translation excerpts
To Isaac Sinclair
Endarkened in the ivy I sat, before the gates
Of Silva - this side - of the golden midday,
Seeking the source, hereunder
The steps of the mountainous Alps,
Known to me by the old name,
Heavenly Fortress, abode of the godly
Where intimating fortune, some reach
the decisive secret of the human in dwelling.
From there scarcely had I sensed,
Without courage, a fate re-calling
In me the warmth of the shadows
of I T A L Y, soulful, verbose,
And the distant shores of Morea,
When inside the cavernous
Depths, under summits silver,
And into the cheery green
Where the forests engulf him,
I heard, overlooking the stone-heads
Shuddering, daylong,
In the coldest abyss, them:
Bewailing, loudly, the diremption
Of youth, dumbfounded, accusing
Mother Earth and the Thunderer,
Who had conceived him,
In the crevices of fear in darkness,
Rocking himself still, barely a shade, it
The rage of the Demigod.
Once the noblest of the currents, the voice
Was of the free-born Rhein,
And it leapt, jutting over hanging above
The brotherly raging forge,
Propelling the regal soul’s departure, and driving
It away to Asia, so that
Un-astounded by the
Wishes of fate,
It knows that
The sons of the gods
Are the blindest before it.
Not recognizing, perdured souls,
Themselves in his house, and taming
Where they should build, to each is
Given a share in Error.
A riddle is purely a leap
Into song, this it hardly conceals. For
How you commence, thus you remain,
Such is the necessity that works,
And the desire, namely, that most
Wants to be born beams, greets
the newborn.
But where is such a one
To whom a peaceful sojourn
His whole life grants, and whose heart’s wish
Would only be fulfilled, from
The opportune heights, like the Rhein
And to be reborn from those holy mounds
Happily, as this?
So that his word exclaims!
He’d rather not whine
Like other children in rags.
And when the riverbanks encroach upon him
as the nooks of a cat’s cradle,
Thirst encircles him.
To want to nourish the unthinking fro,
Laughing to the teeth,
Gnashing at the serpentine beast, in a rush
Another bigger one does not tames him, plunging
The prey, he would, like lightning,
Strike the earth, and when bewitched, the beasts
Chase after him out of the woods,
Collision is mountain-and-him —
A God would spare the sons the
hurried life, and laughingly,
And unrestrained, but hemmed in
From the holy Alps, the currents
Rage at him, into the deep forge, as this.
In such a feast
All turns to noise, well-adorned
And pretty is the debris, as it portends,
He leaves the mountains content,
To acquiesce the furrows of the German lands.
Satiating himself, the vision dries
In good works, and when the land built
By the father Rhein and beloved children nourishes
The cities, those he has grounded.
Indeed never, ever does he forget it.
For sooner would the dwelling perish
And the ordinance turn to ruin
Than that day be when man should forget
His origin in such a way,
And the pure voice of youth.
Who was it who corrupted,
For the first time, the bonds of love,
Making chains out of them?
For the defiant have their own right
And the certainty of heavenly fire.
And mocked, for
Disdaining mortal paths,
They recklessly likened themselves
To the gods to become their like.
But the gods are
Not wanting of true immortality, yet the heavenly
Are needful of one thing.
Thus are heroes and humans
Even the mortals. For since
The blessed feel nothing of their own,
Partaking, if one could say so,
Of the names of the gods
In the other, they are needful
For their justice that his
Own house destroy him, and the most beloved
Be as foe chastised, and the father himself and child
Be entombed under the rubble,
When one, as they, endures his will
And not something else, like the dreamer.
All-engrossed, where around
Him a befitting fate
Wanders to where the
Sweet pain of remembrance
Washes him ashore
Thereto, and likely
Seeing to it that even the thresholds
Of the birth of God bring him
To the assigned place.
For calming the modest soul,
Bearing all, what he wanted,
The umbrage of the dying,
Wrestling, laughingly,
Now soothing to the bold ones.
Half-human demigods now
I think, known to me
As those whose lives
Move the seer in my heart.
But those, like Rousseau, who
Imperceptibly move the soul,
Coagulating to ever stronger
And more certain sense,
Listen to the sweet gifts,
Speak through them, as of the holy
Abundance of the wine god, knavishly, godly
And unbounded, offer them
Language of the purest knowledge of the gods but with
Might, heedless of the blindest strike, they
Sunder the servants from, how to call him, the stranger?
The sons of the earth, like the mother, are
All-loving, for they too are so
Effortlessly, the happy ones.
Astounded too
And frightening the dying man,
When he embraced them
With open arms, the heavenly
Carried in love on the shoulder
Of hindered joy, bemused.
For the best seemed to them
But forgotten when,
Wholly, in the woods,
Rays ablaze the shadows
In the open fields of the hills turning to sea
And free of fate’s worry,
They begot notes that are those of the Nightingale’s.
And it is — sovereignly, awakened by the holy slumber
Surrounding the cool of the forest’s
Evenings, arisen to
The pale light of an opposing
Horizon, overlooking the mountain,
De-lineating the path of currents,
That — which occupies man’s life.
Delirious with laughter,
The breathless ones, like swallows
Caught in the wind,
Make serene, even the student who
Now making more of
Good than evil,
Finds the day satiated.
Celebrating the bridal feast of man and the gods
The living dance around,
Well-balanced and
Equal becomes the sojourn of fate’s
Refuge in search of shelter.
But sweet and shimmering, and
Loving the chivalrous
Are, they are, what had
Been, at home, in bloom, overjoyed
By the ardour of trees, eclipsed
By rustling spirit, in the rustling of unredeemed
But consecrated and outstretched
Hands, rushing now, reaching for
The friendly light, until
Dusk brings with it night.
So at one, hurrying,
Harried past over, quickening,
Then withholding longer
Like gods, eternal are
The living for all time until in death
Mankind might hold too
The best in memory,
And thereby experience the highest.
Each having only his own weight to carry,
Bearing the heavy
Ordain, and with difficulty the happiness.
But a wise one likened it
To being, so from midday
Until midnight, the splendour of morning
Must burn bright until the mealtime.
To you, dear Sinclair, in the heat of paths that carve the pine
Forest, endarkened by Oakes, enshrouded
By a hidden ray! God appears
Or in clouds, where a s a young man, you knew
Him, the goodly, never-to-you hidden
Force, the laughter of the lord
At daytime when
Feverishly and unburdened
The living shines or
At night it all blends
Without rhyme or reason returns
in primeval confusion.
