimming tears.
WANDERER’S NIGHT SONG
(1776)
Thou that from the heavens art,
Every pain and sorrow stillest,
And the doubly wretched heart
Doubly with refreshment fillest,
I am weary with contending!
Why this rapture and unrest?
Peace descending
Come, ah, come into my breast!
ANOTHER NIGHT SONG
(1780)
O’er all the hill-tops
Is quiet now,
In all the tree-tops
Hearest thou
Hardly a breath;
The birds are asleep in the trees:
Wait, soon like these
Thou, too, shalt rest.
(Longfellow)
Over mountains yonder,
A stillness;
Scarce any breath, you wonder,
Touches
The tops of all the trees.
No forest birds now sing;
A moment, waiting—
Then take, you too, your ease.
(CM)
TO CHARLOTTE VON STEIN
(1776)
Why confer on us the piercing vision:
All tomorrow vivid in our gaze?
Not a chance to build on love’s illusion?
Not a glimmer of idyllic days?
Why confer on us, O fate, the feeling
Each can plumb the other’s very heart?
Always, though in storms of passion reeling,
See precisely what a course we chart?
Look at all those many thousands drudging
(Knowing even their own nature less
Than we know each other), thousands trudging,
In the dark about their own distress;
Drunk on exultation, when they’re treated
Suddenly to joy’s magenta dawn.
Only we unlucky lovers, cheated
Of all mutual comfort, have forgone
This: to be in love, not understanding;
This: to see the other as he’s not;
Off in gaudy dreams go hand-in-handing,
In appalling dreams turn cold and hot.
Happy man, a fleeting dream engages!
Happy man, no premonitions numb!
We however—! All our looks and touches
Reaffirm our fear of days to come.
Tell me, what’s our destiny preparing?
Tell me, how we’re bound in such a knot?
From an old existence we were sharing?
You’re the wife, the sister I forgot?
Knew me then completely, every feature,
How each nerve responded and rang true;
Read me in a single glance—a nature
Others search bewildered for a clue.
To that heated blood, a cool transfusion;
To that crazy runaway, a rein;
In your clasp, what Edens of seclusion
Nursed to health that fellow, heart and brain.
Held him tightly, lightly, as enchanted;
Spirited the round of days away.
Where’s a joy like this?—you’d think transplanted
At your feet the flushing lover lay;
Lay and felt his heart, against you, lighten;
Felt your eye approving; but he’s good!
Felt his murky senses clear and brighten;
On his raging blood, a quietude.
Now, of all that was, about him hovers
Just a haze of memory, hardly there.
Still the ancient truth avails: we’re lovers—
Though our new condition’s a despair.
Only half a mind for earth. Around us
Twilight thickens on the brightest day.
Yet we’re still in luck: the fates that hound us
Couldn’t wish our love away.
TO THE MOON
(1777; THIS SECOND VERSION PUBLISHED 1789)
Flooding with a brilliant mist
Valley, bush and tree,
You release me. Oh for once
Heart and soul I’m free!
Easy on the region round
Goes your wider gaze,
Like a friend’s indulgent eye
Measuring my days.
Every echo from the past,
Glum or gaudy mood,
Haunts me—weighing bliss and pain
In the solitude.
River, flow and flow away;
Pleasure’s dead to me:
Gone the laughing kisses, gone
Lips and loyalty.
All in my possession once!
Such a treasure yet
Any man would pitch in pain
Rather than forget.
Water, rush along the pass,
Never lag at ease;
Rush, and rustle to my song
Changing melodies.
Roll amok in flood;
Curling, in the gala May,
Under branch and bud.
Happy man, that rancor-free
Shows the world his door;
One companion by—and both
In a glow before
Something never guessed by men
Or rejected quite:
Which, in mazes of the breast,
Wanders in the night.
A WINTER JOURNEY IN THE HARZ
(1777)
As the buzzard aloft
On heavy daybreak cloud
With easy pinion rests
Searching for prey,
May my song hover.
For a god has
Duly to each
His path prefixed,
And the fortunate man
Runs fast and joyfully
To his journey’s end;
But he whose heart
Misfortune constricted
Struggles in vain
To break from the bonds
Of the brazen thread
Which the shears, so bitter still,
Cut once alone.
Into grisly thickets
The rough beasts run,
And with the sparrows
Sunk in their swamps.
Easy it is to follow that car
Which Fortune steers,
Like the leisurely troop that rides
The fine highroads
Behind the array of the Prince.
But who is it stands aloof?
His path is lost in the brake,
Behind him the shrubs
Close and he’s gone,
Grass grows straight again,
The emptiness swallows him.
O who shall heal his agony then
In whom each balm turned poison,
Who drank hatred of man
From the very fullness of love?
First held now holding in contempt.
In secret he consumes
His own particular good
In selfhood unsated.
If in your book of songs
Father of love, there sounds
One note his ear can hear,
Refresh with it then his heart!
Open his clouded gaze
To the thousand fountainheads
About him as he thirsts
In the desert!
You who give joys that are manifold,
To each his overflowing share,
Bless the companions that hunt
On the spoor of the beasts
With young exuberance
Of glad desire to kill,
Tardy avengers of outrage
For so long repelled in vain
By the cudgeling countryman.
In your sheer gold cloud!
Till roses flower again
Surround with winter-green
The moistened hair,
O love, of your poet!
With your lantern glowing
You light his way
Over the fords by night,
On impassable tracks
Through the void countryside;
With daybreak thousand-hued
Into his heart you laugh;
With the mordant storm
You bear him aloft;
Winter streams plunge from the crag
Into his songs,
And his altar of sweetest thanks
Is the snow-hung brow
Of the terrible peak
People in their imaginings crowned
With spirit dances.
