PART ONE

1. LOVE

In summer’s rich abundance
we hardly mark the flower;
each hour gives a new delight,
and the faded we cast to dust —

till autumn comes with its cool wind
and every blossom dies away,
and as a keepsake of past days
only their yellow leaves remain.

We gather them up then,
in token of a sweet sorrow —
on every leaf is written
the feeling of a single day.

Each leaf is one of my small songs
that lived and opened in the past —
this one in a garden, that in the wild,
this watching a girl’s heart, that a grave.

And spring’s pale image
drifts before me one more time,
when, smiling, I sing the song to its end —
with tears in my eyes.

Among the showy throng of girls
there stands a small one,
half a child, so unassuming
and so pale.

Perhaps she thinks that there
no one will notice her at all?
Shall I declare, shall I lay bare
the hopes within my heart?

But what if she would not understand,
and though she teaches me to love
has not yet learned, and her own heart
goes only to a childish game?

Better to send it without a word,
this little garland to her —
so the swaying cups of it
burn at the sun’s kiss.

If she should understand the flowers,
then she will understand me too,
and toward evening I shall see the garland
withering on her snow-white breast.

If she does not understand, the garland
will be a plaything for her,
and I shall rest content with that
if it gives her joy.

To you I have consecrated my young heart,
its every longing, every love —
you are the sun, and I the blade of grass
that opened only through you.

Accept it, girl, with goodwill,
this thing your spirit made:
the sun itself has granted
every blade of grass to bloom.

And though it casts a single life-ray
onto each separate flower,
its radiant crown burns
no less brightly for that.

I do not ask you to love me either,
only give a ray, that I may live,
and like a flower I’ll consecrate to you
my scent, my color, and my dew.

Why does the bouquet wilt upon your breast?
Is it angry that it cannot make you fairer,
and drowns within the ocean of your charms
as a star does when the sun comes up?

Or was it warm, perhaps, girl, on your breast,
and from that the flower wilts so suddenly?
Pin another bouquet to your breast, girl, then —
one that the heart’s warmth cannot harm.

Such a bouquet this heart would be, believe me;
many a modest flower springs sweetly in it.
Nor will it envy your charms, I know it well —
indeed, for their sake my angel loves it more.

Pale and gentle you are,
like a frail stem of rose;
before me this flower
stands high in favor.

But a hundredfold dearer
to me for its scent,
for in a girl, as scent,
there is a pure love.

O girl! if you are a rose,
you must learn from it,
which gives up its fragrance
only with its life,

for if it should take wing,
the rose, your love,
along with your sad nightingale —
girl, what becomes of me? — —

I suffered for you,
my fair beloved,
much I suffered
and so gladly,
for a prize like you
there is no labor
great enough.
But heart! who can
read your secret?
You who calmly bore
the lightning bolts,
now, when the shore
of peace beckons,
prompt the longing arm
to grow weak.
You who never bent
beneath sorrow,
sink down with bliss
under a single kiss.

The farewell beckoned; my heart all but broke,
I cursed the savage fate,
and as I pressed a kiss
on my girl’s modest brow,
a tear broke from my eye
onto her small red cheek.
I knew it, for I know the world by now:
its whirlpool swallows, and gives no joy back.

Like a banished angel at the gate of heaven,
so I stood after the parting kiss,
and yet she smiled,
looking up to the sky in faith,
and even in her tears her hopes
burned like a rainbow.
And with holy faith, so calm, she spoke:
God is good, after all, and leads us to farewell.

Ah, this calm I too once knew —
fairer was my world then, better my heart,
when the face of existence
still smiled on me as well,
the face that now, like one who looks into a mirror,
gives us our own selves back.
While for my mourning it dons only lightning,
for you it mirrors dawn, for you it mirrors flowers.

And let it mirror them to the end — this hue and scent
belong to the soul, which a god’s kiss bestows,
hallowing our breast
with the halo of faith,
as it gives color to the flower
that blazes up in beauty,
till the blows of a rough hand have not yet reached
this fairest jewel of flower and soul. —

And though one day a grave should close above you too,
swallowing every longing, every suffering,
upon your grave the holy kiss
will still scatter its magic flower,
while if a grave should close above me,
it closes with barren dark. —
But only let me know that on you still shines
the god’s kiss — I shall die the easier.

Do you remember the fair days
when we were so happy,
and everything smiled upon us
in such fair harmony,
do you remember?

We listened to the skylark’s song,
and when it vanished behind the clouds
we softly carried the gentle tune
on in our souls.
Do you remember?

In our hearts too it was spring then,
my love the skylark’s song.
A cloud now covers me as well, but
the song — oh,
do you remember?

Does your heart still carry on, girl,
what I sang for you alone?
If not — with its song this poor heart
goes too to die,
if you have forgotten.

It will not rise again like the skylark;
two springs do not come to one heart,
and for me in you, oh girl,
it is already lost,
if you have forgotten.

And if I do sing a song, it is an autumn wind
that carries withered flowers,
which the lavish spring, forgetting,
left to the autumn,
as you forgot. — —

In the rose garden among your sisters
you sat, girl, on a summer morning.
A holy prayer trembled on your lips
with fervor, with faithful hope.

I came, and from your sweet lips
I kissed away the holy prayer,
as the fierce sun’s flaming love
kisses the dew from your flowers.

Let your whole life run on like this:
among your sisters in playful calm,
and on your lips let there fuse together
faith, and hope, and love!

