Men say the world is full of fear and hate,
And all life's ripening harvest-fields await
The restless sickle of relentless fate.
But I, sweet Soul, rejoice that I was born,
When from the climbing terraces of corn
I watch the golden orioles of Thy morn.
What care I for the world's desire and pride,
Who know the silver wings that gleam and glide,
......
Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels'
hierarchies? and even if one of them suddenly
pressed me against his heart, I would perish
in the embrace of his stronger existence.
For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror
which we are barely able to endure and are awed
because it serenely disdains to annihilate us.
Each single angel is terrifying.
And so I force myself, swallow and hold back
the surging call of my dark sobbing.
......
I.
I said---Then, dearest, since 'tis so,
Since now at length my fate I know,
Since nothing all my love avails,
Since all, my life seemed meant for, fails,
Since this was written and needs must be---
My whole heart rises up to bless
Your name in pride and thankfulness!
Take back the hope you gave,---I claim
......
When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.
But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay.
Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-coloured
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells
......
The gingham dog and the calico cat
Side by side on the table sat;
'T was half-past twelve, and (what do you think!)
Nor one nor t' other had slept a wink!
The old Dutch clock and the Chinese plate
Appeared to know as sure as fate
There was going to be a terrible spat.
(I wasn't there; I simply state
What was told to me by the Chinese plate!)
......
Ein Blatt fällt vom Baum,
nicht weil es schwach ist,
sondern weil die Zeit gekommen ist.
Der Wind trägt es fort,
fragt nicht nach Richtung,
kennt kein Ziel.
Vielleicht wird es gesehen,
vielleicht nicht.
......
Was du gibst
kehrt zurück,
manchmal sanft,
manchmal scharf wie Glas.
Ein Handlung
verschwindet nicht
im Vergessen.
Die Welt erinnert sich
......
What you give
returns
sometimes gently,
sometimes sharp as glass.
An action
does not
fade into oblivion.
The world remembers
......
Fools, Politicians, and the Press
A jesting farce, a grim blockade—
The fools have dragged us to our knees,
Joined by the Dark, corrupt brigade
Of liars in the press’s sleaze.
And guarding them, the brute police.
......
Writer of the present era,
Conceived and raised in the illumination of the gods.
Literary path they showed me,
Never to be them but to seek what they sought.
Winter and summer, i lay my lines.
Explicit and abstract, still in my lines of ancestors.
Lines of creatity i wished, and end to it i prayed not.
Papyrus and cuneiform, all i grew with.
......