You stand with heart unplumbed
Mysteriously revealed
Above the marveling world
And you look from clouds
On the kingdoms and magnificence
Which from your brothers’ veins beside you
With streams you water.
SONG OF THE SPIRITS OVER THE WATERS
(1779)
The soul of man,
It is like water:
It comes from heaven,
It mounts to heaven,
And earthward again
Descends
Eternally changing.
Streams from the high
Vertical rockface,
A powdering spray,
A wave of cloud
Splashes the smooth rock
And gathered lightly
Like a veil it rolls
Murmuring onward
To depths yonder.
If cliffs loom up
To stem its fall,
It foams petulant
Step by step
To the abyss.
Along a level bed
Through the glen it slips,
In the lake unruffled
All the clustering stars
Turn their gaze.
Wind woos
The wave like a lover,
Wind churns from the ground up
Foaming billows.
Soul of man,
How like the water you are!
Fate of man,
How like the wind.
THE FISHERMAN
(END OF 1770S)
The water washed, the water rose;
A fellow fishing sat
And watched his bobbin coolly drift,
His blood was cool as that.
A while he sits, a while he harks
—Like silk the ripples tear,
And up in swirls of foam arose
A girl with dripping hair.
She sang to him, she spoke to him:
“Cajole my minnows so
With lore of men, with lure of men,
To death’s unholy glow?
If you could know my silver kin,
What cozy hours they passed,
You’d settle under, clothes and all
—A happy life at last.
“The sun, it likes to bathe and bathe;
The moon—now doesn’t she?
And don’t they both, to breathe the wave,
Look up more brilliantly?
You’re not allured by lakes of sky,
More glorious glossy blue?
Not by your very face transformed
In this eternal dew?”
The water washed, the water rose;
It lapped his naked toe.
As longing for the one he loved
He yearned to sink below.
She spoke to him, she sang to him;
The fellow, done for then,
Half yielded too as half she drew,
Was never seen again.
THE GODLIKE
(EARLY 1780S)
Noble let man be,
Helpful and good;
For that alone
Distinguishes him
From all beings
That we know.
Hail to the unknown,
Loftier beings
Let man be like them;
His example teach us
To believe those.
For unfeeling,
Numb, is nature;
The sun shines
Upon bad and good,
And to the criminal
As to the best
The moon and the stars lend light.
Wind and rivers,
Thunder and hail
Rush on their way
And as they race
Headlong, take hold
One on the other.
So, too, chance
Gropes through the crowd,
And quickly snatches
The boy’s curled innocence,
Quickly also
The guilty baldpate.
Following great, bronzen,
Ageless laws
All of us must
Fulfill the circles
Of our existence.
Yet man alone can
Achieve the impossible:
He distinguishes,
Chooses and judges;
He can give lasting
Life to the moment.
He alone should
Reward the good,
Punish the wicked,
All erring and wandering
Usefully gather.
And we honor
Them, the immortals,
As though they were men,
Achieving in great ways
What the best in little
Achieves or longs to.
Let noble man
Be helpful and good.
Create unwearied
The useful, the just:
Be to us a pattern
Of those prefigured beings.
LIMITS OF HUMAN NATURE
(1781)
When the primeval,
Holy Father
With temperate hand
From thundering cloud forms
Over Earth scatters
Lightings of blessing,
I kiss the lowest
Hem of his garment,
Childlike awe throbbing
True in my breast.
For with gods
No man should ever
Dare to be measured.
If he uplifts himself
And bestirs
The stars with his cranium,
Nowhere then cleave
His uncertain footsoles,
And with him play
The clouds and the winds.
Marrowy bones
On the deep-founded,
Enduring Earth,
Then he aspires not,
Save to the oak tree
Or to the vine
Himself to liken.
What then distinguishes
Gods from men?
That many waves
Before them move,
An eternal stream:
Us the wave gathers,
Us the wave swallows,
And we sink.
A little ring
Confines our life,
And many generations
Link up, enduring
On their existence’s
Endless chain.
ERLKÖNIG
(C. 1782)
Who rides by night in the wind so wild?
It is the father, with his child.
The boy is safe in his father’s arm.
He holds him tight, he keeps him warm.
My son, what is it, why cover your face?
Father, you see him, there in that place.
The elfin king with his cloak and crown?
It is only the mist rising up, my son.
“Dear little child, will you come with me?
Beautiful games I’ll play with thee;
Bright are the flowers we’ll find on the shore.
My mother has golden robes fullscore.”
Father, O father, and did you not hear
What the elfin king breathed into my ear?
Lie quiet, my child, now never you mind:
Dry leaves it was that click in the wind.
“Come along now, you’re a fine little lad.
My daughters will serve you, see you are glad;
My daughters dance all night in a ring,
They’ll cradle and dance you and lullaby sing.”
Father, now look, in the gloom, do you see
The elfin daughters beckon to me?
My son, my son, I see it and say:
Those old willows, they look so gray.
“I love you, beguiled by your beauty I am,
If you are unwilling I’ll force you to come!”
Father, his fingers grip me, O
The elfin king has hurt me so!
Now struck with horror the father rides fast,
His gasping child in his arm to the last,
Home through thick and thin he sped:
Locked in his arm, the child was dead.
ROMAN ELEGIES
(C. 1788–90)
I
Deign to speak to me, stones, you high palaces, deign to address me
Streets, now say but one word! Genius, will you not stir?
True, all is living yet within your sanctified precincts,
Timeless Rome; only me all still in silence receives.