I would say you are not beautiful, girl,
if you did not look in the mirror;
I would say you are perhaps not good either,
if you did not look into your heart.

And if, despite your mirror and your heart,
you do not know how fair, how good you are,
I will not tell you either, for your charm
is thus, unconscious, twice as great.

I would say my soul does not love you —
what are you smiling at — oh, hush, hush!
Let this stay the open, precious secret
of both our hearts!

Only make me happy, make me happy on,
and do not know — enough that you sense it,
as the mother-of-pearl, so unwillingly,
breeds the pearls of my joy!

Ah, but I am a fool, if I hide my bliss
even from you — why blab it out?
Or is it not half my happiness,
that no one, no one knows?

Let whoever believes that he is happy
only when envied — let him shine;
I, in dim quiet, take my pleasure
on the girl’s breast, and smile.

I stood in the doorway of the ancestral house,
a wanderer’s staff in my trembling hand,
and yet I grew cheerful, for it is man’s
fate to go and try the battle.
For if his arm should tire, his breast should bleed,
this house will be his rest and ease again.

I took my leave of my tender-hearted mother;
she scattered blessings and tears on my head.
Ah, but that the son should fly his nest,
this awaits every parent,
I thought, and if I return in glory,
what joy it will be for the dear parent.

I tore myself from my one friend;
hard, yes, was that moment in my life,
but has this heart grown so selfish, I thought,
that I was almost ashamed.
A life’s road opened for the good friend;
that lifts me up, and my tears were stayed.

I would have to part, dear girl, from you,
and the splendor of your road does not console me,
for to you without me, dear soul,
even God’s world would mean nothing.
You would wilt, like a flower when winter comes,
you who, without me, forgot how to live.

It does not console me that the course of our fate,
as from my parent, keeps me far from you;
it does not console me that, if with a wreath
I come home, it will give you joy;
you would not look at my bright wreath,
only at how much of our life has withered away.

It does not console me that, when in the world
this arm grows weary, and my soul’s love,
I shall find you too, girl, with my house,
and your lap will be this breast’s ease.
Oh, the house, the stone defies the storm;
girl, spring, youth pass away.

Early the hand of fate struck me down:
while other children made merry,
I sat on the grave-mound of my good father,
his orphaned, weeping child.

I did not believe a time would still come
from which, longing, I would look back and back
to tears, to the mute grave,
as the sufferer looks toward bliss...

And so it was: what our heart calls its bliss
is only the lesser of two evils,
the thing it shudders and dreads today,
that may yet be its one treasure. —

Pale though the prison lamp may be,
to him set living in the grave’s depth
such a ray would be the reward
for the bliss of both his lives.

And what stood before him as a terror,
the dark crag of the seas,
becomes the sailor’s longing, his ease,
once the ship has gone to the bottom.

Oh, if only I too had
tears! but a man’s tears dry up.
Sorrow is eased by them no more,
and he who does not weep believes no comfort.

No grave even stands as an altar to me
in memory of the faithless one;
I do not feel the kiss of her spirit
that might still bind her to me.

And where every heart finds comfort,
beyond the grave I have no hope either,
for there too she who forgot me here, the faithless,
waits for some other kindred soul.

I was the one at fault myself, girl!
Let no reproach weigh upon you!
Frivolously, I alone tore apart
the sweet rose-chain between us, no one else.

Let me suffer the punishment for it myself!
And I do suffer, torn from your breast,
for from the heaven against which I sinned
my own will, of its own accord, banished me.

Oh dear lady! out of false pride, why
did I not heed the better voice of my breast,
trustingly and, in forgiveness, faithfully
asking of you a balm for my heart’s hurt?

Why did I listen to the whispering
of the ruinous host of go-betweens
who throng between two hearts
as the night’s mourning clouds throng between sun and earth,

and feed with care the blind monster
that lays waste its own breast — misunderstanding —
when one trusting word, one glance
would have settled every question between us.

Our pure feeling would not have warped
into the foul bargain of cold calculation;
I would not be like a banished Adam now,
who shut Eden with his own hand.

What can you give me still, what can you give me now?
You cannot bring back one ray from the past.
Then give me a tear for a companion,
that I may dream of you and the days gone by.

Like a sun your face dawned
on me, cloudless —
slowly you grew pale,
away in the veil of mist.

And my astonished eye,
weeping, follows still,
when, like an evening light,
you long since have vanished...

In your place there is night
and shining stars,
and in every star a consecrated
memory glows.

Which one, lady, is yours?
I ask in sorrow,
oh, for now even your star
I scarcely know.

And when I see a star
fall down,
I shudder — was it not
yours, woman?

And of you, who once
were my burning sun,
perhaps only a falling star
brings word that you went down.

What do you seek, girl, at these healing waters,
so rich in youth and graces?
It cannot be that the shadow of death
should dare, girl, to veil you. —

You are a spirit, that takes on a body only
so that it may show itself in the world.
And the body grew spiritual in you,
as the tree does — in the radiant blossom.

If even you draw near the grave,
then the whole world must be
ripe for death — and oh, alas, alas!
yet so it is — my heart sees it shuddering.

You perish — not a wilting flower-stem —
a meteor that dies in radiance.
The price of a life is the flush
on your face, and the spell that surrounds you. —

Do you feel it, oh dear girl,
that you are already betrothed to Death?
I think you do not feel it, when I see you
dally and smile sometimes.

