ands and blossoms, alone. 22. (HEINE) Be open with me, my love: are you some spectre of the sort occasionally produced by the poet’s fiery mind? .......... No, I can’t believe that: the dear light of these cheeks, of these eyes, this little anlge mouth, no poety will conjure that up. .......... Basilisks and vampires, the winged horse and the toothed serpent, these are his idol’s dreams, this is what the poet’s good at dreaming up. .......... But you, your airy figure, the magic colour of your cheeks, this artfully submissive glance, no poet will come up with that. 23. TO MY FRIENDS (ON SENDING THEM SCHILLER’S SONG OF JOY) Friends, what the divine one sang in a fiery outburst of freedom, in the full emotion of Existence, when to nature’s feast the Singer, her favoured son, called all nations into one circle; and with an exulting soul, in his eyes, a life-creating ray, from the foaming cup of Genius, drank the health of people! .......... Should I then sing this sacred hymn far from those close to my heart, in anguish which I cannot share, to sing of joy on my silent lyre? Gaiety has lost its voice in her, its playful strings are soaked by tears of sadness and torn by Separation! But, friends, you’re no stranger to inspiration! In a second’s heartfelt ecstasy involuntarily I’d forgotten my lot (a transient, but sweet oblivion!) I flew in soul to what has taken its course and sang of joy while I thought about you. 24. TO N. Your dear gaze, with innocent passion filled, the golden dawn of your heavenly feelings serve as a silent reproach to them, at propitiation it is unskilled. .......... These hearts in which there is no truth flee, my friend, as they would flee a judgement, fearing as they fear childhood memories the loving gaze of your youth. .......... What is good for me are your eyes, like the water of life, in the deeps of my being, your living gaze which lives in me - deep down I need it, like breath, like the sky. .......... Heavenly, shining only in the skies, such is the light of souls in bliss, During nights of sin, this pure flame burns in a fearsome abyss. 25. TO NISA Nisa, Nisa, just get lost! My friendship means nothing to you. You played with me and then you tossed me away from those who admire you. .......... Indifferent and carefree, you gullible little tease, you do like laughing at me. My gift of true love couldn’t please. .......... Nisa, Nisa, I’d have been true, but you prefer to play the field. It seems my feelings just never appealed. Nisa, I’ve just had enough of you! 26. THE SONG OF THE NORSE WARRIORS (HERDER) Cold, bright, day has awakened. The early cock has shaken its wings. Warriors, leap up! Rise, oh friends! Brisker, brisker to the feast of swords, to the fight! .......... Our leader is before us! Be men, oh friends, and behind the mighty one let us strike like a storm! .......... We shall hurtle like a whirlwind through clouds and thunder, to the sun of victory following the eagle! .......... Where the battle is darkest, the warriors closer, where shields are spliced, where swords are woven together, there he will strike, the all-scattering Thor, and a fiery-starred path burning with blood he will slash through to his men in the iron night. After him, after him, into the ranks of the enemy, bolder, friends, after him! Like mountain masses, like a sea of ice, we shall tear through and constrain them! .......... Cold, bright, day has awakened. The early cock has shaken its wings. Warriors, leap up! .......... It is not a foaming cup of fragrant mead which the rosy morning hands to the heroes; nor does the love and conversation of voluptuous women warm your soul and enliven your life; but you, renewed by the coolness of sleep, will be carried up by the waves of bloody battle! .......... Warriors, leap up! Death or victory! To the fight! 27. THE GLEAM Have you heard an Aeolian harp deep in the night carelessly brushing midnight, sleeping strings waking to trouble the silence, resounding, fading fast, as if a final cry of anguish had echoed there and died? The breeze’s every breath stings them to sorrow: perhaps a lyre fell to earth, playing dirges for lost bliss. Captive, our souls soar in immortal skies, gathering memories as we gather the dear shades of friends, clasping them tight against our breasts. How readily we believe with living faith, how glad and bright our hearts become: you’d think the sky had turned to ocean in our veins, had coursed and swept us through them! Such a lot cannot be ours. Strangers to the sky soon tire. We are common dust. We cannot breathe such fire. With a moment’s effort we barely manage a short-lived, troubled, trembling glance from the window of our daily dream, half-rising, staring round the sky. The sky is weighty on us. A single beam can blind us and we’ll fall. Peaceful sleep does not await us. Exhausting dreams reclaim us. 28. IN MY ALBUM FOR MY FRIENDS (BYRON) As the traveller’s attention tarries on cold tombstones, so let my friends’ attention go to the writing of a familiar hand! .......... In many, many years it will remind them of a former friend: “He’s no longer with you, but his heart is buried there!” 