O, who will whisper to me, at what small window, revealing
Her, the dear one, whose glance, searing, will quicken my blood?
Can I not guess on what roads, forever coming and going.
Only for her sake I’ll spend all my invaluable time?
Still I’m seeing the sights, the churches, the ruins, the columns,
As a serious man ought to and does use his days.
That, however, will pass, and soon no more than one temple,
Amor’s temple alone, claim this initiate’s zeal.
Rome, you remain a whole world; but without love the whole world would
Always be less than the world, neither would Rome still be Rome.
IA
Fortune beyond my loveliest daydreams fulfilled is my own now,
Amor, my clever guide, passed all the palaces by.
Long he has known, and I too had occasion to learn by experience,
What a richly gilt room hides behind hangings and screens.
You may call him a boy and blind and ill-mannered, but, clever
Amor, I know you well, never corruptible god!
Us they did not take in, those façades so imposing and pompous,
Gallant balcony here, dignified courtyard down there.
Quickly we passed them by, and a humble but delicate doorway
Opened to guided and guide, made them both welcome within.
All he provides for me there, with his help I obtain all I ask for,
Fresher roses each day strewn on my path by the god.
Isn’t it heaven itself?—And what more could the lovely Borghese,
Nipotina herself offer a lover than that?
Dinners, drives and dances, operas, card games and parties,
Often merely they steal Amor’s most opportune hours.
Airs and finery bore me; when all’s said and done, it’s the same thing
Whether the skirt you lift is of brocade or of wool.
Or if the wish of a girl is to pillow her lover in comfort,
Wouldn’t he first have her put all those sharp trinkets away?
All those jewels and pads, and the lace that surrounds her, the whalebone,
Don’t they all have to go, if he’s to feel his beloved?
Us it gives much less trouble! Your plain woollen dress in a jiffy,
Unfastened by me, slips down, lies in its folds on the floor.
Quickly I carry the child in her flimsy wrapping of linen
As befits a good nurse, teasingly, into her bed.
Bare of silken drapery, mattresses richly embroidered,
Spacious for two, it stands free in a spacious room.
Then let Jupiter get more joy from his Juno, a mortal
Anywhere in this world know more contentment than I.
We enjoy the delights of the genuine naked god. Amor,
And our rock-a-bye bed’s rhythmic, melodious creak.
IV
Pious we lovers are, and in silence revere all the spirits,
Long to propitiate each, god and goddess alike.
And resemble in that you victors of Rome! To the gods of
All the world’s peoples you gave dwellings, a home far from home,
Whether black and severe out of ancient basalt Egyptians
Or all white a Greek shaped it in marble that charms.
Yet no timeless one bears any grudge if by discrimination
One amongst them receives incense more precious from us.
Freely, indeed, we confess that still, as in past times, our prayers,
Daily service to one, one above all, we devote.
Roguish, lively and serious we celebrate rituals in secret,
Knowing that silence behooves all who are pledged to that cult.
Sooner by horrible acts to our heels we should summon and fasten
Vengeful Furies, or else dare the harsh judgement of Zeus,
Suffer his rolling wheel or in fetters be clamped to the rock-face,
Than from that service of love sever our hearts and our minds.
And the goddess we serve? She is called Opportunity. Know her!
Often to you she appears, always in different shapes.
Daughter of Proteus she’d like to think herself, mothered by Thetis,
Hers by whose mutable guile many a hero was tricked.
So now her daughter tricks those inexperienced or timid,
Teasing some in their sleep, flying past others who wake;
Gladly surrendering only to one who is quick, energetic.
Gentle she is to that man, playful and tender and sweet.
Once she appeared to me too, as an olive-complexioned girl, whose
Dark and plentiful hair, glistening, covered her brow,
Shorter ringlets curled round a neck that was graceful and slender,
Wavy, unbraided hair rose from the top of her head.
And I recognized her; as she hurried I held her: and sweetly
She, most willing to learn, soon paid me back each caress.
Oh, how delighted I was!—But enough, for that era is over.
Now by you, Roman braids, tightly, all round, I’m entwined.
V
Happy now I can feel the classical climate inspire me,
Past and present at last clearly, more vividly speak.
Here I take their advice, perusing the works of the ancients
With industrious care, pleasure that grows every day.
But throughout the nights by Amor I’m differently busied,
If only half improved, doubly delighted instead.
Also, am I not learning when at the shape of her bosom,
Graceful lines, I can glance, guide a light hand down her hips?
Only thus I appreciate marble; reflecting, comparing,
See with an eye that can feel, feel with a hand that can see.
True, the loved one besides may claim a few hours of the daytime,
But in night hours as well makes full amends for the loss.
For not always we’re kissing, often hold sensible converse;
When she succumbs to sleep, pondering, long I lie still.
Often too in her arms I’ve lain composing a poem,
Gently with fingering hand count the hexameter’s beat
Out on her back; she breathes, so lovely and calm in her sleeping
That the glow from her lips deeply transfuses my heart.
Amor meanwhile refuels the lamp and remembers the times when
Them, his triumvirs of verse, likewise he’s served and obliged.
XX
Men distinguished by strength, by a frank and courageous nature,
All the more, it would seem, need to be deeply discreet!
Secrecy, you that subdue a whole city and rule over peoples.
Tutelar goddess to me, leading me safely through life,—
What a reversal now in my fate! When, all facetious, the Muses,
Jointly with Amor, the rogue, loosen the lips that were sealed.
Hard enough it’s already to cover up royal disgraces!
Crown or Phrygian cap, neither now serves to conceal
Midas’ long pointed ears. Any servant of his will have noticed,
And at once feels oppressed, awed by the secret within.
