The HyperTexts
Germane Germans: Translations of German Poetry by Michael R. Burch
These are modern English translations of poems by the German poets
Hermann Allmers, Hannah Arendt,
Ingeborg Bachmann, Paul Celan, H. Distler, Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim,
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,
Günter Grass,
Johann Georg Jacobi, Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock,
Rainer Maria Rilke, Friedrich Schiller, Angelus Silesius
and Georg Trakl.
Rainer Maria Rilke
Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926) was a Bohemian-Austrian poet generally considered to be a major poet of the German language. He also wrote more
than 400 poems in French. He was born René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke in Prague, then the capital of Bohemia and part of
Austria-Hungary. During Rilke's early years his mother, who had lost a baby daughter, dressed him in girl's clothing.
From 1895 to 1896, he
studied literature, art history and philosophy in Prague and Munich. In 1902 Rilke traveled to Paris to write about the sculptor Auguste
Rodin. Rilke became deeply impressed with Rodin's art and for a time served as
his secretary. Under Rodin's influence Rilke transformed his poetic style from
the subjective to the objective. His best-known poem, "Archaic Torso of Apollo,"
was written about a sculpture by Rodin and speaks about the life-transforming
properties (and demands) of great art.
Rilke translated here include Herbsttag ("Autumn Day"), Der Panther ("The Panther"), Archaïscher Torso Apollos ("Archaic Torso of Apollo"),
Komm, Du ("Come, You"), Das Lied des Bettlers ("The Beggar's Song"), Liebeslied ("Love Song"), and the
first two Duino Elegies.
Herbsttag ("Autumn Day")
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by
Michael R. Burch
Lord, it is time. Let the immense summer go.
Lay your long shadows over the sundials
and over the meadows, let the free winds blow.
Command the late fruits to fatten and shine;
O, grant them another Mediterranean hour!
Urge them to completion, and with power
convey final sweetness to the heavy wine.
Who has no house now, never will build one.
Who's alone now, shall continue alone;
he'll wake, read, write long letters to friends,
and pace the tree-lined pathways up and down,
restlessly, as autumn leaves drift and descend.
Archaischer Torso Apollos ("Archaic Torso of Apollo")
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by
Michael R. Burch
We cannot know the beheaded god
nor his eyes' forfeited visions. But still
the figure's trunk glows with the strange vitality
of a lamp lit from within, while his composed will
emanates dynamism. Otherwise
the firmly muscled abdomen could not beguile us,
nor the centering loins make us smile
at the thought of their generative animus.
Otherwise the stone might seem deficient,
unworthy of the broad shoulders, of the groin
projecting procreation's triangular spearhead upwards,
unworthy of the living impulse blazing wildly within
like an inchoate star—demanding our belief.
You must change your life.
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: This is a poem about a major resolution: changing the very
nature of one's life. While it is only my personal
interpretation of the poem above, I believe Rilke was saying to himself: "I
must change my life." Why? Perhaps because he wanted to be a real artist, and
when confronted with real, dynamic, living and breathing art of Rodin, he realized that
he had to inject similar vitality, energy and muscularity into his poetry. Michelangelo said that he
saw the angel in a block of marble, then freed it. Perhaps Rilke had to
find the dynamic image of Apollo, the God of Poetry, in his materials, which
were paper, ink and his imagination.—Michael R. Burch
Der Panther ("The Panther")
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by
Michael R. Burch
His weary vision's so overwhelmed by iron bars,
his exhausted eyes see only blank Oblivion.
His world is not our world. It has no stars.
No light. Ten thousand bars. Nothing beyond.
Lithe, swinging with a rhythmic easy stride,
he circles, his small orbit tightening,
an electron losing power. Paralyzed,
soon regal Will stands stunned, an abject thing.
Only at times the pupils' curtains rise
silently, and then an image enters,
descends through arrested shoulders, plunges, centers
somewhere within his empty heart, and dies.
Komm, Du ("Come, You")
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
This was Rilke's last poem, written ten days before his death. He died
open-eyed in the arms of his doctor on December 29, 1926, in the Valmont
Sanatorium, of leukemia and its complications. I had a friend who died of
leukemia and he was burning up with fever in the end. I believe that is what
Rilke was describing here: he was literally burning alive.
Come, you—the last one I acknowledge; return—
incurable pain searing this physical mesh.
As I burned in the spirit once, so now I burn
with you; meanwhile, you consume my flesh.
This wood that long resisted your embrace
now nourishes you; I surrender to your fury
as my gentleness mutates to hellish rage—
uncaged, wild, primal, mindless, outré.
Completely free, no longer future's pawn,
I clambered up this crazy pyre of pain,
certain I'd never return—my heart's reserves gone—
to become death's nameless victim, purged by flame.
Now all I ever was must be denied.
I left my memories of my past elsewhere.
That life—my former life—remains outside.
Inside, I'm lost. Nobody knows me here.
There are more poems by Rilke later on this page, including my translations of
his first two Duino Elegies.
To the boy Elis
by Georg Trakl, an Austrian poet who wrote in German
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Elis, when the blackbird cries from the black forest,
it announces your downfall.
Your lips sip the rock-spring's blue coolness.
Your brow sweats blood
recalling ancient myths
and dark interpretations of birds' flight.
Yet you enter the night with soft footfalls;
the ripe purple grapes hang suspended
as you wave your arms more beautifully in the blueness.
A thornbush crackles;
where now are your moonlike eyes?
How long, oh Elis, have you been dead?
A monk dips waxed fingers
into your body's hyacinth;
Our silence is a black abyss
from which sometimes a docile animal emerges
slowly lowering its heavy lids.
A black dew drips from your temples:
the lost gold of vanished stars.
I believe that in the second stanza the blood on Elis's
forehead may be a reference to the apprehensive bloody sweat of Jesus in the
garden of Gethsemane. If my interpretation is correct, Elis hears the
blackbird's cries, anticipates the danger represented by a harbinger of death,
but elects to continue rather than turn back. From what I have been able to
gather, the color blue had a special significance for Georg Trakl: it symbolized
longing and perhaps a longing for death. The colors blue, purple and black may
represent a progression toward death in the poem.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Excerpt from “To the Moon”
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
loose translations/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Scattered, pole to starry pole,
glide Cynthia's mild beams,
whispering to the receptive soul
whatever moonbeams mean.