Ah, but when you fall to musing in the void,
your little hand forgotten in mine —
you nestle to me and your lips tremble,
as if you called me mutely to your defense,

with delight you drink the sun’s ray
and your young soul does not walk into the future,
you fall silent when I paint its magic —
I see, you feel, it is ours no longer.

There is one secret in both our hearts,
and we hide it from each other gently,
smiling, as a good friend covers
the dark grave with flowers.

I see how near destruction lies in wait for us,
and how passing, how fleeting, our heart’s world is;
ah, but to live and die with you fate beckons,
and I play and dally, like a butterfly in its garden.

I see it is a mirage, not a spring, that heartens me;
in vain this heart’s terrible thirst consumes me —
your dying love can give me only a glimmer,
and still I follow you, girl, into the wild.

The ground sways beneath me, the powder-mine thunders,
and to its warning voice I close my ears.
There I pitch my camp — and that its calm foundation
will be a carpet of flowers — childish, but I wait.

I plant trees, as the old man plants in faith,
whose gentle shade will not sway over him.
The present’s pleasure I bear as a sacrifice
for a will-o’-the-wisp my heart drives into the future.

O holy frivolity — the magic flower of our soul,
you breathe a fragrance where the one who reckons is appalled —
smiling you say: a small price, your heroic life,
for the laurel that grows green out of death.

O holy frivolity, dearest gift
that God sent to the man of earth —
you alone are what shines on everything,
rings through everything, like an unearthly song.

And while every man here is one condemned,
that he can still smile, you teach him,
and that a midsummer night’s dream of Lujza
rose in my heart too — for that, thanks, thanks to you!

I stood at the open window with my beloved;
the autumn sun stopped once more
and filled everything with so gentle a flood,
as a parent does, blessing as he dies;
and as all grow still around him,
so mute becomes the descending night, toward which
only the wind whispers — as if it asked,
in sympathy, after the sick one’s state.
A pale mist sits on the earth; its gray shadow
casts a spell over every well-known thing.
Dreamlike specters sway and nod,
a fairy grove is built and falls in.
The dry leaves of the trees rustle, the heart shudders,
the gloom of fellow-feeling takes hold of me — —
and to the mute thought that torments and wars in me,
a yellow leaf flying between us answers — —
You go pale — perhaps, along with the leaf,
this wind shakes a rose-petal from your cheek —
you flush again — at what? for besides me
no other kisses your face to red — —
Or is this flush on your face only an autumn leaf
that trades death for its moment’s brightness — —
the sinking sun’s crimson going-down,
a flower that flaunts itself just as it comes to die? —
No, no, you must live yet, girl;
only the dying autumn has dazzled you.
That may perish — its light, its song long gone —
but how much this breast still holds for you!
And why would you choose the other world?
That, while it knows you not, does without you easily.
I have forgotten every happiness
but you — nothing else binds me to my life.

Away, only away from the circle of men,
out into the open — let cold curiosity
not see our farewell — for of our life
the most is spent, squandered on others anyway!

Let us live these few minutes for ourselves, then,
and the autumn evening smiles with us, weeps with us —
men only make sport of another’s trouble;
only kindred feeling can understand.

Look, girl, how clear, how quiet the evening is,
as though summer were waving its last farewells;
then it will be cold — this parting too paints
just such a passing spell, girl, upon my life.

See how the frosted field glitters,
and here and there a little flower still stands forgotten;
if you see that I am smiling even now,
that is glittering frost, that is only such a flower-stem.

It flits away, and the orphaned life remains —
oh, alas, why did I know something better than it!
That doubled the loss —
the promised land of your loving soul.

See how the chattering brook has hushed!
Once flowers looked into its mirror;
perhaps with news of death is inscribed
the little yellow leaf that floats upon it.

Did nature write that for us?
No, no — hope beckons, see, from on high;
driven by foreboding the cranes take flight
and already tell, with certainty, of the new spring.

A rainbow net covers the meadow,
above, a breeze plays with gossamer threads.
Perhaps they reach down so from the sky
to bind our earth to their fairer home.

But the rainbow runs and runs ahead of us
and leaves only frosted grass for our sad steps;
our earth does not draw the bright threads down,
and who knows where they drift away again. —

Oh girl! if our love too is such a silver thread,
just such a rainbow on the barren field,
that came down from the sky, enchants, but flies away,
for it is not meant for this earth’s cold dust!

It was so close and warm,
the evening so overcast,
the wind in the languid leaves
made not a sound.

The bird in a half-voice
sang sadly,
and to its song from afar
a soft murmur answered.

All this we felt together
and walked here and there,
mute — for in our place
the sad evening spoke.

And if now and then
we did have a word,
we whispered it, feeling
we were among the graves.

And we feared to startle
the dead.
We feared a thought of life
might rise in our hearts.

And yet so sweet
it was, the thing that took us:
the longing for death
over us both.

We parted — many years
have flowed away since then,
much joy has gone to the grave,
much has bloomed up.

In a pale memory
the evening lives on alone,
in which my longings
called me to die.

But when it flickers up,
a tear burns in this eye —
that I wished to die
while I was happy,

and now, that the wish for death
is lost from my heart,
I long to live, and my heart
has forgotten how to live.