Deep he’d like to bury it, and be rid of the worrying knowledge.
Yet mere earth will not keep secrets like that one intact,
Rushes shoot from the ground and they whisper and sough in the breezes:
“Midas, Midas the king, Midas has long pointed ears!”
Harder now it’s for me to preserve my more beautiful secret,
Given such fullness of heart, easily lips overflow.
To no woman friend I can tell it; for she could reproach me;
In no male friend confide: danger could come from that source.
To proclaim my rapture to groves and the echoing hillsides
I’m not young enough now, lonely enough, come to that.
So to you; elegiacs, alone let me tell and entrust it.
How she delights me by day, fills me with rapture by night.
She, sought after by many men, skilfully shuns all the snares which
Brashly the bold ones lay, subtly the shame-faced and sly;
Lithe and clever, she gives them the slip, for she knows all the footpaths
Where her lover will wait, listening, confident, keen.
Luna, be late, for she comes! And make sure that our neighbour won’t see her;
Rustle, leaves, in the shrubs! No one must hear her light step.
And, dear elegies, you, may you flourish and blossom, be cradled
Warm in the lightest of breaths lovingly wafted by air,
Then give away to all Rome, as they did, those garrulous rushes,
Secrets one fortunate pair treasured and kept to themselves.
NEARNESS OF THE BELOVED
(C. 1795)
I think of you when from the sea the shimmer
Of sunlight streams;
I think of you when on the brook the dimmer
Moon casts her beams.
I see your face when on the distant highway
Dust whirls and flakes.
In deepest night when on the mountain byway
The traveller quakes.
I hear your voice when, dully roaring, yonder
Waves rise and spill;
Listening, in silent woods I often wander
When all is still.
I walk with you, though miles from you divide me;
Yet you are near!
The sun goes down, soon stars will shine to guide me.
Would you were here!
THE BRIDE OF CORINTH
(1797)
To Corinth came a solitary stranger,
Whom none yet knew, a young Athenian;
He sought there to obtain a certain favour
From his father’s comrade in the town:
Long had it been planned
For his daughter’s hand
To be given to his comrade’s son.
Might perhaps his welcome there be hindered?
Might the price of it his means exceed?
He is still a pagan, like his kindred;
Baptized the others in the Christian creed.
When new faiths are born,
From the heart are torn,
Sometimes, love and troth like any weed.
All the house was hushed, to rest retiring
Father, daughters—not the mother yet;
Him she welcomed, of his state inquiring,
And to a well-appointed guestroom led.
Wine and food she brought.
Ere of them he thought.
Solicitous, and “Sleep you well,” she said.
Yet he felt no hunger and unheeded
Left the wine, and eager for the rest
Which his limbs forspent with travel needed,
Down upon the bed he lay, still dressed;
Drowsing now, when lo,
Gliding forward, slow—
At the door another, wondrous guest.
By his table lamp’s unsteady glowing
He sees a girl walk in the room, and stand:
Gentle, modest, veiled in white, a flowing
Snowy robe, a black and gold headband.
As she meets his eyes,
Startled, in surprise,
She has lifted up a snowy hand.
“Is a stranger here, and no-one told me?
Am I then forgotten, just a name?
Ah! Tis thus that in my cell they hold me.
Now I feel quite overcome with shame.
Do not stir,” she said,
“Now you are in bed,
I will leave as quickly as I came.”
“Do not leave me, lovely one!” and springing
Out of bed he’s quickly on his feet.
“Ceres, here, and Bacchus, gifts are bringing,
What you bring is Amor, his delight.
Why are you so pale?
The joyous gods, their gifts, with appetite!”
“No, O no, young stranger, come not nigh me.
Joy is not for me, nor festive cheer.
Ah! such bliss may not be tasted by me,
Since my mother, sickened with a fear,
By long illness bowed,
Me to heaven vowed:
Youth and nature I may not come near.
They have left our household, left it lonely,
The jocund gods of old, no more they reign;
One, unseen, in heaven, is worshipped only,
And a saviour crucified and slain.
Sacrifices here—
Neither lamb nor steer,
But man himself in misery and pain.”
Weighing all her words, now he must ponder:
Can it be that in this silent spot
He beholds her—what surpassing wonder!—
The beloved bride that he had sought?
“Be mine only now,
Look, our fathers’ vow
Heaven’s blessing to us both has brought!”
“No, good heart, not me,” she cries in anguish;
“Your company is my second sister’s place.
When I weep inside my cell and languish,
Think of me, though in her fond embrace.
She who pines for thee
Never shalt thou see:
Soon beneath the earth she’ll hide her face.”
“No! By this flame I swear between us burning,
Fanned by Hymen, lost thou shalt not be!
Not lost to me or joy, no, but returning
Back to my father’s house, come back with me!
Stay, my sweetheart, here,
Taste the bridal cheer,
Spread for us so unexpectedly.”
Tokens they exchange, to him she proffers
Her golden necklace now for him to wear,
But she will not touch the cup he offers,
Silver, wrought with skill exceeding rare:
“That is not for me.
All I ask of thee
Is one curly lock of thy own hair.”
Dully boomed the ghosting midnight hour;
Only now her eyes take on a shine,
Pallid lips of hers, now they devour,
Gulping it, the bloody-coloured wine,
But of wheaten bread
Offered by the lad
Not a single crumb to take would deign.
Now she gave the cup, and so he drained it,
Impetuous, in haste, he drained it dry;
Love was in his heart, desire pained it,
Till it ached for what she must deny,
Hard as he insists,
She his will resists—
On the bed he flounders with a cry.
She throws herself beside him: “Dearest, still thee!
