Hyperion’s Fate Song (Excerpt)
You walk above in the light,
Soulful genius, on a yielding floor!
God’s shining breezes
Gently touch you
As the fingers of a musician
Play on otherworldly strings
Fateless, like a nursing infant asleep,
The gods draw breath;
As chastely preserved
As modest buds,
Their minds are always
When I was a boy … (Excerpt)
As you make happy
The hearts of plants
When they extend to you
Their delicate tendrils,
So you make my heart happy,
Father Sun, and like Endymion
I was your favorite,
Holy Moon!
All true and neighborly gods!
If only you knew
How much I loved you then!
True, at that time, I didn’t
Know your names, and you
Never bothered to name me, like men
Who only pretend to know one another.
As when on holiday … (Excerpt)
As on holiday, to see the field
A countryman goes out in the morning, when
Out of the hot night the cooling lightning had fallen
For a long time, and in the distance thunder sounded,
And the stream once again fills its banks,
Fresh green covers the earth,
The reassuring rain falls from the heavens,
The grapevine drips, and the trees
Of the grove stand gleaming in the quiet sun:
So they stand in good weather,
Mastered by no one, but All-Presence,
So wonderful, holds in its light embrace
The powerful, godly beauty of Nature.
So when she seems to sleep at certain times of the year,
In the sky or under the garden leaves, or among the world’s people,
The poets’ faces are also sad,
They seem to be alone, but they’re always
Having a premonition, as Nature does when she rests.
Beginning at the Abyss (Excerpt)
We began of course at the abyss
And have gone forth like lions
In doubt and anger,
For men are more sensual
In the heat
Of deserts
Drunk with light, and the spirit of animals
Lies down with them. But soon, like a dog,
My voice will wander in the heat
Through the garden paths
In which people live
In France …
The Creator …
- Friedrich Hölderlin