29. SAKONTALA (KALIDASA/GOETHE) What the young year gives to flowers - their maidenly blush; what the mature year gives to fruit - their royal purple; what pampers and gladdens the glance, like a pearl, growing in the seas; what warms and enlivens the soul, like omnipotent nectar: the whole colour of the treasure box of dream, the whole, full colour of creation, and, in a word, a sky of beauty in rays of imagination, everything, everything Poetry has poured into you alone, Sakontala. 30. DECEMBER 14TH., 1825 Tyranny itself seduced you. Its sword has mown you like reeds. The Law is incorruptibly impartial. The Law’s infallible in word and deed. Disloyalty is shunned by our people. They’ll scorn your names. Abuse will heap. Your sons will never know your exploit, hidden in time, a rotten carcass buried deep! ........... Victims of foolish notions! Perhaps you had a youthful vision! Perhaps you thought you saw your thin blood trickling, covering the ice-caps as if alone it could thaw that age-old polar face. Why, it would scarce have time to sparkle when up there’d gust a breath of iron winter to murder every tiny trace! 31. (HEINE) Sadness stole into my heart and I vaguely recalled the past; everything was so cosy then, and people lived as in a dream. .......... Now it’s as if the world has disintegrated: everything’s upside down, everyone’s been knocked over. The Lord-God in his Heaven’s dead and Satan’s expired in Hell. .......... It’s as if people live in the world reluctantly. Everywhere there’s grumbling, everywhere there’s dissent. Were it not for a crumb of love in a person, I’d have long ago left this world. 32. QUESTIONS (HEINE) Above the sea, the wild northern sea, a young man stands, anguish in his breast, doubt in this mind, and gloomily he asks the waves, “Oh settle life’s riddle for me, this agonisingly ancient riddle over which hundreds, thousands of heads in Egyptian, Chaldaean caps embroidered with hieroglyphs, in turbans, mitres and skull-caps, be-wigged and shaven, hosts of poor, human heads have spun and withered and sweated. Tell me, what is the significance of man?” Where is he from, where is he going, who lives above the starry vault? As they did before, the waves roar and grumble, and the wind blows, driving on the clouds, and the stars gleam cold and bright. The fool stands, waiting for his answer! 33. THE SHIPWRECKED MAN (HEINE) Hope, love, everything, everything has perished! A pale, naked corpse thrown up by the angry sea, I lie on the shore, on the wild, bare shore! Before me is the watery wilderness, behind me, grief and misfortune, and above me the clouds indolently wander, the sky’s monstrous daughters! Into misty vessels they scoop the sea water and with their burden, tired, drag themselves into the distance and once again pour it into the sea! Joyless and endless labour, and vain, like my life! The sea roars, the sea bird moans! The past is wafted into my soul. Past dreams, extinguished visions rise, tormentedly joyful! A woman lives in the north! A beautiful image, regally beautiful! Her figure, shapely as a palm’s, is wrapped all around in white, voluptuous material; the dark billow of her luxuriant curls flows like a night of blissful gods from a head crowned with plaits and softly flutters in light ringlets around her pale, dear face, and from her dear, pale face her frank, fiery eyes shine like a black sun! Oh fiery black sun, oh how many, many times in your rays have I drunk the wild flame of ecstasy, drunk, grown number, shuddered, and with heavenly, dovelike meekness a smile has fanned across your lips, and your proudly dear mouth has breathed words as quiet as moonlight and as sweet as the fragrance of roses, and the spirit reviving in me has taken flight and soared like an eagle to the sun! Be silent, birds, stop roaring, sea. Everything has perished, happiness and hope, hope and love! I’m alone here, thrown up onto the desolate shore by the storm. I lie prostrate and with my glowing face I scrabble the wet sand of the sea’s depths! 