Bathing valley, hill and dale
with her softening light,
loosening from earth’s frigid chains
my restless heart tonight!
Over the landscape, near and far,
broods darkly glowering night;
yet welcoming as Friendship’s eye,
she, soft!, bequeaths her light.
Touched in turn by joy and pain,
my startled heart responds,
then floats, as Whimsy paints each scene,
to soar with her, beyond...
I mean Whimsy in the sense of both the Romantic Imagination and caprice.
Here, I have the idea of Peter Pan flying off with Tinker Bell to Neverland. My translation was informed by a translation by John S. Dwight.
Der Erlkönig (“The Elf King”)
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
loose translations/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Who rides tonight with the wind so wild?
A loving father, holding his child.
Please say the boy’s safe from all evil and harm!
He rests secure in his dear father’s arms.
My son, my son, what’s that look on your face?
Father, he’s there, in that dark, scary place!
The elfin king! With his dagger and crown!
Son, it’s only the mist, there’s no need to frown.
My dear little boy, you must come play with me!
Such marvelous games! We’ll play and be free!
Many bright flowers we'll gather together!
Son, why are you wincing? It’s only the weather.
Father, O father, how could you not hear
What the elfin king said to me, drawing so near?
Be quiet, my son, and pay “him” no heed:
It was only the wind gusts stirring the trees.
Come with me now, you're a fine little lad!
My daughters will kiss you, then you’ll be glad!
My daughters will teach you to dance and to sing!
They’ll call you a prince and give you a ring!
Father, please look, in the gloom, don’t you see
The dark elfin daughters keep beckoning me?
My son, all I can see and all I can say
Is the wind makes the grey willows sway.
Why stay with your father? He’s deaf, blind and dumb!
If you’re unwilling I’ll force you to come!
Father, he’s got me and won’t let me go!
The cruel elfin king is hurting me so!
At last struck with horror his father looks down:
His gasping son’s holding a strange golden crown!
Then homeward through darkness, all the faster he sped,
But cold in his arms, his dear child lay dead.
The Fisher
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
The river swirled and rippled;
nearby an angler lay,
and watched his lure with a careless eye,
like any other day.
But as he watched in a strange half-dream,
he saw the waters part,
and from the river’s depths emerged
a maiden, or a tart.
A Lorelei, she sang to him
her strange, bewitching song:
“Which of my sisters would you snare,
with your human hands, so strong?
To make us die in scorching air,
ripped from our land, so clear!
Why not leave your arid land
And rest forever here?”
“The sun and lady-moon, they lave
their tresses in the main,
and find such cleansing in each wave,
they return twice bright again.
These deep-blue waters, fresh and clear,
O, feel their strong allure!
Wouldn’t you rather sink and drown
into our land, so pure?”
The water swirled and bubbled up;
it lapped his naked feet;
he imagined that he felt the touch
of the siren’s kisses sweet.
She sang to him of mysteries
in her soft, resistless strain,
till he sank into the water
and never was seen again.
My translation was informed by a translation by William Edmondstoune Aytoun
and Theodore Martin.
ON LOOKING AT SCHILLER’S SKULL
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Here in this charnel-house full of bleaching bones,
like yesteryear’s
fading souvenirs,
I see the skulls arranged in strange ordered rows.
Who knows whose owners might have beheaded peers,
packed tightly here
despite once repellent hate?
Here weaponless, they stand, in this gentled state.
These arms and hands, they once were so delicate!
How articulately
they moved! Ah me!
What athletes once paced about on these padded feet?
Still there’s no hope of rest for you, lost souls!
Deprived of graves,
forced here like slaves
to occupy this overworld, unlamented ghouls!
Now who’s to know who loved one orb here detained?
Except for me;
reader, hear my plea:
I know the grandeur of the mind it contained!
Yes, and I know the impulse true love would stir
here, where I stand
in this alien land
surrounded by these husks, like a treasurer!
Even in this cold,
in this dust and mould
I am startled by a strange, ancient reverie, ...
as if this shrine to death could quicken me!
One shape out of the past keeps calling me
with its mystery!
Still retaining its former angelic grace!
And at that ecstatic sight, I am back at sea ...
Swept by that current to where immortals race.
O secret vessel, you
gave Life its truth.
It falls on me now to recall your expressive face.
I turn away, abashed here by what I see:
this mould was worth
more than all the earth.
Let me breathe fresh air and let my wild thoughts run free!
What is there better in this dark Life than he
who gives us a sense of man’s divinity,
of his place in the universe?
A man who’s both flesh and spirit—living verse!
There are more Goethe translations later on this page.
To The Muse
by Friedrich Schiller
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
I do not know what I would be,
without you, gentle Muse!,
but I’m sick at heart to see
those who disabuse.
GOETHE & SCHILLER XENIA EPIGRAMS
She says an epigram’s too terse
to reveal her tender heart in verse …
but really, darling, ain’t the thrill
of a kiss much shorter still?
―#2 from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose
translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
There are more translations of the Xenia epigrams of Goethe and Schiller later on this page.
Through the fields of solitude
by Hermann Allmers
set to music by Johannes Brahms
translation by
David B. Gosselin
with Michael R. Burch
Peacefully, I rest in the tall green grass
For a long time only gazing as I lie,
Caught in the endless hymn of crickets,
And encircled by a wonderful blue sky.
And the lovely white clouds floating across
The depths of the heavens are like silky lace;
I feel as though my soul has long since fled,
Softly drifting with them through eternal space.
This poem was set to music by the German composer Johannes Brahms in what has
been called its “the most sublime incarnation.” A celebrated recording of the
song was made in 1958 by the baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau with Jörg Demus
accompanying him on the piano.
Hannah Arendt was a Jewish-German philosopher and Holocaust survivor who also wrote poetry.
H.B.
for Hermann Broch
by Hannah Arendt
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Survival.
But how does one live without the dead?
Where is the sound of their lost company?
Where now, their companionable embraces?
We wish they were still with us.
We are left with the cry that ripped them away from us.
Left with the veil that shrouds their empty gazes.
What avails? That we commit ourselves to their memories,
and through this commitment, learn to survive.
I Love the Earth
by Hannah Arendt
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
I love the earth
like a trip
to a foreign land
and not otherwise.