Ah, how sad I am to see thee so.
But alas, my body would but chill thee,
Thou wouldst find a thing thou mayst not know;
Thou wouldst be afraid,
Finding then the maid
Thou has chosen, cold as ice and snow.”
Vehement strong arms the girl emprison
And muscle from the thrill of love acquire:
“Even from the grave wert thou arisen,
I would warm thee well with my desire!”
Breathless kiss on kiss!
Overflowing bliss!
“Dost thou burn and feel my burning fire?”
Closer still they cling and closer, mixing
Tears and cries of love, limbs interlaced,
She sucks his kisses, his with hers transfixing,
Each self aware the other it possessed.
All his passion’s flood
Warms her gelid blood—
Yet no heart is beating in her breast.
Meanwhile, down the corridor, the mother
Passes, late, on household tasks intent:
Hears a sound, and listens, then another:
Wonders at the sounds and what they meant.
Who was whispering so?
Voices soft and low.
Rapturous cries and moans of lovers blent.
Ear against the door herself she stations,
Making certain nothing is amiss;
Horrified she hears those protestations
Lovers make, avowals of their bliss:
“The cockerel! Tis light!”
“But tomorrow night
Wilt thou come again?”—and kiss on kiss.
Now she can contain her rage no longer.
Lifts the latch, flings open wide the door:
“Not in my house! Who’s this that any stranger
Can slip into his bed, who is this whore?”
Now she’s in the room.
By lamplight in the gloom—
God! This girl her daughter was before!
And the youth in terror tried to cover
With her flimsy veil the maiden’s head.
Clasped her close; but sliding from her lover,
Back the garment from her face she spread,
As by spirit power
Made longer, straighter, now her
Body slowly rises from the bed.
“Mother! Mother!”—hollow-voiced—“Deprive me
Not of pleasures I this night have known!
From this warm abode why do you drive me?
Do I waken to despair alone?
That in my cerement
To an early grave you forced me down?
Strange is the law that me perforce has brought now
Forth from the dark-heaped chamber where I lay;
The croonings of your priests avail but nought now,
Powerless their blessings were, I say.
Water nor salt in truth
Can cool the pulse of youth:
Love still burns, though buried under clay.
This young man, to him my troth was plighted,
While yet blithely Venus ruled the land,
Mother!—and that promise you have slighted,
Yielding to an outlandish command.
But no god will hear
If a mother swear
To deny to love her daughter’s hand.
From my grave betimes I have been driven,
I seek the good I lost, none shall me thwart,
I seek his love to whom my troth was given,
And I have sucked the lifeblood from his heart.
If he dies, I will
Find me others, still
With my fury tear young folk apart.
Fair young man, thy thread of life is broken.
Human skill can bring no help to thee.
There, thou hast my necklace as a token,
And this curl of thine I take with me.
Soon thou must decay,
Dawn will find thee gray,
In Hades only shalt thou brownhaired be.
Mother! Listen to my last entreaty!
Heap the funeral pyre for us once more;
Open then my little tomb, for pity,
And in flame our souls to peace restore.
Up the sparks will go,
When the embers glow,
To the ancient gods aloft we soar.”
(C. 1820)
Years ago the mind with pleasure
Keenly could investigate,
Could experience the measure
Nature lives by to create.
And it is the One Eternal
Multiply self-manifest:
Small the big is, big the small,
All things to their type attest.
Self-insistent, always changing,
Near and far and far and near,
Birth of shapes, their rearranging—
Wonder of wonders, I am here.
THE METAMORPHOSIS OF PLANTS
(1798)
Overwhelming, beloved, you find all this mixture of thousands,
Riot of flowers let loose over the garden’s expanse;
Many names you take in, and always the last to be spoken
Drives out the one heard before, barbarous both to your ear.
All the shapes are akin and none is quite like the other;
So to a secret law surely that chorus must point,
To a sacred enigma. Dear friend, how I wish I were able
All at once to pass on, happy, the word that unlocks!
Growing consider the plant and see how by gradual phases,
Slowly evolved, it forms, rises to blossom and fruit.
From the seed it develops as soon as the quietly fertile
Womb of earth sends it out, sweetly released into life,
And to the prompting of light, the holy, for ever in motion,
Like the burgeoning leaves’ tenderest build, hands it on.
Single, dormant the power in the seed was; the germ of an image,
Closed in itself, lay concealed, prototype curled in the husk,
Leaf and root and bud, although colourless yet, half-amorphous;
Drily the nucleus so safeguards incipient life,
Then, aspiring, springs up, entrusting itself to mild moisture,
Speedily raises itself out of encompassing night.
Single, simple, however, remains the first visible structure;
So that what first appears, even in plants, is the child.
Following, rising at once, with one nodule piled on another,
Always the second renews only the shape of the first.
Not the same, though, for ever; for manifold—you can observe it—
Mutably fashioned each leaf after the last one unfolds,
More extended, spikier, split into lances or segments
Which, intergrown before, lay in the organ below.
Only now it attains the complete intended perfection
Which, in many a kind, moves you to wonder, admire.
Many-jagged and ribbed, on a lusciously, fully fleshed surface,
Growth so lavishly fed seems without limit and free.
Forcefully here, however, will Nature step in to contain it,
Curbing rankness here, gently perfecting the shapes.
Now more slowly the sap she conducts, and constricts the vessels,
And at once the form yields, with diminished effects.
Calmly the outward thrust of the spreading leaf-rims recedes now,
While, more firmly defined, swells the thin rib of the stalks.
Leafless, though, and swift the more delicate stem rises up now,
And, a miracle wrought, catches the onlooker’s eye.