34. (HEINE) As the bright moon sometimes sails out from the clouds, so, alone in the night of the past, a joyous ray shines to me. .......... We were all sitting on deck, carried along by the Rhine, the green banks stretching out before us, .......... and at the feet of a charming lady I sat reflective, and on her dear, pale face the quiet breeze flamed. .......... Children sang, played tambourines, there was no end to the noise, and the sky became bluer, and the heart more spacious. .......... As in a dream, flying by went mountains and castles on hills and they shone, reflected in my dear companion’s eyes. 35. THE SPIRIT’S GREETING (GOETHE) On an old tower by a river the spirit of a knight stands and as soon as he sees my boats, he sends them a greeting: .......... “Blood once boiled in this breast, my fist was made of lead, and there was a hero’s marrow in my bones, and I could knock the goblet back! .......... I stormed through half my life, and other half I wasted: and you sail on, sail on, little boat, wherever the current takes you!” 36. FROM WILHELM MEISTER’S APPRENTICESHIP (GOETHE) 1 He who has not eaten tears with his bread, who has not in life sat entire nights crying on his bed, is unfamiliar with the heavenly powers. .......... They lure us into existence, make a crime of weakness, and after it they torture us to death. No misdemeanour goes unpunished on this earth! 2 He who would be a stranger in the world will soon be one. Ah, people have someone to love, what are our needs to them! .......... So! What am I to you? What’s my misfortune to you? It’s mine alone and I’ll not be split from it! .......... As the lover steals hidden to his darling: “Answer me, love, are you along?” so by night and day wandering around me goes anguish. Sadness is all around me! Ah, is it only in the grave that I’ll manage to get away from them all? In the grave, in the damp earth, there they’ll throw me! 37. HEGIRA (GOETHE) West, North and South are crumbling, thrones, kingdoms are being destroyed. Get yourself off to the distant East, drink the patriarchal air! In games, songs, feasting renew your existence! .......... There I shall penetrate in secret to the hidden sources of primeval generations which directly hear the voice of divine commands without racking their minds. ........... Sanctifying the memory of our forebears, where foreign ways are sickened, where balance has been preserved in everything and thought is narrow, faith is spacious, where the strong, esteemed word is like a living revelation! .......... Now with shepherds beneath copses, now in the blossoming oasis I shall rest with a caravan, trading in aromatics. I shall keep an eye on all movements from the desert into the settlements. .......... The sacred songs of will sweeten the steep paths: their vociferous guide, singing in the pure firmament, awakens the late stars and irks the camels’ steps. .......... Now I shall be intoxicated by indolence in baths, true to the teaching of : my lady friend tossing aside her veil, shaking ambergris from her curls, and the poet’s honeyed tones rouse desire in heaven’s maidens! .......... Do not impute this haughtiness to superstition; know that every word of the poet in a light swarm, greedy for light, knocks at the gates of paradise, imploring the gift of immortality! 38. A SPRING STORM I love May’s first storms: chuckling, sporting spring grumbles in mock anger; young thunder claps, a spatter of rain and flying dust and wet pearls hanging threaded by sun-gold; a speedy current scampers from the hills. Such a commotion in the woods! Noises cartwheel down the mountains. Every sound is echoed round the sky. You’d think capricious Hebe, feeding the eagle of Zeus, had raised a thunder-foaming goblet, unable to restrain her mirth, and tipped it on the earth. 39. NAPOLEON’S TOMB Spring’s soul brings nature back to life and everything shines, celebrating peace: the skies’ azure, the blue sea, that wondrous tomb, the cliff! All around are trees in thick, new colour, their shadows, in the general silence, barely rippled by the breathing of the waves on the marble, warmed by spring. .......... A thunder of his victories long ago fell silent, but their echo still resounds. .......... A great shade has filled man’s mind, and his solitary shadow upon a wild shore, alien to everything, consoled by sea-birds’ shrieks, listens to the ocean’s roar. 40. HIDE AND SEEK There’s her harp in its usual corner. By the window, carnations and roses. On the floor a midday sunbeam dozes. Time’s up. So where’s she hiding? .......... Who’ll help me catch this teaser? Come on out, sylph! Where’s your lair? I can feel your magical nearness abundantly poured into the air. ......... Carnations peak slyly, nestling beside more fragrant, warmer roses, but I know who’s wrapped in your blossoms, I know who you’re trying to hide. ........ Was that your harp I heard? Do you think you can hide in its golden strings? You’ve brought the metal to life! I can feel it shuddering as it rings. .......... See the dust dancing in the sun’s shimmers, Like living sparks in kindred flames! Stop whirling, dear guest, magical being. How can I not know you’re there? 