(On Lujza’s Grave)

I

Who weeps with me — ah, God — who weeps?
Or who, with a human heart alone,
can bear unmoved such grief as this
that, like the power of gods, has no end?
My whole anguish is four little words,
how often do we say them, indifferent —
when the death-knell tolls its solemn peal —
who thinks that perhaps some breast
is breaking with pain?
I know it now, for I too felt it,
I know what torment it is to grieve alone
when we sob: she lives no more. —
Ah, I too could find a kindred breast,
one, one in all the wide world,
upon which to lean and moan my pain —
but now, oh where, where shall I lean,
when it is for her I needs must grieve! —
Oh girl, why did you die — tell me, why
did you trade this burning breast
for a cold grave? —
I did not — kissing — breathe away your soul.
Where has the orphaned one gone, torn away
from her world, from this loving breast?
Where does she wander in cold, dark solitude
without her world — the poor, poor one! —
Perhaps I was laughing while you lay dying,
perhaps I was making merry while you suffered,
and your spirit did not come to warn me.
Is there, is there then still a spirit-world? —
Oh girl, you would never have abandoned me;
you must have been faithless to me,
for how otherwise could you have shattered in one blow
the fair world that you had created like a God?
Or did I not warm away
the stern death from you sufficiently with my kisses?
Why did it find me instead?!
Why did I remain, like the little flower
between windowpanes on the first winter night,
to see still the stripped meadows
and wither slowly after them from grief? —
Curse you, heart! why are you so strong,
why do you not sink down with your world,
why do you live, to sit vigil on its ruins and count
only the long list of your losses?
Or why is nature — why so pitiless?
All the world around us smiles and rejoices
as if with malicious glee it were laughing
that silent winter sits in the breast. —
Why does the sun’s ray play
on the grave, as on the little flower,
and from the headpost a small bird sings
while below there lies a corpse?
Why, if one heart bursts,
does not all of life go into mourning?
In the wilderness, the orphaned heart
would find a sympathizer,
while thus it sees only
that the gods have no care for it,
and if one man is taken, one flower has fallen,
it is all one to them — they go on smiling;
man is so small, so wretched.

II

So I am here again, oh dear valley,
I stand at your door, little house!
Once I knew you well — and why now
does the entire face of your being seem changed?
For once, life lived here,
now death has pitched its dark camp,
the spirit has flown, and upon its husk
nature has cast its pale veil.
My heart too has changed since then —
many a sweetly-voiced string has snapped in it —
they may mourn together the beloved spirit
that smiled upon us, now flown away.
No lark-song wakes you,
no girl hurries out to welcome me,
no echo rings back song for song,
and no one tells me I am loved.
How good that even this mourning is shared,
and through your withered leaves the wind moans and goes,
while with it the flower destined for the wedding crown
drifts withered into the graveyard.
Just fly, flower — what are you seeking here?
Go hide with her — fly down into the grave —
it is warm there, the cross is all it touches,
while I am touched by the chilling wind of winter.
There cheer her, cheer the dear girl
who in her life so tended and nursed you —
whisper to her sweet dreams of spring
while in her dreams she wakens to a fairer reality.
And when you rise again in spring,
do not leave behind your fairest sister!
He who sends spring to you — God —
how could He begrudge her — life?
But snow melts easily and the grave is deep,
oh patience, only patience then:
one moment will bring the most beautiful reward
for a long life’s worth of suffering.

III

Here still lie her open books,
here the garland she left unfinished,
and the dear little letter meant for me
sits there half-written, waiting for its end.
Perhaps she has only gone for a stroll with her mistress —
but oh, when, when will she return at last,
if she has forgotten letter, heart, and garland,
if her soul no longer yearns and longs?
Away, dark image — oh, but she is mine;
what does it matter: dead or far away?
Both live on in memory alone,
and the dead is better still, for she will not be faithless.
Both will return in time to come —
the long-parted one, wan with grief,
while the dead sleeps sweetly on
and remains blooming, smiling, unchanged.

IV

Hah! is it she who speaks, or does the wind weep outside?
Is it her coffin they are nailing, or my heart that throbs?
No matter — both guard her faithfully,
and above both the light of faith shines.
The wind moans like a haunted voice,
knocking, knocking at the window of my room,
and frost-flowers gaze in through it —
perhaps the pale souls of withered flowers.
My room grows populous with holy images,
and in my heart too a frost-flower blooms:
the frost-flower is my Lujza — my candle flickers —
ah, I feel your spirit’s kiss, my dearest. —

V

When a weary workman goes to rest,
that is as it should be — let him sleep in peace!
When in autumn the leaves fall yellow to the ground,
let them fall — fresher ones will grow in their place.
But only to bloom and then to wither into winter again,
so that the loss may kill one all the more — to see the spring,
but for the dawn to be swallowed already in blind night —
oh woe to whoever saw it, woe to whoever saw it!
No — you who scattered roses around you
while for yourself only thorns remained —
it must be that beyond the grave they will gather up again
the lovely blossoms you held out to us.
He does not doubt the life to come
who has a sacred dead one in his heart —
before him the dark barrier falls
that death draws so grimly.
Half his soul is on the other side, and when earthly torments
consume him, from there it brings him gentle solace —
and above me too Lujza’s dear beautiful image
watches over me, like one sweet, gentle dream.
Whispering she says: "You will dream of your girl
until you find her on your breast,
but even then there will be tears in your eyes,
which without me forgot how to rejoice.
And in my eyes too tears will burn
at the happy moment, for I shall remember
how long you were in this sad world
suffering in solitude without your faithful one."