In a circular cluster, all counted and yet without number,
Smaller leaves take their place, next to a similar leaf.
Pushed close up to the hub now, the harbouring calyx develops
Which to the highest of forms rises in colourful crowns.
Thus in fulness of being does Nature now glory, resplendent,
Limb to limb having joined, all her gradations displayed.
Time after time you wonder as soon as the stalk-crowning blossom
Sways on its slender support, gamut of mutable leaves.
Yet the splendour becomes an announcement of further creation.
Yes, to the hand that’s divine colourful leaves will respond.
And it quickly furls, contracts; the most delicate structures
Twofold venture forth, destined to meet and unite.
Wedded now they stand, those delighted couples, together.
Round the high altar they form multiple, ordered arrays.
Hymen, hovering, nears, and pungent perfumes, exquisite,
Fill with fragrance and life all the environing air.
One by one now, though numberless, germs are impelled into swelling,
Sweetly wrapped in the womb, likewise swelling, of fruit.
Nature here closes her ring of the energies never-exhausted
Yet a new one at once links to the circle that’s closed,
That the chain may extend into the ages for ever,
And the whole be infused amply with life, like the part.
Look, beloved, once more on the teeming of so many colours,
Which no longer may now fill with confusion your mind.
Every plant now declares those eternal designs that have shaped it,
Ever more clearly to you every flower-head can speak.
Yet if here you decipher the holy runes of the goddess,
Everywhere you can read, even though scripts are diverse:
Let the grub drag along, the butterfly busily scurry,
Imaging man by himself alter the pre-imposed shape.
Oh, and consider then how in us from the germ of acquaintance
Stage by stage there grew, dear to us, habit’s long grace,
Friendship from deep within us burst out of its wrapping,
And how Amor at last blessed it with blossom and fruit.
Think how variously Nature, the quietly forming, unfolding,
Lent to our feelings now this, now that so different mode!
Also rejoice in this day. Because love, our holiest blessing
Looks for the consummate fruit, marriage of minds, in the end,
One perception of things, that together, concerted in seeing,
Both to the higher world, truly conjoined, find their way.
EPIRRHEMA
(C. 1819)
You must, when contemplating nature,
Attend to this, in each and every feature:
There’s nought outside and nought within,
For she is inside out and outside in.
Thus will you grasp, with no delay,
The holy secret, clear as day.
Joy in true semblance take, in any
Earnest play:
No living thing is One, I say,
But always Many.
PERMANENCE IN CHANGE
(1803)
Early blossoms—could a single
Hour preserve them just as now!
But the warmer west will scatter
Petals showering from the bough.
How enjoy these leaves, that lately
I was grateful to for shade?
Soon the wind and snow are rolling
What the late Novembers fade.
Fruit—you’d reach a hand and have it?
Better have it then with speed.
These you see about to ripen,
Those already gone to seed.
Half a rainy day, and there’s your
Pleasant valley not the same,
None could swim that very river
Twice, so quick the changes came.
You yourself! What all around you
Strong as stonework used to lie
—Castles, battlements—you see them
With an ever-changing eye.
Now the lips are dim and withered
Once the kisses set aglow;
Lame the leg, that on the mountain
Left the mountain goat below.
Or that hand, that knew such loving
Ways, outstretching in caress,
—Cunningly adjusted structure—
Now can function less and less.
All are gone; this substitution
Has your name and nothing more.
Like a wave it lifts and passes,
Back to atoms on the shore.
See in each beginning, ending.
Double aspects of the One;
Here, amid stampeding objects,
Be among the first to run,
Thankful to a muse whose favor
Grants you one unchanging thing:
What the heart can hold to ponder;
What the spirit shape to sing.
(1810)
We’ve heard and heard, and finally believe:
There’s no enigma like the heart of man.
The things we do! No good to twist or weave—
We’re human yet, in Rome as Turkestan.
What’s my advice? Forget it. Maybe heave
One sigh, and then live with it if you can.
Also, when sins come nudging with that leer,
Count on some Sturdy Virtue to appear.
Once, when I left my love and had to travel
Off on affairs a traveling man transacts,
Collecting facts and figures to unravel
(Thinking of her, her figure and its facts),
As always, when the night spread, thick as gravel,
Its load of stars, my mind went starry. Stacks
Of paper (balanced on my solar plexus)
Told of the day, in mostly O’s and X’s.
Finally I’m rolling homeward, when—you’d know it!—
Cru-ungk! and the axle goes. So one less night
Back in the bed I’m dreaming of—but stow it!
There’s work now. Cross your fingers and sit tight.
Two blacksmiths come. I’m grumpy, and I show it.
Shrugging, the one spits left, the other right.
“It’ll be done when done,” they grunt, and batter
Whang! at the wheel. Sparks flying. Clang and clatter.
Stuck in the sticks! With just an inn; The Star,
It says outside. Looks bearable. I’m glad
To see a girl with lantern there. So far
So good. She lifts it higher and—not bad!—
Beckons me in: nice lounge, a decent bar.
The bedroom’s cozy as a travel ad.
Poor sinners! When they’re wandering on the loose,
Nothing like pretty girls to jerk the noose.
I take the room, and shuffle papers out.
My diary—got to keep it up to date
The way I do just every night, about.
I like to write; my darling says I’m great.
But now, though, nothing comes. Some writer’s gout?
I seem distracted, somehow. Better wait.
That girl again. She lays the table first.
Hands deft and cool. Nice manners. I’m immersed
In studying her skirt, flung out and in.
I ask. She knows the answers. That’s my girl!
Can she disjoint a chicken! Flick the skin!
Those arms! And hands with fingertips in pearl!