41. A SUMMER EVENING Earth nods its head. A glowing sphere rolls into the ocean, which enfolds the calm, evening red. .......... Bright stars start rising, heads still moist. They take the sky and hoist it far over the horizon. .......... Sweetness shudders through the land as if, freed from the heat, nature’d scooped spring waters in her hand and splashed her burning feet. 42. OLEG’S SHIELD “Allah, pour your light on us! Oh beauty and strength of the faithful! Terror of the two-faced heathens! Your prophet is Mohammed!” .......... “Oh, our fortress and our bulwark! Great God, lead us now as once, from the desert, you led your chosen people!” ........... Deep midnight! All is still! Suddenly from behind a cloud the moon shines down and there above the gates of Istanbul it lights up Oleg’s shield! 43. A VISION There is an hour at night when all the world is silent. Sights are seen. Miracles are done. The living horse and chariot of creation stampede the heavens in unbridled run. .......... Night draws in, thick Chaos heavy on the seas. Oblivion presses on the earth, like Atlas. Alone on the Muses’ virgin soul in seer-dreams the gods inflict unease. 44. BYRON (ZEDLITZ) 1 Come in with me - this dwelling is empty. The gods have let this house go to ruin. Their altar has been cold a long time and there’s been no change for silence standing guard here. On the threshold the attendant does not meet us with a welcome. Only the walls echo our voices. Why, oh son of the Muse, most favoured son, you, endowed with the gift of the inextinguishably fiery word, why did you flee your own roof? Why did you betray your father’s hearth? Ah, and where, in untimely repose, did this tempest which carried you off, speed you? 2 So, a mighty dweller once lived here. Here he breathed song and his breathing did not seem like that of the playful babbling of the breeze in the fragrant bird-cherry. No, his song, more threatening than the thundering clouds, like divine anger, now brooding, now bursting into flame, hurtled across the misty firmament. Suddenly above a green cornfield or an unfading garden it tore off the rivets and spewed out darkness and ice and flame, scorched with fire and furrowed with hail. Only in those spots where the cloud had torn did the sky’s azure smile charmingly! 3 They say the frenzied singing of demons drove those who listened mad. Thus it was with him, like an unearthly force, it tore up all the depths of his souls and on the very bed it awakened crime. Breathing stopped, the heart ached and something constricted the breast. Like a layer of air, thinning all around, he sucked the living blood from our veins and in the struggle we ran out of strength and could not throw off the tyranny of the charm, while he himself, as if for a laugh, refused to wave his staff and break the fascination! 4 And is it any wonder that a memory of the sublime visited your soul with involuntary sadness! Fate did not create a swan of you, dipping its wing into the crimson waves when the sunset burns above the currents and it swims, admiring itself, between a dual dawn. You were an eagle and from your native crags where you wove your nest, and in it, as if in a cradle, storms and blizzards lulled you. You plunged into the skies’ depths, inexhaustible, soared high above sea and earth, but your eye sought only corpses! 5 Ill-fated spirit! Like the glow of a conflagration was your bloodily-dull mirror, glittering in luxuriant, fresh bloom, so wildly reflecting the world and life! With the imprint of the sacred gift upon your brow and with the sceptre of power at this unearthly council in this confused world, you loved to send visions to trouble our mundane lives! In yourself, as if in an allegory, a menacing legend was resurrected for us, but our gaze cannot recognise you: are you a titan, whose heart is the food of the raven, or are you the raven, tearing the titan? 6 He abandoned the dwelling of his fathers, where their silent shades wander, where dear pledges have remained, and just as all day long the waves are stirred by the wings of the sea bird, dweller of bleak cliffs, so the gods decreed that he should pass along life’s road, nowhere finding a peaceful, bright haven! Vainly battling with people, with himself, he strove to grasp earthly happiness by force. Above him was Fate, inimical omnipotent! He followed it up to snowy summits, dropped down into dales, swam across sea-troughs! 7 Fugitive from his native land, the bard now hurtles to meet the sun, riding the tempestuous element, where Lisbon, glowing in the burning sky, is embraced by the golden crown of the azure bay, where the earth burns fragrantly and where fruits, ripening on dusty boughs, are yet more fragrant, fresher. Then he uttered a greeting to you, country of love, of heroism, of adventures, where even now their mellifluous genius seems fanned by the magic light of Alhambra’s patterned colonnades or the sweet-scented thickets of Granada! 