Even so life spins me
on its loom softly
into never-before-seen patterns.
Until suddenly
like the last farewells of a new journey,
the great silence breaks the frame.
Dunkles zu sagen (“Expressing the Dark”)
by Ingeborg Bachmann, an Austrian poet
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
I strum the strings of life and death
like Orpheus
and in the beauty of the earth
and in your eyes that instruct the sky,
I find only dark things to say.
Untitled
The dark shadow
I followed from the beginning
led me into the deep barrenness of winter.
—Ingeborg Bachmann, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Bertolt Brecht fled Nazi Germany along with Albert
Einstein, Thomas Mann and many other German intellectuals. So he was writing
from bitter real-life experience.
The Burning of the Books
by Bertolt Brecht, a German poet
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
When the Regime
commanded the unlawful books to be burned,
teams of dull oxen hauled huge cartloads to the bonfires.
Then a banished writer, one of the best,
scanning the list of excommunicated texts,
became enraged — he'd been excluded!
He rushed to his desk, full of contemptuous wrath,
to write fiery letters to the incompetents in power —
Burn me! he wrote with his blazing pen —
Haven't I always reported the truth?
Now here you are, treating me like a liar!
Burn me!
Parting
by Bertolt Brecht
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
We embrace;
my fingers trace
rich cloth
while yours encounter only moth-
eaten fabric.
A quick hug:
you were invited to the gay soiree
while the minions of the "law" relentlessly pursue me.
We talk about the weather
and our eternal friendship's magic.
Anything else would be too bitter,
too tragic.
The Mask of Evil
by Bertolt Brecht
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
A Japanese carving hangs on my wall —
the mask of an ancient demon, limned with golden lacquer.
Not altogether unsympathetically, I observe
the bulging veins of its forehead, noting
the grotesque effort it takes to be evil.
Radio Poem
by Bertolt Brecht
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
You, little box, held tightly
to me,
escaping,
so that your delicate tubes do not break;
carried from house to house, from ship to train,
so that my enemies may continue communicating with me
on land and at sea
and even in my bed, to my pain;
the last thing I hear at night, the first when I awake,
recounting their many conquests and my litany of cares,
promise me not to go silent all of a sudden,
unawares.
Paul Celan
These are three English translations of Holocaust poems written in German by
the Jewish poet Paul Celan. The first poem, "Todesfuge" in the
original German, is one of the most famous Holocaust poems, with its haunting
refrain of a German "master of death" killing Jews by day and writing "Your
golden hair Margarete" by starlight. The poem demonstrates how terrible things
can become when one human being is granted absolute power over other human
beings. Paul Celan was the pseudonym of Paul Antschel. (Celan is
an anagram of Ancel, the Romanian form of his surname.) Celan was born in
Czernovitz, Romania in 1920. The son of German-speaking Jews, Celan spoke
German, Romanian, Russian, French and understood Yiddish. During the Holocaust,
his parents were deported and eventually died in Nazi labor camps; Celan spent
eighteen months in a Nazi concentration camp before escaping.
Todesfuge ("Death Fugue")
by Paul Celan
loose translation/interpretation by
Michael R. Burch
Black milk of daybreak, we drink it come morning;
we drink it come midday; we drink it, come night;
we drink it and drink it.
We are digging a grave like a hole in the sky; there's sufficient room to lie
there.
The man of the house plays with vipers; he writes
in the Teutonic darkness, "Your golden hair Margarete …"
He writes poems by the stars, whistles hounds to stand by,
whistles Jews to dig graves, where together they'll lie.
He commands us to strike up bright tunes for the dance!
Black milk of daybreak, we drink you each morning;
we drink you at midday; we drink you at night;
we drink you and drink you.
The man of the house plays with serpents, he writes …
he writes when the night falls, "Your golden hair Margarete …
Your ashen hair Shulamith …"
We are digging dark graves where there's more room, on high.
His screams, "You dig there!" and "Hey you, dance and sing!"
He grabs his black nightstick, his eyes pallid blue,
cries, "Hey you, dig more deeply! You others, keep dancing!"
Black milk of daybreak, we drink you each morning;
we drink you at midday, we drink you at night;
we drink you and drink you.
The man of the house writes, "Your golden hair Margarete …
Your ashen hair Shulamith." He toys with our lives.
He screams, "Play for me! Death's a master of Germany!"
His screams, "Stroke dark strings, soon like black smoke you'll rise
to a grave in the clouds; there's sufficient room for Jews there!"
Black milk of daybreak, we drink you at midnight;
we drink you at noon; Death's the master of Germany!
We drink you come evening; we drink you and drink you …
a master of Deutschland, with eyes deathly blue.
With bullets of lead our pale master will murder you!
He writes when the night falls, "Your golden hair Margarete …"
He unleashes his hounds, grants us graves in the skies.
He plays with his serpents; he's a master of Germany …
your golden hair Margarete …
your ashen hair Shulamith.
O, Little Root of a Dream
by Paul Celan
loose translation/interpretation by
Michael R. Burch
O, little root of a dream
you enmire me here;
I'm undermined by blood —
no longer seen,
enslaved by death.
Touch the curve of my face,
that there may yet be an earthly language of ardor,
that someone else's eyes
may see yet see me,
though I'm blind,
here where you
deny me voice.
You Were My Death
by Paul Celan
loose translation/interpretation by
Michael R. Burch
You were my death;
I could hold you
when everything abandoned me —
even breath.
A Lonely Cot
by Johann Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim (1719-1803)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
A lonely cot is all I own:
it stands on grass that’s never mown
beside a brook (it’s passing small),
near where bright frothing fountains fall.
Here a spreading beech lifts up its head
and half conceals my humble shed:
from winter winds my sole retreat
and refuge from the summer’s heat.
In the beech’s boughs the nightingale
sweetly sings her plaintive tale:
so sweetly, passing rustics stray
with loitering steps to catch her lay!
Sweet blue-eyed maid with hair so fair,
my heart's desire! my fondest care!
I hurry home—How late the hour!
Come share, sweet maid, my sheltering bower!