VI

The storm has passed from my soul,
I am calm again, as I was of old —
for the dead too is calm in his grave-dwelling,
only the dying one struggles with his pain.
Only the freshly dug grave is bare,
later flowers grow upon it;
though there is a dead one buried in my breast too,
across my face a ray of light passes now and then.
The long grief becomes quiet and gentle —
gentle, like a night on which the moon’s light sways,
yet still it is night — its ray shows only mourning —
it does not quicken a single orphaned bud.
And if my song rings out, I do it as a grave-keeper
who sets lights on the memorial stones
for the glory of those who lie buried
deep in their graves beneath.
Would that I could kindle stars instead of candles,
would that I could sing a song that will live always,
and make a whole world a sharer in you,
sacred memory — if only I could!
My soul would lighten, for my Lujza’s name
would remain as a relic to the world,
for her sake holy tears would fall
when the tale of her was told.
While thus I suffer alone, alas, alone,
and with me my grief too descends into the grave —
no one remembers the holy name of the girl,
feeling, sorrow — all sink into oblivion.

VII

That stone — for my darling’s grave perhaps?
Leave it to the proud man —
let it press down his soaring dreams,
lest they shatter the lock of his grave-dwelling.
Soft turf is right for the gentle girl,
and flowers — these little earthly stars —
let them stand watch over their sister
and cover her with the veil of their trembling shadow!
Then to the flower a little bird will come,
and weep over her when I have fallen silent,
and the grave-country too will smile
as once the girl did — the one I buried there.
And when she looks down from among the stars
she will be glad to see her quiet dwelling so —
let no inscription stand on her grave, only her name —
this name is an entire world of virtue,
as when we see the name of God.
You who knew her — she lives in your hearts;
while to posterity it would be in vain
to write it out in such cold, hard letters.
Her emblem here is this aloe,
which blooms once in a hundred years,
and, like everything on earth that is good,
hardly born, already it turns to die.
She too began to unfold one morning,
while her lovely flower reached toward the sky —
God loved it, and plucked it, so that
its sweet fragrance might delight Him.

VIII

For you grief dug the grave too soon, girl —
you felt sorrow and delight twice over;
what is for common souls a long road of life
rushed through your brief life like a torrent.
Girl, you were a nobler being than a human,
and for that very reason not perhaps meant for their company —
you felt pain where another gazes with a smile,
and in the end their contemptible smallness drove you away.
Song, flower, and life are all fairer in thought
than when made flesh — their virgin lustre fades;
perhaps the bliss of God too consists only in this —
that what we here live out, He merely imagines.
I am at peace then with your fate, girl —
for eternal disillusion would have been your earthly lot;
you would have seen dwindle what you had fashioned
in your imagination. — At God’s side you may continue it.

Here is the grave; holy it is to us both,
see, where our feeling met.
We weep together at its crest; come, girl,
and holy will be our tears that flow there together,

and if a flower grows, we shall recognize
that it sprang from a united tear,
like the resignation that likewise revives
over our faithfully shared grief.

And holy will be this sweet bitterness of our hearts,
like the cold but clear autumn day,
so that not even the flower suspects how it is
only a funeral kiss it receives from it.

And if you become an angel among my heart’s dead,
they will rejoice, I know it well, in you,
and if you too are content with your place,
this orphaned heart can be so most of all.

I read out "Frost-Flowers"
before you once; you sighed and said:
I too would gladly die, if a poet’s love
gave me likewise such a garland.

Oh girl, if your poet is once more I,
and every song were eternal glory,
I would give up glory and my song
for a single moment of your life saved.

Ah, I see, I see that you love me, girl —
me, whom so many have deceived, you hold dear.
Oh God, how good this ray feels
when the night already all but buries me.

But oh, sorrow has so grown into my heart
that happiness touches it with pain,
as the kindly sun’s bright colors touch
the eye that pined in a deep prison.

Rather do not love me then, girl;
so holy a gift is that love,
when the sky first smiles it upon us,
that it is no longer meant for me.

You a rising sun, and I a setting one;
you an opening rose, I already withering;
before you a world opens in rich hope,
my hopes long since have left me.

Why would you throw your wreath on graves?
I could give you only a grave-garland;
be at peace, then — a fairer future will dawn for you,
believe me, girl, surely, your destiny.

A hundred new hopes, a hundred new objects will step before you,
and my memory will pale among them,
but stay holy. Ah, give your hand to this pact,
and a gentle smile will replace the lament.

And with me your face will remain,
as my sad life’s last bright image,
and will form the object of my dreams
when the grave’s clod falls in upon me.

Oh girl, why, why do you love me?
Leave me — perhaps there is still time!
Here the ground shakes, lightning flashes
on your beloved’s orphaned brow.

This land would be bleak
for you, you frail rose-stem;
you would tremble on my breast
at my heart’s storm-laden beating.

Down there in the valley is right for you,
where by the time the gale reaches,
it has become a softly whispering breeze
that turns from flower to flower.

As in our memory, when the storm
of past times appears,
a fairy veil covers it, and to us
it still hurts, but hurts so sweetly.

And when it speaks of me, too,
to you, girl, I shall find ease
that what here thunders around me
flows softly around you,

that you can be happy long yet,
for my fate does not bind itself to one,
which like a wild storm shatters
everything my hand embraces.