8 Now laying out a devout funeral feast, surrounded by a swarm of departed spiritis, anguished he walks around that plain, where the world cast its die in glorious battle, where this fearsome, iron justice was meted out! This land, branded by fate, beneath the keen foot still trembles involuntarily even now, like a tundra of blood. Here, in dreadful torments, ranks of valiant hearts have been trodden into the ground and their ash lies layered around the plain. Enemies, they fell quiet together, some thirsting for, some thrilling in their vengeance! 9 The bard goes on and sees before him the grape-bearing, eternally youthful Rhine, and here and there, on vine-covered heights, a castle flashes, even today fanned by magic, mistily golden legends! And there in the distance, shining and cold, a massive titan has risen up, Switzerland! There, life is as if behind a fence. The horn blows, torrents sing more freely, in the mountains, as if in the chalice, lakes are deep, there is light on the hills, in the valleys cool shade and above it all icy heights, now pale, now fierily alive! 10 Then from the heights, where waters separate into the wide, southern plains, hurling their currents as if going to a feast, whence more than once, like glacial avalanches northern tribes have torn down into Italy, his own estate, he takes his inspiration. The heavenly spirit moves around this land of wonders, he rocks the high laurel and dark myrtle, he breathes beneath the vaults of bright mansions, takes away from blossoming breasts the scent of roses and rustles like a transparent blanket above the slumbering, ruined past! 11 But to the blossoming, deserted East the singer was drawn by an all-powerful passion, to his imagination’s favourite land! Once more before his demise he saw this world of violence, indolence, voluptuousness, where life and destruction embraced in luxuriant desolation and like friends in the evening light mountain peaks grew, where once there lived happy brigandage. There, beyond the cliff, is the pirate’s white sail, here the horn of the moon, burning on a mosque, and the pure remains of the Parthenon against the virginal rosiness of the heavens. 12 But you annulled the union of this creation, spirit of freedom, immortal element! Battle flared up between Despair and Power! Blood flowed like spring waters and in the night the earth drank them without a twinge of conscience. Only a glowing, like a lamp above a grave, burned above it on high. And will it happen soon - only providence knows - will dawn come and will the tempestuous gloom disperse? But let the young day brighten with love on the spot where the spirit of the singer wanders, where in the gloaming of sickly hope death closed his earthly eyelids! 13 The singer faded away on the sacrificial altar of battle! But nowhere did his song fall silent, though from his breast, torn by passions, more than once it flowed bloodily; the magic staff never fell from his hand, but it moved only the powers of hell! At odds with the heavens the high divinity of suffering was for him a hostile riddle and, drinking to his fill from the healing cup, he thirsted for poison, not for healing. His eyes stared into the subterranean horror. He turned his back on the starry glory of the night! 14 Thus he was, mighty, majestic, exulting critic of creation! But is his lot worthy of envy? Like the parental gift of existence he acquired that which was conferred by fame! But was he, appropriated by this demon, either fortunate or at peace? The shining of the stars, the happy beam of the morning star only rarely blew away the gloom of his soul where storms howled. He has quietened now, a burned out volcano. And the late luminary of immortality sadly looks down on him from the night skies. 45. THE MEANS AND THE END I’m in no hurry to receive garlands from you, though I am partial to your praises when I meet them along the way. .......... Although the ballast does not determine where and how the ship will float, it certainly alleviates its voyage. 46. TO THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS I Oh Nicholas, conqueror of peoples, you have justified your name! You have conquered! You, the warrior raised up by the Lord, have restrained the fury of his foes. The end of cruel trials has come, the end of unspeakable torments has come. Exult, Christians! Your God, the god of grace and battle, has wrenched the bloody sceptre from unclean hands. .......... It is to you, to you, the ambassador of his commands, to whom God Himself has entrusted His fearsome sword to lead his people from the shades of death and forever sever the age-old chain. Above your chosen head, oh tsar, grace has shone like a sun! Paling before you, the moon is wreathed in darkness. The Koran will not hold sway. .......... Hearing your wrathful voice from far away, the Ottoman gates trembled. At the mere wave of your hand they will fall to the foot of the cross. Complete your work, the salvation of people. Say, “Let there be light!” and there will be light! Enough bloodshed, tears shed, enough beaten woman and children, enough has Mohammed cursed Christ! .......... Your soul does not thirst for earthly fame, your gaze is not fixed on the mundane. But He, oh tsar, by whom powers are kept in place, has pronounced sentence on your foes. He himself turns his face from them. Blood has long since washed away their evil power. Above their heads the angel of death patrols. Istanbul retreats. Constantinople rises once again. 