Günter Grass
Günter Wilhelm Grass (1927-) is a German-Kashubian novelist, poet, playwright,
illustrator, graphic artist, sculptor and recipient of the 1999 Nobel Prize in
Literature. He is widely regarded as Germany's most famous living writer. Grass
is best known for his first novel, The Tin Drum (1959), a key text in European
magic realism. The Tin Drum was adapted into a film that won both the Palme d'Or
and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. The Swedish Academy, upon
awarding Grass the Nobel Prize in Literature, noted him as a writer "whose
frolicsome black fables portray the forgotten face of history."
“Was gesagt werden muss” (“What must be said”)
by Günter Grass
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Why have I remained silent, so long,
failing to mention something openly practiced
in war games which now threaten to leave us
merely meaningless footnotes?
Someone’s alleged “right” to strike first
might annihilate a beleaguered nation
whose people march to a martinet’s tune,
compelled to pageants of orchestrated obedience.
Why? Merely because of the suspicion
that a bomb might be built by Iranians.
But why do I hesitate, forbidding myself
to name that other nation, where, for years
—shrouded in secrecy—
a formidable nuclear capability has existed
beyond all control, simply because
no inspections were ever allowed?
The universal concealment of this fact
abetted by my own incriminating silence
now feels like a heavy, enforced lie,
an oppressive inhibition, a vice,
a strong constraint, which, if dismissed,
immediately incurs the verdict “anti-Semitism.”
But now my own country,
guilty of its unprecedented crimes
which continually demand remembrance,
once again seeking financial gain
(although with glib lips we call it “reparations”)
has delivered yet another submarine to Israel—
this one designed to deliver annihilating warheads
capable of exterminating all life
where the existence of even a single nuclear weapon remains unproven,
but where suspicion now serves as a substitute for evidence.
So now I will say what must be said.
Why did I remain silent so long?
Because I thought my origins,
tarred by an ineradicable stain,
forbade me to declare the truth to Israel,
a country to which I am and will always remain attached.
Why is it only now that I say,
in my advancing age,
and with my last drop of ink
on the final page
that Israel’s nuclear weapons endanger
an already fragile world peace?
Because tomorrow might be too late,
and so the truth must be heard today.
And because we Germans,
already burdened with many weighty crimes,
could become enablers of yet another,
one easily foreseen,
and thus no excuse could ever erase our complicity.
Furthermore, I’ve broken my silence
because I’m sick of the West’s hypocrisy
and because I hope many others too
will free themselves from the shackles of silence,
and speak out to renounce violence
by insisting on permanent supervision
of Israel’s atomic power and Iran’s
by an international agency
accepted by both governments.
Only thus can we find the path to peace
for Israelis and Palestinians and everyone else
living in a region currently consumed by madness
—and ultimately, for ourselves.
Published in Süddeutschen Zeitung (April 4, 2012)
Excerpts from “Song”
by Johann Georg Jacobi
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Friend, tell me where the violet fled,
so lately gaily blowing?
That once perfumed fair Flora’s tread,
its choicest scents bestowing?
Swain, give up verse and hang your head:
the violet lies dead!
Friend, what became of the blushing rose,
the pride of the blossoming morning?
The garland every groom bestows
upon his blushing darling?
Swain, give up verse and hang your head:
the rose lies dead!
And say, what of the village maid,
so late my cot adorning?
The one I assayed in our secret glade,
as pale and fair as the morning?
Swain, give up verse and hang your head:
the erstwhile maid lies dead!
Friend, what became of the gentle swain
who sang, in rural measures,
of the lovely violet, blushing rose,
and girls like exotic treasures?
Maid, close his book and hang your head:
the swain lies dead!
“To Young”
for Edward Young, the poet who wrote “Night Thoughts”
by Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock (1724–1803)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Die, aged prophet: your crowning work your fulcrum;
now tears of joy
tremble on angel-lids
as heaven extends its welcome.
Why linger here? Have you not already built, great Mover,
a monument beyond the clouds?
Now over your night-thoughts, too,
the pallid free-thinkers hover,
feeling there's prophecy amid your song
as it warns of the dead-awakening trump,
of the coming final doom,
and heaven’s eternal wisdom.
Die: you have taught me Death’s dread name, elide,
bears notes of joy to the ears of the just!
Yet remain my teacher still,
become my genius and guide.
My translation was informed by a translation by William Taylor.
Excerpts from “The Choirs”
by Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock (1724–1803)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Dear Dream, which I must never behold fulfilled,
pale diaphanous Mist, yet brighter than orient day!,
float back to me, and hover yet again
before my swimming sight!
Do they wear crowns in vain, those who forbear
to recognize your heavenly portraiture?
Must they be encased in marble, one and all,
ere the transfiguration be wrought?
Yes! For would the grave allow, I’d always sing
with inspiration stringing the lyre,—
amid your Vision’s tidal joy,
my pledge for loftier verse.
Great is your power, my Desire! Few have ever known
how it feels to melt in bliss; fewer still have ever felt
devotion’s raptures rise
on sacred Music’s wing!
Few have trembled with joy as adoring choirs
mingled their hallowed songs of heartfelt praise
(punctuated by each awe-full pause)
with unseen choirs above!
On each arched eyelash, on each burning cheek,
the fledgling tear quivers; for they imagine the goal,—
each shimmering golden crown
where angels wave their palms.
Deep, strong, the song seizes swelling hearts,
never scorning the tears it imbues,
whether shrouding souls in gloom
or steeping them in holy awe.
Borne on the deep, slow sounds, now holy awe
descends. Myriad voices sweep the assembly,
blending their choral force,—
their theme, Impending Doom!
Joy, Joy! They can scarcely bear it!
The organ’s thunder roundly rolls,—
louder and louder, to the congregations’ cries,
till the temple also trembles.
Enough! I sink! The wave of worshipers bows
before the altar,—bows low to the earth;
they taste the communal cup,
then drink devoutly, deeply, still.
One day, when my bones rest beside this church
as the assembled worshipers sing their songs of praise,
the conscious grave shall acknowledge their vision
with heaves of sweet flowerets in bloom.
And on that morning, ringing through the rocks,
as hymns are sung in praise, O, joyous tune!,
I’ll hear—“He rose again!”
Vibrating through my tomb.
My translation was informed by a translation by William Taylor.
Unholy Trinity
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Man has three enemies:
himself, the world, and the devil.
Of these the first is, by far,
the most irresistible evil.
True Wealth
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
There is more to being rich
than merely having;
the wealthiest man can lose
everything not worth saving.