Leave me, and your dream will be a rose-stem
and angels with the wings of moths.
With me — darkness and death;
I am a curse made flesh.

Even if you see me, plunged sometimes
in the sea of wild pleasures, still taking my delight:
do not envy me; it is my heart’s solitude
alone that I wish to forget.

I ask for a foaming cup, and ask for a kiss,
that I may grow drunk, may forget,
but the rosy lip goes pale at my kiss,
the all-but-tasted goblet turns aside.

Oh, for though there shine on the surface
of the great world fair foam-bubbles of joy,
I see it well: beneath the cloak of light, how
terribly dark, how deep they are.

All is for sale that the world can give,
and it sticks in the filth of the commonplace;
of every pleasure only its debasing
and the disgust of satiety remain.

So every delight goes pale before me,
for in reaching it there is no struggle,
and my soul cannot even conceive a height
that, like a star, would be unattainable.

There is only one thing that holds my soul up,
one memory that gives me delight:
that once you made me happy, dear girl,
and stayed pure — thank God!

And I feel my own breast the better too,
which once, girl, you loved,
and I hold the sinful world the better,
in which your hallowed form attends me.

And finding no pleasure now in the great world,
where everything can be bought,
my one pleasure is this unbuyable,
unattainable, holy remembrance.

I. In Church

I went into the church; you were there,
like an angel, fervently absorbed;
devotion seized my breast
at the believers’ ringing hymn.

It seemed as if these prayers
all, all were falling at your feet,
that you, girl, a purer spirit,
might present them at God’s footstool.

So good this fancy felt,
and yet, and yet, if it were so —
mad torment, jealousy, anguish —
my word, among so many, might be wasted.

Ah, it hurts when not everything pays you
homage, and when it does, it hurts as much;
it robs me, so I think,
every smile and stolen charm.

I would lay at your feet the spring,
night’s stars, the treasure of earth’s womb,
and would wish that, without my heart,
all this should still seem too little to you.

Do not condemn me, do not condemn!
He does not love who cannot be jealous.
Only the beggar walks carefree,
while peace flees from the rich man.

II. In Company

Driven by doubt, the bloody giant
of jealousy started up in my heart; —
I must go seek the dear girl,
after her, then, into the company! —

What a pleasant, magic world receives me:
a smile, a calm on every face.
Comes there, then, neither sorrow nor passion
across this wondrous border?

She came with me... There I see the girl
swaying, dallying, on another’s arm —
ah, one who chatters so, who smiles so,
how could she love as I do!

What did she say, what does she keep silent? — in vain;
on the rack of company’s sacred decorum
our heart groans, and they pay it honor —
joys, torments, passions. —

When our house burns, we smile sweetly,
basking at its ravaging flame —
when one world of our soul sinks down,
indifferent we stand over it.

Ridiculous is he who acts otherwise;
let us be merry, then, merry and fair,
for dallying is so pleasant,
only let the word not lead into our heart.

And when, like gladiators, we fall at last,
applause is the wage of our skill;
at home, perhaps, even the walls
will look down on our wound with sympathy.

Girl, do not play with me, when you see me flatter
like a mild breeze! — the breeze is wont to chatter
only among roses; a rose is your love.
If you betray me, the wind quickens to a wild storm,
and dread, dread its terrible vengeance!

Girl, do not play with me, when you see me
shine and gleam with fleeting cheer — oh know, the sea
gleams only by moonlight; moonlight is your love.
If you betray me, it will be night, its depth destruction.
And dread, dread its terrible vengeance!

Girl, do not play with me, seeing me lost in dreams!
This dream a fairy-song alone brought to me,
and this fairy-song, girl, is your love;
if you betray me — then the wild lion wakes,
and dread, dread its terrible vengeance!

I gave you once a lock of my hair, girl;
you swore your love eternal then,
and the lock stood as a mocking token, kept its color
when the oath had long since dwindled into nothing.
What will you do with it now, tell me, girl, what will you do?
It is a leaf that, withered, strays upon the wind.
Cast it away — though you loved the rose’s scent,
its fallen petal, oh, has outlived itself by now.
Or will this token of mourning, among many others,
serve you only to proclaim one of your conquests?
Among graves, oh girl, fear to make love;
the wind that plays among withered leaves is icy.
Best, lay my lock away in the old book
from which I sometimes read a song of love;
let it be there the autumn leaf the wind has driven,
of which one can no longer tell from what tree it fell.
Why should writing still stand on the grave to which
sympathy comes no longer to offer tears,
and let my lock too molder over the sweet song
whose echo has fallen mute in your breast.
You gave me too, girl, then, a garland of flowers,
and said each petal hid a feeling.
Behold, then, the withered garland of our feelings,
the one real thing that remains from my dream.
I keep it, and grow well by it, if ever
I should begin perhaps to believe in man again.
Do not weep, girl; your eyes will go red, and why
would you offer your charm for a breaking heart?
Oh, holy is the tear; spare that holy gift —
ah, I too knew it once; today I laugh.
It is not good to show grief amid so many false tears,
and from a single drop, after all — what comes of such sorrow? —

You change your feelings as you change your clothes:
today you put on this, tomorrow you would want another,
as your whim prompts, and you believe
it all suits you well, you foolish girl.

Now you have put on my love again,
that once so white a garment,
though, forgetting it amid new pleasure,
you long ago flung it down to rest on the sand.