47. INSOMNIA Monotonous dying of the hours: midnight is telling a tedious tale in a foreign language we can’t fail to recognise as ours. .......... Who can claim it never befell him to hear time’s muffled groans stab his soul at night, the drone, when all’s quiet, of a prescient farewell? .......... It’s as if the world had been orphaned by irresistible fate chased and caught, and nature, after we had fought, had marooned us, each on his separate island. .......... Before us there stands our existence, a spectre on earth’s edge, and with our friends and with our age it pales into the distance. .......... While under the sun there is a birth, a new and youthful tribe’s begotten and it has long since been forgotten that we, our friends, our age, were ever on this earth! .......... At times, performing some gloomy rite, we can her metallic sighs bemoaning our demise in the silence of the night. 48. MORNING IN THE MOUNTAINS Morning smiles blue across country refreshed by rainstorms over night. Dew-bespeckled, through the mountains a valley’s a snail-track of light. Above it all the soaring summits are half in misty curtains caught, as if they were the airy ruins of castles sorcerers had wrought. 49. SNOWY MOUNTAINS Midday soars. It pauses, now holds steady. It sears the grasslands, skims and scalds the rills. Its sheer rays strike dusky woods which spread beneath the haze. Below, there is a steel-bright mirror. Blue currents in the lake invite quick streams to leave the heat, to scamper by smooth boulders and plunge beneath the waters into kindred dreams. While in blissful, fragrant sweetness, spread-eagled in the sweltering haze, far overhead, like gods we know as cousins, above the land that’s left to die, the mountains’ icy peaks play with the fiery blueness of the sky. 50. THE FINAL CATACLYSM When nature’s final hour strikes and earthly matter has disintegrated, the visible universe will be flooded. In the waters God’s face will be reflected. 51. TO N. N. You know how to love. You’re such a good actress, and when we’re in a crowd (and they can’t see us!) and my leg touches yours, you answer me without a blush. You always look so absent and you’re callous. As your breasts move, as you glance around and smile, that hateful guardian of a husband admires your servile beauty! Thanks to people, thanks to fate you’ve learned the cost of secret joys. You’ve learned about the world, that world which will betray us! Treason flatters you! Virginity’s first blush has left your youthful cheeks, as morning sunshine ravishes young roses of their sweet-smelling soul. So be it! In scorching summer heat our feelings are more flattered, our eyes more tempted by parting a vine in the shade and watching the grape, through dense, tight leaves, oozing its blood. 52. The happy day was loud and streets shone with crowds and shadows, cast by evening cloud, flew across bright buildings. From time to time the noise would float to me, sounds of heavenly existence; they’d merge into a single note, a hundred sounds, loud but muffled. The day moved on. I fell asleep. Spring’s languor exhausted me. Was my oblivion fleeting? Was it deep? More strange was the awakening. The hubbub in the streets had stilled. Silence reigned completely. On the walls, where evening shadows milled, something somnolent was glittering. Through my window panes there gleamed a pallid star which kept a secret, and as it peered at me it seemed it was a guardian of my slumber. It seemed to me as if I’d been abducted by some loving genie which craftily and quite unseen had sped me to a land of shadow. 53. EVENING Melting in the air above the valley, distant bells are chiming like flocks of flapping cranes, dying away in the rustle of leaves, bright, like the swelling sea of spring, crystal-like, like day at a distance, while faster, quieter, shadow lies around the valley. 54. MIDDAY Misty noon breathes idly. Idly waters play. Pure skies are sun-scorched. Cloud-wisps idly melt away. Clasped in hot embrace, nature drowns in sultry doze. Pan himself seeks calm, deep in the quiet of caves, deep in nymph-repose. 