I feel that certain stirring-up begin
And dizzy with her, crazy for—I hurl
The chair away; impulsively I twist her
Into my arms, close, closer. “Listen, mister,
Cool it,” she cuddles murmuring. “My aunt,
Old hatchet face, is listening all the time.
She’s down there guessing what I can or can’t
Be up to every minute. Next she’ll climb
Up with that cane of hers, sniff, snuffle, pant!
But look, don’t lock your door. At midnight I’m
More on my own—” Untwisting (it’s delicious!)
She hurries out. And hurries back with dishes.
Dishes—and warmer eyes. I’m in a blur.
The heavens open and the angels sing.
She sighs, and every sigh looks good on her:
It makes the heaving breast a pretty thing.
She loves me, I can tell: Such colors stir
Deeper on neck and ear—she crimsoning!
Then sad, “Well, dinner’s over, I suppose.”
She goes. She doesn’t want to, but she goes.
The chimes at midnight on the sleeping town!
My double bed looks wider by the minute.
“Leave half for her. That’s friendlier, you clown!”
I say, and squiggle over. To begin it,
We’ll leave the candles lit, I plan—when down
The hall a rustle! Slinky silk—she’s in it!
My eyes devour that fully blossomed flesh.
She settles by me and our fingers mesh.
Then sweet and low: “First tell me once or twice
You love me as a person? Say you do.
As girls around here go, I’m rather nice.
Said no to every man, till I saw you.
Why do you think they call me ‘Piece of Ice’?
Of ice, indeed! Just feel! I’m melting through.
You did it to me, darling. So be good.
And let’s be lovers, do as lovers should.
“I’m starting out, remember. Make it sweet.
If I had more to give, I’d even dare.”
She pressed her cooler breasts against my heat
As if she liked it and felt safer there.
Lips linger on her lips; toes reach and meet,
But—something funny happening elsewhere.
What always strutted in the leading role
Now shrank like some beginner. Bless my soul!
The girl seemed happy with a kiss, a word,
Smiling as if she couldn’t ask for more.
So pure a gaze—yet every limb concurred.
So sweet a blossom, and not picked before.
Oh, but she looked ecstatic when she stirred!
And then lay back relaxing, to adore.
Me, I lay back a bit and … beamed away.
Nagged at my dragging actor, “Do the play!”
The more I brooded on my situation,
The more I seethed with curses, inwardly.
Laughed at myself, God knows without elation.
It got me down. And sleeping, breathing, she
Lay lovelier yet, a gilt-edged invitation.
The candles stood and burned, derisively.
Young people who work hard to earn their bread
Soon as they hit the hay are turned to lead.
She dreamed—I’d swear, an angel—flushed and snug;
Breathed easily, as if the bed were hers.
I’m scrunched up by the wall—there’s that to hug!
Can’t lift a finger. It’s like what occurs
To thirsty travelers in the sands when—glug!—
There’s water bubbling. But a rattler whirs!
Her lips stir softly, talking to a dream.
I hold my breath: O honeychild! And beam.
Detached—for you could call it that—I say,
Well, it’s a new experience. Now you know
Why bridegrooms in a panic start to pray
They won’t get spooked and see their chances go.
I’d rather be cut up in saberplay
Than in a bind like this. It wasn’t so
When first I saw my real love: from the gloom
Stared at her, brilliant in the brilliant room.
Ah, but my heart leaped then, and every sense,
My whole man’s-shape a pulsing of delight.
Lord, how I swept her off in a wild dance
Light in my arms, her weight against me tight.
You’d think I fought myself for her. One glance
Would tell how I grew greater, gathered might
For her sake, mind and body, heart and soul.
That was the day my actor lived his role!
Worship and lovely lust—with both in view
I wooed her all that year, until the spring
(Violins, maestro!), when the world was new
And she outflowered, in June, the floweriest thing,
The date was set. So great our passion grew
That even in church (I blush) with heaven’s King
Racked on his cross, before the priest and all,
My impudent hero made his curtain call!
And you, four-posters of the wedding night,
You pillows, that were tossed and rumpled soon,
You blankets, drawn around so our delight
Was ours alone, through morning, afternoon;
You parakeets in cages, rose and white,
Whose twitter music perked our deeper tune—
Could even you, who played your minor part,
Tell which of us was which? Or end from start?
The days of make-believe! The “Let’s pretend,
Honey, we’re sexy tramps!”’ I’d toss her there
Laughing, among the cornstalks, or we’d bend
Reeds by the river, threshing who knows where?
In public places, nearly. What a friend
My sturdy plowboy then! He wouldn’t scare!
But now, with all the virgin field to reap,
Look at the lousy helper sound asleep.
Or was. But now he’s rousing. He’s the one!
You can’t ignore him, and you can’t command.
He’s suddenly himself. And like the sun,
Is soaring full of splendor. Suave and bland.
You mean the long thirst’s over with and done?
The desert traveler’s at the promised land?
I lean across to kiss my sleeping girl
And—hey!—the glorious banner starts to furl!
What made him tough and proud a moment? She,
His only idol now, as long ago;
The one he took in church exultantly.
From worlds away it comes, that rosy glow.
And, as before it worried him to be
Meager, so now he’s vexed at swelling so
With her afar. Soft, soft, he shrinks away
Out of the magic circle, all dismay.
That’s that. I’m up and scribbling, “Close to home,
I almost thought I wouldn’t make it there.
Honey, I’m yours, in Turkestan or Rome.
I’m writing you in bed, and by a bare
—Well, call it piece of luck or something, hmmmm!
Impotence proved I’m superman. Now where
‘S a prettier riddle? Leave it; read the rest.