Leave it, leave it — why bring it up again?
Better for it to rest there, forgotten;
it was woven of sunbeams, and
must I now see the grime of the times upon it?

See, I was so calm already, I believed
you loved me once sincerely, girl,
and though God ordained that you forget,
the kiss, the smile were given from a true heart —

while now, if I see you flush again
as you did then, your Eve’s-breast surge so,
I see, oh, that even when I believed,
even then I was deceived in you. —

Why did you not leave this grave to me!
Why tempt me over it with a coquette’s smile?
The world is wide for your conquests; why
did you reach, in sacrilege, into this breast? —

If the love of your heart is only a lamp
that revives anew with fresh oil
to shine in proud halls, then
I will not trade in love with you, girl.

But neither fear that my scorned love
will perhaps come haunting back
to demand its trampled bliss,
which, smiling, you swore to me!

No — as this heart was left barren of your image,
so barren of heart your curse will be, girl;
you learned nothing but how to please;
between you and your heart a flattering host stood:

when your charms fall away, and this host
forsakes you, you will understand your heart’s wasteland,
and weary of life and without joy
your orphaned soul will beg for peace, ask for quiet;

but having lost your vocation, you will be
like a wordless thought, a fruitless tree,
a bodiless soul, orphaned, homeless,
wandering in the whirlpool of nothingness.

Instead of the sweet domestic circle, only
the cold dead of the past you will find,
while with a leaden weight the grave’s clods
fall, unmourned, on your empty breast.

(To Erzsi)

I

Wild joy was all I lived before this —
dazement and intoxication, nothing more,
as if to forget our grief
the toast goes round with its stupor,
and to shout down our heart’s lament
we strike up a roguish song
to hush the one who is crying in us,
as a nurse does with a little child.
A shepherd’s fire was all my bliss and pleasure,
that flickers in the winter night —
we warm ourselves by it, but alas
the shepherd’s fire gives life to nothing —,
until you came, like the rising sun,
and every other light paled in yours,
you filled the earth, and with wonder
I saw a new radiance on everything.
I felt the love of rose and bee,
felt, orphaned, that there is nothing without it.
Love is the holy chain of all that is,
and we too are a tiny link within it. —
And as if you had kissed
this breast’s wildly ringing song,
in my imagination all in this world
was transfigured so gloriously.

II

Why did you kindle flame in this breast
if you remain cold now, girl?
Why did you teach me to love ardently
only to laugh at my torment?
Oh, smile, smile upon me, little girl —
believe me, it suits you far better;
the great winter may awe you perhaps,
but what enchants is only the spring.
A sculpture too strikes us — we admire it
when an ideal pervades it —
yet our heart will not stir, in vain,
for it finds no kindred world there.
See, little girl, the sun that gives birth to flowers
does not scorch them with its heat —
it sends them a dewdrop or two
and revives the one that was fading.
Your eye is the sun, and if the dewdrop
of compassion does not fall on this breast, it will burn,
and this world of feeling that opens to you
would perhaps be a pity still to destroy.

III

Oh little girl, are you not ashamed if
a rough cliff is kinder than your small heart —
you whom God Himself has already
warmed through and through with love?
Do you not tremble lest He repent
of having lavished so much beauty upon you in vain? —
See — if you answer my word with No,
that rock there gives me comfort.
I shall complain to it that indeed my little girl
said she does not love me.
"She loves," the cliff thus answers, playfully,
and it refreshes my languid soul.
Good friend, you! — ah, I know you are mistaken;
my fate is so sad, my fate is so barren —
my faithful love can find in the cold girl
no return for it any more.
"It will find," the gracious cliff says again.
Is it mocking me, or does it know better
the sweet secret of a girl’s breast
and herald my fairer future with a good omen?

IV

Girl, if I showed such coldness
as you play unceasingly,
perhaps you would love me more — ah, but such
a burning heart is incapable of that.
A small wound is easy to hide, but
the large one, if you hide it, kills;
I have such a wound, and if I must hide it,
I shall die, believe me, of its sufferings.
Oh, if I had such power over you
as you have over your faithful one,
I would teach you what torment it is
when one’s chosen is so unfeeling.
And yet I could not be so cruel,
and I would suffer through it again,
and suffer all the torment
with which coldness would strike you.
I am a captive, captive — doubt tears my heart —
is my fate life or is it death?
Speak it, speak it, whatever the verdict —
in it my soul will find peace.
Only light! even if it shows
heaven or hell — no matter to me now;
let the dreadful throes of fate cease —
whatever comes, I shall bear it submissively.
Speak, girl, for like a slow poison
doubt between grief and hope will kill me;
so far my strength holds — here I believed there was a goal —
carry it further still, and my breast will fall.

V

Where have you gone, girl — your old cheerfulness?
Where is the teasing playfulness?
For once you found delight
in a little flower, in a butterfly’s wing. —
Now you are serious; your wandering eye’s
glance travels far, far away,
like a sailor who watches doubtfully
towering clouds and the distant shore.
Why do you tremble now when I come to you,
like a flower before the autumn wind?
With trust you used to lean toward my heart
and with a smiling face before.
Whence, whence this flush on your cheek now,
while your heart beats faster?
Perhaps it is your heart’s secret, yearning dream
that is mirrored there with such charm?
I knew the white enamel of your soul —
and the blush of dawn on your face, girl,
the dawn of happiness — and yet
perhaps the dusk of the heart’s peace.
I see a wandering light in your eye, girl,
it betrays a treasure in your heart.
Cast it down, cast it down — oh, it is all in vain now —
my heart finds new, ever more evidence.
At your every limb fresh charm revives,
and the sky creates nothing new like it
except when in nature there is spring,
or love burns in a woman’s heart.
Oh yes, I see it — the gloom of your eye
no longer clouds this breast,
for from it, like a rainbow,
love extends its sweet sign of peace.