The Rose
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
The rose merely blossoms
and never asks why:
heedless of her beauty,
careless of every eye.
The Rose
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
The rose lack "reasons"
and merely sways with the seasons;
she has no ego
but whoever put on such a show?
Eternal Time
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Eternity is time,
time eternity,
except when we
are determined to "see."
Visions
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Our souls possess two eyes:
one examines time,
the other visions
eternal and sublime.
Godless
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
God is absolute Nothingness
beyond our sense of time and place;
the more we try to grasp Him,
The more He flees from our embrace.
The Source
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Water is pure and clean
when taken at the well-head:
but drink too far from the Source
and you may well end up dead.
Ceaseless Peace
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Unceasingly you seek
life's ceaseless wavelike motion;
I seek perpetual peace, all storms calmed.
Whose is the wiser notion?
Well Written
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Friend, cease!
Abandon all pretense!
You must yourself become
the Writing and the Sense.
Worm Food
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
No worm is buried
so deep within the soil
that God denies it food
as reward for its toil.
Mature Love
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
New love, like a sparkling wine, soon fizzes.
Mature love, calm and serene, abides.
God's Predicament
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
God cannot condemn those with whom he would dwell,
or He would have to join them in hell!
Clods
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
A ruby
is not lovelier
than a dirt clod,
nor an angel
more glorious
than a frog.
Liebes-Lied ("Love Song")
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
How can I withhold my soul so that it doesn't touch yours?
How can I lift mine gently to higher things, alone?
Oh, I would gladly find something lost in the dark
in that inert space that fails to resonate until you vibrate.
There everything that moves us, draws us together like a bow
enticing two taut strings to sing together with a simultaneous voice.
Whose instrument are we becoming together?
Whose, the hands that excite us?
Ah, sweet song!
Das Lied des Bettlers ("The Beggar's Song")
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
I live outside your gates,
exposed to the rain, exposed to the sun;
sometimes I'll cradle my right ear
in my right palm;
then when I speak my voice sounds strange,
alien …
I'm unsure whose voice I'm hearing:
mine or yours.
I implore a trifle;
the poets cry for more.
Sometimes I cover both eyes
and my face disappears;
there it lies heavy in my hands
looking peaceful, instead,
so that no one would ever think
I have no place to lay my head.
Du im Voraus (“You who never arrived”)
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
You who never arrived in my arms, my Belovéd,
lost before love began…
How can I possibly know which songs might please you?
I have given up trying to envision you
in portentous moments before the next wave impacts…
when all the vastness and immenseness within me,
all the far-off undiscovered lands and landscapes,
all the cities, towers and bridges,
all the unanticipated twists and turns in the road,
and all those terrible terrains once traversed by strange gods—
engender new meaning in me:
your meaning, my enigmatic darling…
You, who continually elude me.
You, my Belovéd,
who are every garden I ever gazed upon,
longingly, through some country manor’s open window,
so that you almost stepped out, pensively, to meet me;
who are every sidestreet I ever chanced upon,
even though you’d just traipsed tantalizingly away, and vanished,
while the disconcerted shopkeepers’ mirrors
still dizzily reflected your image, flashing you back at me,
startled by my unwarranted image!
Who knows, but perhaps the same songbird’s cry
echoed through us both,
yesterday, separate as we were, that evening?
This is my translation of the first of Rilke’s Duino Elegies. Rilke began the first
Duino Elegy in 1912, as a guest of Princess Marie von Thurn und Taxis, at Duino Castle, near Trieste on the Adriatic Sea.
First Elegy
by Ranier Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Who, if I objected, would hear me among the angelic orders?
For if the least One pressed me intimately against its breast,
I would be lost in its infinite Immensity!
Because beauty, which we mortals can barely endure, is the beginning of terror;
we stand awed when it benignly declines to annihilate us.
Every Angel is terrifying!
And so I restrain myself, swallowing the sound of my pitiful sobbing.
For whom may we turn to, in our desire?
Not to Angels, nor to men, and already the sentient animals are aware
that we are all aliens in this metaphorical existence.
Perhaps some tree still stands on a hillside, which we can study with our
ordinary vision.
Perhaps the commonplace street still remains amid man’s fealty to materiality—
the concrete items that never destabilize.
Oh, and of course there is the night: her dark currents caress our faces …
But whom, then, do we live for?
That longed-for but mildly disappointing presence the lonely heart so
desperately desires?
Is life any less difficult for lovers?
They only use each other to avoid their appointed fates!
How can you fail to comprehend?
Fling your arms’ emptiness into this space we occupy and inhale:
may birds fill the expanded air with more intimate flying!
Yes, the springtime still requires you.
Perpetually a star waits for you to recognize it.
A wave recedes toward you from the distant past,
or as you walk beneath an open window, a violin yields virginally to your ears.
All this was preordained. But how can you incorporate it? …
Weren't you always distracted by expectations, as if every event presaged some
new beloved?
(Where can you harbor, when all these enormous strange thoughts surging within
you keep
you up all night, restlessly rising and falling?)
When you are full of yearning, sing of loving women, because their passions
are finite;
sing of forsaken women (and how you almost envy them)
because they could love you more purely than the ones you left gratified.
Resume the unattainable exaltation; remember: the hero survives;
even his demise was merely a stepping stone toward his latest rebirth.
But spent and exhausted Nature withdraws lovers back into herself,
as if lacking the energy to recreate them.
Have you remembered Gaspara Stampa with sufficient focus—
how any abandoned girl might be inspired by her fierce example
and might ask herself, "How can I be like her?"
Shouldn't these ancient sufferings become fruitful for us?
Shouldn’t we free ourselves from the beloved,
quivering, as the arrow endures the bowstring's tension,
so that in the snap of release it soars beyond itself?
For there is nowhere else where we can remain.
Voices! Voices!
Listen, heart, as levitating saints once listened,
until the elevating call soared them heavenward;
and yet they continued kneeling, unaware, so complete was their concentration.
Not that you could endure God's voice—far from it!
But heed the wind’s voice and the ceaseless formless message of silence:
It murmurs now of the martyred young.
Whenever you attended a church in Naples or Rome,
didn't they come quietly to address you?
And didn’t an exalted inscription impress its mission upon you
recently, on the plaque in Santa Maria Formosa?