55. THE SWAN Eagle, plumb the clouds, talk to lightning, drink sunlight into your motionless eyes, but envy the swan, the pure, white swan. In a dual abyss, the deity has clothed you in the pure element, that god which cherishes omniscient vision, so that the swan is captured, surrounded on all sides by the full, starry glory of the sky. 56. SCENES FROM A JOURNEY (HEINE) “It’s going to be a nice day”, my friend said, glancing at the sky from the window of the carriage. Yes, it’ll be a nice day, my praying heart repeated, and it shivered in sadness and bliss! It will be a nice day! The sun of freedom will burn more animatedly and hotly now than the aristocracy of nocturnal luminaries! And the happiest tribe will bloom, conceived in arbitrary embraces, not on the iron bed of coercion beneath the strict customs scrutiny of the spiritual police, and in these souls, free-born, there will flare boldly the purest fire of ideas and feelings incomprehensible to us, by nature slaves! .......... Thus I thought and climbed from my carriage and with a sincere, morning prayer stepped onto the dust, sanctified by immortality! As beneath a high, triumphal vault of vast clouds, the sun rose victorious, bold and bright, announcing a fine day to nature. But at the sight I was so melancholy, like the moon, still a visible shade pale in the sky. Poor moon! In the deep night, alone, orphaned, it completed its bitter path while the world slept and only owls, apparitions and bandits caroused. And today before the young day, rising in glory, rays ringing forth joy and shot through with the dawn’s purple, it runs off. Just one more glance at the luxuriant universal light and like a fine wisp of smoke it flies from the sky. .......... Ah, equally incomprehensible to them will be that night in which their fathers joylessly languished their entire lives and carried on a despairing battle, a cruel one, against foul owls and subterranean vampires, monstrous things begotten of Erebus! Ill-fated warriors, all the spirit’s strength, all the heart’s blood we have exhausted in battle, and pale, prematurely decrepit, the late day of victory will light us up! The fresh immortality of the young sun will not enliven exhausted hearts, will not bring fire once more to dulled cheeks! We shall hide before them, like the pale moon! I don’t know nor do I seek to foresee what the Muse has in store for me! The poet’s laurels may or may not grace my gravestone! Poetry was to my soul a childlike-divine toy and the judgement of others perturbed me little. But place a sword on my tomb, my friends! I was a warrior! I fought for freedom, and served her in truth and faith in her sacred battle all my life! 57. You saw him in polite company, one moment happy, getting all his own way, then gloomy, absent, unsociable, full of mysterious thoughts. Such was the poet. You despised the poet! .......... Look at the moon: all day it seems exhausted, a pitiful wraithe. Wait till night falls, then you see this radiant god enfolding sleeping copses in its beams! 58. Among society’s gossips, in the pointless noise of day, at times my gaze, my movements, feelings, words just can’t be happy, don’t know what to say. Forgive me, love! Look, in daytime misty-white, the bright moon barely glimmers, but let night come: it pours into a clear mirror the fragrant, amber nectar of its light! 59. FROM FAUST, PART 1 (GOETHE) 1 As in days gone by, before you is heard the day’s luminary in the system of the planets and along its predetermined course thundering, it completes its flight! Seraphs marvel at it, but till now who has comprehended it? As on the first day, incomprehensible are the deeds, Almighty, of your hands! .......... And swiftly, with miraculous swiftness, the earth’s globe turns, replacing the quiet light of the sky with the deep darkness of night. The waves roar over the sea’s abyss, gouging out its rocky shore, and the chasm of waters with its cliffs the earth in its fast flight bears away! .......... And incessantly storms howl, and fling the earth from region to region, and oppress the waters and plough up the air, and weave a mysterious chain. The precursor-destroyer has flared up, tearing itself from the clouds, thunder has roared, but we in the world, all-retainer, praise your day and sing peace. The seraphs are amazed at you! The heavens’ praise thunders to you! As on the first day, incomprehensible are the deeds, Lord, of your hands! 2 “Who called me?” “Oh, horrible sight!” “With a powerful and persistent charm you gnawed my magic circle and not in vain, and now ...” “Your aspect benumbs me!” “Was that not you praying, like one in a frenzy, to see my face and hear my voice? I inclined myself to your persistent call and here I stand before you! What despicable fear has suddenly possessed your soul, titan? Is this the breast whose creative power created a world, nourished and cultivated it and, hoping for unterrestrial valour, with indefatigable effort strove to bring itself up to us, the spirits? Is this you, Faust? And was that your voice, pestering me with despairing prayer? You, Faust? This poor, helpless dust, imbued throughout with my breath, shuddering to the very depths of his soul?” “Do not dispirit my head with this fiery contempt! You will not turn it aside! Yes, spirit, I am Faust, I am