(1)
Near and
difficult to grasp is God.
But where there is danger, grows
too the saving power.
In darkness live
the eagles, and fearlessly go
over the abyss, the sons of the Alps,
on lightly built bridges.
Therefore, since all around,
the summits of time are coiled and
the most beloved lives near
the faint outline of the most separate of mountains,
give us innocent water,
Oh wings, give us, and emboldened sense,
to cross over them and to return again.
(2)
Thus I spoke when faster than I
myself had guessed,
and far, to where I never
thought I would arrive, a genius
from my own house carried me.
It glimmered in twilight,
when I went into the shadowy woods,
and the brooks yearning for home,
never did I know the lands thus.
But soon in the open radiance,
full of mystery,
there blossomed in golden smoke,
pungent, swiftly growing
with the rising strides,
a thousand summits in the sun.
(3)
Asia rose up to me and dazzled,
seekingly I groped in the unknown alleys,
broad, unaccustomed to where,
leading, Tmolous reaches
the golden bedded Pactolous
and Taurus stands, and Messogis,
and full of the flowers of the garden,
a quiet fire. But in the light
blossoms high the silver snow,
and a testament to undying life,
clinging to impenetrable walls
as old as Ivy, quickening and carrying
pillars made of the living, Cedars and wreaths,
on the festive palace
the godly erected.
(4)
Asia’s gate invite murmurings that
draw into the uncertain open sea
the shadowless streets, here
and there, they suffice
for one to recognize the Isle of the seaman.
And there I sensed
in the nearby, at hand, what
should be Patmos,
desiring much, that I,
tossing and turning, take to
where grottos lie in darkness, in wait.
For they are not like
Cyprus, rich in
wellsprings or
the others, this one
Patmos stays sovereign.
(5)
Guest-friendly nonetheless
In her poorer houses,
she but
draws near
when from shipwreck or lamenting
for the homeland or the dearly departed friend
one reaches it.
The stranger of whose tidings she was gladdened, and her children,
hearkened at the voices in the groves, in heat,
where the sand, falling, cracks
the surface of the fields open to sound --
they hear him, and lovingly intone
the man's re-echoed lament, so that tendered
once more the beloved of God,
the seer who in blessed youth
(6)
had walked
with the sons of the highest, inseparable,
was loved by the bearer of Thunder. The
Ingenious youth, visible and seeing the vigilant man,
the countenance of God, where
the mystery of vine brought them together at the feast,
was becalmed by the great soul’s foreknowledge, death,
And the Lord spoke, for he never had enough, of last love,
saying much of what is good.
Words, when soothing, to one who
saw the wrath of the world,
bring goodness to all. He died thereupon. And
much is to be said of that. But he was spotted triumphant
by the most joyous of friends one last time.
(7)
Indeed they grieved now that
it was the evening of time, astounded,
for the men had a great and decisive thing in mind.
Yet preferring life under the sun, they did not
want to let go of the face of the Lord
and penetrate as fire into steely ice,
that, the homeland. But with them
the shadow of love went along to the side.
Therefore he sent them
the spirit and shook to the core
their house, and from afar, thundering,
God raged over
them, their foreknowledge. Heavily, broodingly
gathered were death’s heroes.
(8)
Now that departing, he
once more appeared to them,
now is the day of the sun extinguished
by the sovereign, dispersing
the shining light of
the scepter, the passion of God of itself
would return where
at the right time, for later would not be
good, and swiftly, it breaks the work of men
undignified, and joyously pours,
from now on,
into the loving night, to live and behold
with eyes pure, affine,
not the abysses of wisdom, where growth quickens
too deep into the mountains, but a living likeness.
(9)
Indeed terrifying it is how here and there
God disperses infinitely the living,
for already to abandon the face
of the righteous friend,
and to set to the mountains, away, alone
where known intimately
by the assent of the heavenly spirit
one is seized by the hair and not knowing with what
returns their gaze
from afar, when, suddenly
and vowing, God binds them,
holdingly enjoins them,
as on a golden string, to name
evil from here on, to join hands.
(10)
But when he dies, as when
one to whom
beauty most clings, delineates
a wonder to behold in shape,
on him is then raised for the heavenly
an enigma eternally to those who
cleave to one another
but cannot grasp each other, live together
conjoined in memory, it razes, and not
just the sand or the willows, it
seizes, the temple, when the honour
of the demigod, and those of his, fades away, and of itself
his face turns to the highest,
whereupon no immortal left in heaven
is to be seen anymore on the green earth. What is this?
(11)
It is the throw of the sower
when he hurls with a shovel the crops,
threshing, makes a clearing of the sieved bounty.
To him is allotted the chafe at the feet but
the kernel is gotten to at the end.
And no evil is it when
there disappears some from speech,
as the echo of living sound.
For god’s work too is like ours.
Needful is the highest of some.
(12)
But when wayward on a spur,
to one thus speaking sadly, as was
my lot, on the way, astounded such that
wanting to imitate for God the picture of servitude,
in bewilderment, it became visible at once, to me:
That the lord of hosts – not – that I should
be something, but that
learning the good, and they, the most hated,
are but so long sovereign of the false , returns
with the human and no longer amongst men,
that they did not found but it founds:
immortal fate and the fruits of its work,
of itself, hurriedly going to the end,
when namely, higher than the heavenly
with triumphant gait, was named, the sun just as
the strong, of the loosely hanging sons of the highest one.
(13)
A signpost without fate, and here the staff
of song’s gleaming under
the surface of a commons not awakened
by death, nor still in captivity.
Of conduits that come to expect
much of the timid eye,
shrinking the light. Not wanting
to let the sharp ray let them blossom.
How much more the courage of the golden wonder,
when to behold it but
as undulating brows over the eyes
forgets the world’s
power of stilling the strokes of holy scripture, augmenting
the stillness of the strained gaze.
(14)
And if the heavenly now, such
is what I believe, love me,
how much more you?
For I know of one,
the eternal namely,
of the father much
to you holds true, His sign is the quiet
of the dawn at heavens. And languor beneath it.
For his whole life. For Christ still lives.
There are but many heroes, his sons
gathering all and holy scripture
from him and lightening of clarification,
deeds that the earth until now,
irresistably course through the world. But he is around. For his works
are all known to him from before.
(15)
The honor of the divinity is for
too long, too long already, invisible.
Since almost a demiurge has to
fashion us, and painfully
his power tears at the heart,
since the heavenly sacrifice all
when to one is allotted the missing of the mark.
Never has it brought anything good.
Having sacrificed to mother Earth
and in the distant days, worshiped the sunlight,
unknowingly, but the father loves,
he reigns over each
at most so that the solid
letter becomes cultivated, and endures well
and holds. German song proffered thereto.