What they require of me is that I gently remove any appearance of injustice—
which at times slightly hinders their souls from advancing.
Of course, it is endlessly strange to no longer inhabit the earth;
to relinquish customs one barely had the time to acquire;
not to see in roses and other tokens a hopeful human future;
no longer to be oneself, cradled in infinitely caring hands;
to set aside even one's own name,
forgotten as easily as a child’s broken plaything.
How strange to no longer desire one's desires!
How strange to see meanings no longer cohere, drifting off into space.
Dying is difficult and requires retrieval before one can gradually decipher
eternity.
The living all err in believing the too-sharp distinctions they create
themselves.
Angels (men say) don't know whether they move among the living or the dead.
The eternal current merges all ages in its maelstrom
until the voices of both realms are drowned out in its thunderous roar.
In the end, the early-departed no longer need us:
they are weaned gently from earth's agonies and ecstasies,
as children outgrow their mothers’ breasts.
But we, who need such immense mysteries,
and for whom grief is so often the source of our spirit's progress—
how can we exist without them?
Is the legend of the lament for Linos meaningless—
the daring first notes of the song pierce our apathy;
then, in the interlude, when the youth, lovely as a god, has suddenly departed
forever,
we experience the emptiness of the Void for the first time—
that harmony which now enraptures and comforts and aids us?
Second Elegy
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Every angel is terrifying. And yet, alas, I invoke you,
one of the soul’s lethal raptors, well aware of your nature.
As in the days of Tobias, when one of you, obscuring his radiance,
stood at the simple threshold, appearing ordinary rather than appalling
while the curious youth peered through the window.
But if the Archangel emerged today, perilous, from beyond the stars
and took even one step toward us, our hammering hearts
would pound us to death. What are you?
Who are you? Joyous from the beginning;
God’s early successes; Creation’s favorites;
creatures of the heights; pollen of the flowering godhead; cusps of pure light;
stately corridors; rising stairways; exalted thrones;
filling space with your pure essence; crests of rapture;
shields of ecstasy; storms of tumultuous emotions whipped into whirlwinds …
until one, acting alone, recreates itself by mirroring the beauty of its own
countenance.
While we, when deeply moved, evaporate;
we exhale ourselves and fade away, growing faint like smoldering embers;
we drift away like the scent of smoke.
And while someone might say: “You’re in my blood! You occupy this room!
You fill this entire springtime!” … Still, what becomes of us?
We cannot be contained; we vanish whether inside or out.
And even the loveliest, who can retain them?
Resemblance ceaselessly rises, then is gone, like dew from dawn’s grasses.
And what is ours drifts away, like warmth from a steaming dish.
O smile, where are you bound?
O heavenward glance: are you a receding heat wave, a ripple of the heart?
Alas, but is this not what we are?
Does the cosmos we dissolve into savor us?
Do the angels reabsorb only the radiance they emitted themselves,
or sometimes, perhaps by oversight, traces of our being as well?
Are we included in their features, as obscure as the vague looks on the faces of
pregnant women?
Do they notice us at all (how could they) as they reform themselves?
Lovers, if they only knew how, might mutter marvelous curses into the night
air.
For it seems everything eludes us.
See: the trees really do exist; our houses stand solid and firm.
And yet we drift away, like weightless sighs.
And all creation conspires to remain silent about us: perhaps from shame,
perhaps from inexpressible hope?
Lovers, gratified by each other, I ask to you consider:
You cling to each other, but where is your proof of a connection?
Sometimes my hands become aware of each other
and my time-worn, exhausted face takes shelter in them,
creating a slight sensation.
But because of that, can I still claim to be?
You, the ones who writhe with each other’s passions
until, overwhelmed, someone begs: “No more!…”;
You who swell beneath each other’s hands like autumn grapes;
You, the one who dwindles as the other increases:
I ask you to consider …
I know you touch each other so ardently because each caress preserves pure
continuance,
like the promise of eternity, because the flesh touched does not disappear.
And yet, when you have survived the terror of initial intimacy,
the first lonely vigil at the window, the first walk together through the
blossoming garden:
lovers, do you not still remain who you were before?
If you lift your lips to each other’s and unite, potion to potion,
still how strangely each drinker eludes the magic.
Weren’t you confounded by the cautious human gestures on Attic gravestones?
Weren’t love and farewell laid so lightly on shoulders they seemed composed of
some ethereal substance unknown to us today?
Consider those hands, how weightlessly they rested, despite the powerful torsos.
The ancient masters knew: “We can only go so far, in touching each other. The
gods can exert more force. But that is their affair.”
If only we, too, could discover such a pure, contained Eden for humanity,
our own fruitful strip of soil between river and rock.
For our hearts have always exceeded us, as our ancestors’ did.
And we can no longer trust our own eyes, when gazing at godlike bodies, our
hearts find a greater repose.
Kennst du das Land (“Do You Know the Land”)
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Do you know of the land where the bright lemons bloom?
Where the orange glows gold in the occult gloom?
Where the gentlest winds fan the palest blue skies?
Where the myrtles and laurels elegantly rise?
Excerpt from “Hassan Aga”
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
What whiteness shimmers, distant on the lea?
Could it be snow? Or is it swans we see?
Snow? Melted with a recent balmy day.
Swans? All departed, long since flown away.
Neither snow, nor swans! What can it be?
The tent of Hassan Aga, shining!
There the wounded warrior lies, repining.
His mother and sisters to his side have come,
But his shame-faced wife weeps for herself, at home.
Excerpt from “The Song of the Spirits over the Waters”
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Wind is water's
amorous pursuer:
the Wind, upswept,
heaves waves from their depths.
And you, mortal soul,
how you resemble water!
And a mortal’s Fate,
how alike the wind!
My translation was informed by a translation by John S. Dwight.
Excerpt from “One and All”
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
How the solitary soul yearns
to merge into the Infinite
and find itself once more at peace.
Rid of blind desire & the impatient will,
our restless thoughts and plans are stilled.
We yield our Selves, then awake in bliss.
My translation was informed by a translation by John S. Dwight.
Nähe des Geliebten (“Near His Beloved”)
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
I think of you when the sun
shines softly on me;
also when the moon
silvers each tree.
I see you in the spirit
the shimmering dust resembles;
also at the stroke of twelve
when the night watchman trembles.