like you, I am your equal!” “The tempest of events and the swell of the fates I turn around, I raise up, I hover here, I hover there, high and low! Death and Birth, Will and Fate, waves in conflict, elements in dispute, life in its changes, the eternal, solitary current! Thus does the fateful fabric hum on my loom, weaving for God a living garment!” “With what insuperable affinity, immortal spirit, you attract me to yourself!” “Only to that nature you have dreamed up are you alike - not to me!” 3 “What do you want of me, what do you seek in my dust? Sacred voices, you sing out there, there, where hearts are both purer and more tender. I hear the news, but can I believe it? Oh faith, faith, kindred mother of miracles, shall I dare raise my glance there, whence the blissful message flies? Ah, but accustomed from childhood to it, this kindred sound, this masterful sound still entices me to existence! It would happen that the heavens would kiss me in the silence of Sunday. I heard the trembling of sacred bells in the depths of my soul, and the prayer was living sweetness to me! The soul’s urge to be one with heaven carried me off to woods and dales and, drenched in warm tears, I created a new world for myself. About happy youth’s game, about bright spring would this glad news be. Ah, and at that solemn hour the recollection of them would master my soul! Sing out, voices, play again, sacred hymn! My tear flees! Earth, I am yours once more!” 4 Why destroy in empty depression the blissful possession of this hour? See how evening shines and scatters around the huts with their greenery. The day is through, and to other skies the day’s luminary brings life. Oh, where are the wings that I might fly after it, sticking close to its rays, following its path? A beautiful world lies at my feet and, eternally evening, laughs. All the heights glow, there is peace in every valley, a silvery brook flows down to golden rivers. Above a chain of untamed mountains, silvan lands, the god-like flight is wafted, and already in the distance you can see shining in its gulfs the ocean. But the bright divinity inclines its head to the waters and suddenly the mysterious might of its wing has come to life again and chases after the departing one and once more the soul drowns in currents of light. Day is in front of me, night behind. At my feet a plain of water, the sky above my head. Lovely dream! A vain one! Farewell! To match the wings of the soul soaring above the earth, we’ll not find corporeal ones in a hurry. But this gust, this urge skywards and into the distance, is a natural inclination, all people have it in their breast and at times it comes to life in us, when, during spring, above our heads, the lark’s song tinkles from a cloud, when over a steep, wooded slope the eagle, spreading its wings, soars, when over lakes or the empty steppe the crane hurries home. 5 There was a king, so few they are now, faithful up to his death. As he died, his loved one gave him a goblet. .......... He valued it greatly and frequently drained it, his heart beating strongly in him the moment he picked it up. .......... When his turn came to quit this world, he divided out his possessions, but did not give away the cup. .......... And into the castle above the sea he summoned his friends and, taking his farewells of them, he sat there carousing. .......... When he drank for the last time the fiery liquid, he leaned out over the abyss and tossed the cup into the waters. .......... To the bottom of the sea the goblet sank, it sank and vanished from view, his heart began to beat the king had drunk his last drop! 6 Almighty spirit, you have given me everything, everything I prayed for! Not for nothing did your face lean radiant to me! You gave me all of nature to possess and showed me how to love it. You allowed me not to be a mere, idly-amazed guest at her feast, but admitted me into the very depths of her breast, as into the heart of a friend! The ranks of earth-born filed past me and you taught me, in a thicket, in the open, or on the seas’ bosom, to see brotherhood there and to love it! When a storm creaks and whistles through conifers, a giant pine smashes the neighbouring trees with a crack in a crash of falling boughs, indistinctly a rumble arises all around and, unsteady, the hillsides groan. You lead me into a peaceful cavern, and you present me to the eyes of my very soul and its world, its wondrous world, you reveal for me! Let the all-sweetening moon rise in its meek brilliance and to me there fly from craggy mountains, from the humid pine forest, the silver shades of past ages, and in the stern consolation of contemplation they soften me with their mysterious influence! 60. FROM THE FIFTH OF MAY (MANZONI) Lofty presentiment’s urges and languor, the soul, thirsting for mastery, in its seething aspirations, the coming together of designs as unfeasible as dream