Dearest, I’ve told you all. Except the best.”
Then cook-a-doodle-doo! At once the girl’s
Thrown off a bed sheet and thrown on a slip;
She rubs her eyes, shakes out her tousled curls,
Looks blushing at bare feet and bites her lip.
Without a word she’s vanishing in swirls
Of underpretties over breast and hip.
She’s dear, I murmur—rushing from above
Down to my coach. And on the road for love!
I’ll tell you what, we writers like to bumble
Onto a moral somewhere, forehead glowing
Over a Noble Truth. Some readers grumble
Unless they feel improved. My moral’s showing:
Look, it’s a crazy world. We slip and stumble,
But two things, Love and Duty, keep us going.
I couldn’t rightly call them hand in glove.
Duty?—who really needs it? Trust your Love.
DEATH OF A FLY
(1810, FROM ‘SIXTEEN PARABLES’)
With greed she quaffs and quaffs the traitorous drink,
Unceasing, from the start wholly enticed,
She feels so far so good, and every link
In her delicate little legs is paralyzed—
No longer deft they are, to groom her wings,
No longer dexterous, to preen her head;
Her life expended, thus, in pleasurings,
Her little feet soon have nowhere to tread;
So does she drink and drink, and while she does,
Comes misty death her myriad eyes to close.
FOUND
(1813)
Once in the forest
I strolled content,
To look for nothing
My sole intent.
I saw a flower,
Shaded and shy,
Shining like starlight,
Bright as an eye.
I went to pluck it;
Gently it said:
Must I be broken,
Wilt and be dead?
Then whole I dug it
Out of the loam
Carried it home,
There to replant it
Where no wind blows.
More bright than ever
It blooms and grows.
HEGIRA
(1814)
North and West and South are breaking,
Thrones are bursting, kingdoms shaking:
Flee, then, to the essential East,
Where on patriarch’s air you’ll feast!
There to love and drink and sing,
Drawing youth from Khizr’s spring.
Pure and righteous there I’ll trace
To its source the human race,
Prime of nations, when to each
Heavenly truth in earthly speech
Still by God himself was given,
Human brains not racked and riven.
When they honored ancestors,
To strange doctrine closed their doors;
Youthful bounds shall be my pride,
My thought narrow, my faith wide.
And I’ll find the token word,
Dear because a spoken word.
Mix with goatherds in dry places,
Seek refreshment in oases
When with caravans I fare,
Coffee, shawls, and musk my ware;
Every road and path explore,
Desert, cities and seashore;
Dangerous track, through rock and scree:
Hafiz, there you’ll comfort me
When the guide, enchanted, tells
On the mule’s back, your ghazels,
Sings them for the stars to hear,
Robber bands to quail with fear.
Holy Hafiz, you in all
Baths and taverns I’ll recall,
When the loved one lifts her veil,
Ambergris her locks exhale.
More: the poet’s love song must
Melt the houris, move their lust.
Now, should you begrudge him this,
Even long to spoil such bliss,
Poets’ words, I’d have you know,
Round the gate of Eden flow,
Gently knocking without rest,
Everlasting life their quest.
UNBOUNDED
(1814–15)
What makes you great is that you cannot end,
And never to begin you are predestined
Your song revolves as does the starry dome,
Beginning, end for ever more the same;
And what the middle brings will prove to be
What last remains and was initially.
Of poets’ joys you are the one true source,
Wave after numberless wave you give to verse.
Lips that of kissing never tire,
Song from the breast that sweetly wells,
A throat that’s never quenched, on fire,
An honest heart that freely tells.
And though the whole world were to sink,
Hafiz, with you, with you alone
I will compete! Delight, despair,
Let us, the twins, entirely share!
Like you to love, like you to drink
My life and pride I here declare.
Self-fuelled now, my song, ring truer!
For you are older, you are newer.
BLESSED LONGING
(1814)
Tell it only to the wise,
For the crowd at once will jeer:
That which is alive I praise,
That which longs for death by fire.
Cooled by passionate love at night,
Procreated, procreating,
You have known the alien feeling
In the calm of candlelight;
Gloom-embraced will lie no more,
By the flickering shades obscured,
But are seized by new desire,
To a higher union lured.
Then no distance holds you fast;
Winged, enchanted, on you fly,
Light your longing, and at last,
Moth, you meet the flame and die.
Never prompted to that quest:
Die and dare rebirth!
You remain a dreary guest
On our gloomy earth.
HUMILITY
(1815)
The masters’ works I look upon,
And I can see what they have done;
When looking upon this or that by me,
What I should have done is what I see.
(1820S)
The stork that feeds on frog and perch
Beside our pond, so free,
Why does he nest upon the church
Where he has no right to be?
He clatters about and snaps enough,
Sounds we all detest:
But young and old folks lack the guff
To plague him in his nest.
What squatting rights—all due respects—
Entitle him to it,
Save that he pleasingly elects
On the church’s roof to …?
PARABLE
(1830)
Went to open my garden door,
Three friends are standing there, or four—
Told them come in (all politesse),
Bid them welcome at my place;
Folks, here it is, the table’s laid
For breakfast, we’ll go shares, I said.
They certainly like the garden a lot:
One slinks off to a shady spot,
One gawks at apples high in the trees,
They’re nosing around just as they please,
Another reaches for a bunch of grapes—
Aha, says he, what cultured shapes.
Take all you want, said I, from the dish
On the round table—and I wish
One and all guten Appetit.
Rascals, they preferred to eat
What they could steal. The fourth, I think,
Snuck through the house and out in a wink.
So I stumped off back inside, and broke
My fast alone, without those folk.