I hear you in the sighing
of the restless, surging seas;
also in the quiet groves
when everything’s at peace.
I am with you, though so far!
Yet I know you’re always near.
Oh what I'd yield, as sun to star,
to have you here!
Gefunden (“Found”)
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Into the woodlands,
alone, I went.
Seeking nothing,
my sole intent.
But I saw a flower
deep in the shade
gleaming like starlight
in a still glade.
I reached down to pluck it
when it shyly asked:
“Why would you snap me
so cruelly in half?”
So I dug up the flower,
by the roots and all,
then planted it gently
by the garden wall.
Now in a dark corner
where I planted the flower,
it blooms just as brightly
to this very hour.
Wandrers Nachtlied (“Wanderer’s Night Song”)
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
1.
From the hilltops
comes peace;
through the treetops
scarcely the wind breathes.
Do you feel the lassitude touch you?
The little birds grow silent in the forest.
Wait, soon you’ll rest too.
2.
From the distant hilltops
comes peaceful repose;
through the swaying treetops
a calming wind blows.
Do you feel the lassitude touch you?
The birds grow silent in the forest.
Wait, soon you’ll rest too.
Wandrers Nachtlied (“Wanderer’s Night Song”)
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
1.
You who descend from heaven,
calming all suffering and pain,
the one who doubly refreshes
those who are doubly disconsolate;
I’m so weary of useless contention!
Why all this pain and lust?
Sweet peace descending,
Come, oh, come into my breast!
2.
You who descend from heaven,
calming all suffering and pain,
the one who doubly refreshes
those who are doubly disconsolate;
I’m so damn tired of this muddle!
What’s the point of all this pain and lust?
Sweet peace,
Come, oh, come into my breast!
Prometheus
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
obscure Your heavens, Zeus, with a nebulous haze!
and, like boys beheading thistles, decapitate oaks and alps.
yet leave me the earth with its rude dwellings
and my hut You didn’t build.
also my hearth, whose cheerful glow You envy.
i know nothing more pitiful under the sun than these vampiric godlings!
undernourished with insufficient sacrifices and airy prayers!
my poor Majesty, if not for a few fools' hopes,
those of children and beggars,
You would starve!
when i was a child, i didn't know up from down,
and my eye strayed erratically toward the sun strobing high above,
as if the heavens had ears to hear my lamentations,
and a heart like mine, to feel pity for the oppressed.
who assisted me when i stood alone against the Titans' insolence?
who saved me from slavery, or, otherwise, from death?
didn’t you handle everything yourself, my radiant heart?
how you shone then, so innocent and holy,
even though deceived and expressing thanks to a listless Entity above.
revere you, zeus? for what?
when did u ever ease my afflictions, or those of the oppressed?
when did u ever stanch the tears of the anguished, the fears of the frightened?
didn’t omnipotent Time and eternal Fate forge my manhood?
my masters and urs likewise?
u were deluded if u thought I would hate life
or flee into faraway deserts,
just because so few of my boyish dreams blossomed.
now here I sit, fashioning Humans in My own Image,
creating a Race like Myself,
who, for all Their suffering and weeping,
for all Their happiness and rejoicing,
in the end shall pay u no heed,
like Me!
GOETHE & SCHILLER XENIA EPIGRAMS
These are epigrams written jointly by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller
#2 - Love Poetry
She says an epigram’s too terse
to reveal her tender heart in verse …
but really, darling, ain’t the thrill
of a kiss much shorter still?
―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose
translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
#5 - Criticism
Why don’t I openly criticize the man? Because he’s a friend;
thus I reproach him in silence, as I do my own heart.
―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose
translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
#11 - Holiness
What is holiest? This heart-felt love
binding spirits together, now and forever.
―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose
translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
#12 - Love versus Desire
You love what you have, and desire what you lack
because a rich nature expands, while a poor one contracts.
―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose
translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
#19 - Nymph and Satyr
As shy as the trembling doe your horn frightens from the woods,
she flees the huntsman, fainting, uncertain of love.
―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose
translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
#20 - Desire
What stirs the virgin’s heaving breasts to sighs?
What causes your bold gaze to brim with tears?
―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose
translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
#23 - The Apex I
Everywhere women yield to men, but only at the apex
do the manliest men surrender to femininity.
―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose
translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
#24 - The Apex II
What do we mean by the highest? The crystalline clarity of triumph
as it shines from the brow of a woman, from the brow of a goddess.
―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose
translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
#25 -Human Life
Young sailors brave the sea beneath ten thousand sails
while old men drift ashore on any bark that avails.
―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose
translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
#35 - Dead Ahead
What’s the hardest thing of all to do?
To see clearly with your own eyes what’s ahead of you.
―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose
translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
#36 - Unexpected Consequence
Friends, before you utter the deepest, starkest truth, please pause,
because straight away people will blame you for its cause.
―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose
translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
#41 - Earth vs. Heaven
By doing good, you nurture humanity;
but by creating beauty, you scatter the seeds of divinity.
―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
“Totentanz”
by H. Distler
loose translation/ interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Erster Spruch:
Lass alles, was du hast, auf dass du alles nehmst!
Verschmäh die Welt, dass du sie tausendfach bekömmst!
Im Himmel ist der Tag, im Abgrund ist die Nacht.
Hier ist die Dämmerung: Wohl dem, der's recht betracht!
First Aphorism:
Leave everything, that you may take all!
Scorn the world, that you may receive it a thousandfold!
In the heavens it is day, in the abyss it is night.
Here it is twilight: Blessed is the one who comprehends!
First Aphorism:
Leave everything, that you may take all!
Scorn the world, seize it like a great ball!
In the heavens it is day, in the abyss, night.
Understand if you can: Here it is twilight!
Der Tod: Zum Tanz, zum Tanze reiht euch ein:
Kaiser, Bischof, Bürger, Bauer,
arm und reich und gross und klein,
heran zu mir! Hilft keine Trauer.
Wohl dem, der rechter Zeit bedacht,
viel gute Werk vor sich zu bringen,
der seiner Sünd sich losgemacht -
Heut heisst's: Nach meiner Pfeife springen!
Death: To the dance, to the dance, take your places:
emperor, bishop, townsman, farmer,
poor and rich, big and small,
come to me! Grief helps nothing.
Blessed is the one who deems the time right
to do many good deeds,
to rid himself of his sins –
Today you must dance to my tune!
Zweiter Spruch:
Mensch, die Figur der Welt vergehet mit der Zeit.
Was trotz'st du dann so viel auf ihre Herrlichkeit?
Second Aphorism:
Man, the world’s figure decays with time.
Why do you go on so much about her glory?
Der Kaiser: O Tod, dein jäh Erscheinen
friert mir das Mark in den Gebeinen.
Mussten Könige, Fürsten, Herren
sich vor mir neigen und mich ehren,
dass ich nun soll ohn Gnade werden
gleichwie du, Tod, ein Schleim der Erden?
Der ich den Menschen Haupt und Schirmer -
du machst aus mir ein Speis' der Würmer.
Emperor:
Oh Death, your sudden appearance
freezes the marrow in my bones.
Did kings, princes and gentlemen
bow down before me and honor me,
that I should I become, without mercy,
just like you, Death, slime of the earth?
I was my people’s leader and protector –
you made me a meal for worms.
Der Tod: Herr Kaiser, warst du der Höchste hier,
voran sollst du tanzen neben mir.
Dein war das Schwert der Gerechtigkeit,
zu schlichten den Streit, zu lindern das Leid;
doch Ruhm- und Ehrsucht machten dich blind,
sahst nicht dein eigen grosse Sünd.
Drum fällt dir mein Ruf so schwer in den Sinn. -
Halt an, Bischof, den Tanz beginn!
Death:
Emperor, you were the highest here,
thus you shall dance next to me.
Yours was the sword of justice,
to settle disputes and alleviate suffering;
but your obsession with fame and glory blinded you,
you failed to see your own immense sinfulness.
Hence my reputation is so difficult for you to comprehend. –
Halt, Bishop, the dance begins!
Dritter Spruch:
Wann du willst gradeswegs ins ew'ge Leben gehn,
so lass die Welt und dich zur linken Seite stehn!
Third Aphorism:
If you would enter directly into eternal life,
leave the world and yourself by the wayside!
Related Pages:
Germane Germans: English Translations by Michael R. Burch
Michael R. Burch Main Translation Page & Index:
The Best Poetry Translations of Michael R. Burch
Translation Pages by Language:
Germane Germans: English Translations by Michael R. Burch
English Translations of German Poets by Michael R. Burch
English Translations of Roman, Latin and Italian Poets by Michael R. Burch
English Translations of Uyghur Poetry by Michael R. Burch
Translation Pages in Roughly Chronological Order:
Enheduanna (circa 2285 BC) the first poet we know by name
The Love Song of Shu-Sin: The Earth's Oldest Love Poem?
Ancient Egyptian Harper's Songs
Ancient Japanese Waka and Haiku
Ancient Greek Epigrams and Epitaphs
Sappho of Lesbos (circa 600 BC) Longer Poems
Sappho of Lesbos Shorter Poems and Fragments
Antipater of Sidon (circa 150 BC)
Sulpicia Translations (circa 100 AD)
Martial Translations (circa 100 AD)
Song of Amergin (?) possibly the oldest poem from the English isles
Anglo-Saxon Poems
Anglo-Saxon Riddles and Kennings
Medieval Poetry Translations (658-1486)
Caedmon's Hymn (circa 658 AD) the oldest extant English poem
Bede's Death Song (circa 735 AD)
Ono no Komachi (circa 850 AD)
Deor's Lament (circa 890 AD)
Wulf and Eadwacer (circa 950 AD)
The Wife's Lament (circa 950 AD)
The Husband's Message (circa 950 AD)
The Ruin (circa 950 AD)
The Seafarer (circa 950 AD)
The Rhyming Poem (circa 950 AD)
Now skruketh rose and lylie flour (circa 1000 AD) is an early English rhyming poem
Middle English Poems
How Long the Night (circa 1200 AD)
Ballads
Sumer is Icumen in (circa 1250 AD)
Fowles in the Frith (circa 1250 AD)
Ich am of Irlaunde (circa 1250 AD)
Now Goeth Sun Under Wood (circa 1250 AD)
Pity Mary (circa 1250 AD)
Urdu Poetry (1253-present)
Amir Khusrow (1253-1325)
Dante (circa 1300 AD)
This World's Joy (circa 1300 AD)
Adam Lay Ybounden (circa 1400 AD)
Geoffrey Chaucer (circa 1400 AD)
I Have a Yong Suster (circa 1430 AD)
Charles d'Orleans (circa 1450 AD)
MICHELANGELO (1475-1564)
Sweet Rose of Virtue (circa 1500 AD)
Lament for the Makaris (circa 1500 AD)
Whoso List to Hunt (1503-1542)
Tom O'Bedlam's Song (circa 1600 AD)
Matsuo Basho (1644-1694)
Yosa Buson (1716-1764)
Thomas Chatterton (1752-1769) the first English Romantic poet
Mirza Ghalib (1797-1869)
Tegner's Drapa (1820)
Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867)
Paul Verlaine (1844-1896)
Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891)
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)
Allama Iqbal (1877-1938)
Ber Horvitz (1895-1942)
Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956)
Miklós Radnót (1909-1944)
Primo Levi (1919-1987)
Paul Celan (1920-1970)
Jaun Elia (1931-2002)
Ahmad Faraz (1931-2008)
The following are links to other translations by Michael R. Burch:
Fukuda Chiyo-ni
Meleager
Oriental Masters of Haiku
Rainer Maria Rilke
Marina Tsvetaeva
Alexander Pushkin's tender, touching poem "I Love You"
Vera Pavlova
Renée Vivien
Allama Iqbal
Sandor Marai
Wladyslaw Szlengel
Saul Tchernichovsky
Robert Burns: Original Poems and Translations
The Seventh Romantic: Robert Burns
The following are links to other Michael R. Burch poetry pages:
Poetry by Michael R. Burch
Free Love Poems by Michael R. Burch
My Influences by Michael R. Burch
Michael R. Burch Early Poems Timeline
Bemused by Muses
Poems for Poets
Timeline of Rhyme
Michael R. Burch Free Verse
The Best Poetry Translations of Michael R. Burch
Best Poetry Translations sans links
The HyperTexts