VI

To see you and to love you were one thing —
oh little girl, whence, whence this?
For otherwise a man in this world
seeks bliss only through long struggle.
I did not ask who you are, what your fate —
such dross would have fouled that thought —
I saw you were a girl — that was enough for me,
for you can love and I can adore you.
Ah, what is it that draws me to you so?
Another pleases when this or that about her is fair —
in you it is face, hair, and the light of eyes —
enchanting to me because it is yours. —
I do not know whether the curls are dark,
whether the eye is blue or night-dark;
I only know that on the dear whole
the loveliest ray of bliss falls.
God created you for this heart,
and this heart found you at once
when it stood before you, startled, as before
a long-known, dearly familiar one.
And truly — our souls were acquainted,
at God’s side they had formed one;
and to find each other again
in this world, they parted at once.
And it ached in its half-being; in its tormenting wound
with yearning ardor it found no rest,
until now in your soul it found that
and the better half of itself with it.
What shall I wonder now if, long ago,
even before I had seen you,
in my sweet-faced dream-visions
I had already worshipped you with pure flame.
And do not say — if easily you lean
your breast to me — that I shall be faithless:
there is no such thing as too early to fulfill
what the great gods long ago decreed.

VII

Oh — perhaps it is a sin too, how I adore you —
my breast is an altar on which your image stands,
and outside it in the entire breast
nothing, nothing else finds room.
And if your image were to leave this heart,
I shudder to think what void would remain there —
forsaken by God and men —
like ruins stripped from a church.
Oh, but how could it be sin to love —
that is the ordinance of our God;
heaven teaches it, and earth, and star, and wind,
rose and spring teach it.
How could it be sin, to love like this —
everything good in my heart comes from it;
to be worthy to possess you
strives this heart, this weary fighter.
Through you fell, little girl,
my heart’s vain, false idols;
for your sake I have learned to worship God
yet more gratefully as well. —
And I have come to know that what the foolish breast
of men tears into a hundred shapes —
because it cannot hold the glorious whole —
is one powerful, beneficent God.
And though you honor Him, with your child-heart’s faith,
in a garland of roses,
and I in the image of one bleeding on a cross —
He stands guard protectively over us both.
You have taught me that our soul will live on,
for the flame that He sends between us
will not be contained in this earth’s frail realm
and it fights back toward the rays of bliss.

I am no longer what I was in former days,
a brook roaring at the edges of crags,
seething in it, but with a wild force
that startles, racing down its path.

Now I have become a stream of the plain
that flows on gently, slowly;
its smooth current mirrors a little star,
and beside me stands the flower of the bank.

My soul is an orphaned cloud no longer
that the wind drives on with thunder,
while in its breast a giant war boils,
wild darkness and consecrated heavenly fire.

My soul has become now an autumn’s clear day
that ripens its fruit faithfully,
and though summer no longer blazes around it,
it knows nothing of summer’s tempests either. —

My love was a conflagration — now quite other —
that, raging, gallops over houses,
and before it splendor, after it ruin,
it makes one recoil and yet draws and draws.

See what it has become — a small benevolent fire
that burns on the consecrated household altar,
warms securely, and binds together
in its little circle a quiet domestic peace.

More poetic and grander were
the bellowing flood, the conflagration, and the storm
than the smooth water, autumn’s cool ray,
and the flame that stands on the household altar;

ah, but the poet’s magic of all these
is, after all, after all, the remembrance,
when, by the small fire in the autumn sun,
reconciled happiness chats of them.

Often I tormented you in vain,
and with an aching pleasure watched for your tear,
and yet we curse even God,
and our heart still leads us back to him.
You forgave me too, woman; you bent
to me with the first kiss on your lips,
ashamed and trembling with delight,
when I confessed I had sinned greatly.
Oh, but to whom feeling does not draw us,
from such a one, surely, nothing hurts at all.

Often you wronged me too, woman, in vain,
and cast even fate’s fault upon me —
whoever had heard would have believed
there is no worse husband than yours;
yet even at the dearest boy
we cry out: let the devil take him,
and would lay down our life for him;
is it not so, dear extortioner?
Oh, for if harm had come to that bad husband,
I believe you would have wept — and the grief killed in secret.

We narrowed our little domestic circle;
the wind of fancy swept us off
as the sea’s endlessness draws the sailor
from his haven with a magic spell —
ah, but soon enough it longs for peace,
for that orphaned ancestral hearth.
It returns with delight, as we returned.
Fairest is the sun over our little house,
for though it is no fairyland we dwell in,
the two of us in it, surely, get on after all.

The cloud has drawn off, the sun breaks out,
fair is the world, happiness again,
the dearer for the passing gloom,
and it bids us husband our life well.
No sting stays hidden in our heart
that kills feeling and waits hoarding poison;
each painful minute is already repaid
with a hundred pleasure-filled hours —
for every minute may my God bless you a hundredfold,
mother of my children, my fair one, my beloved!

Bravely I stood, weapon against weapon,
I did not dread the wrath of the great,
but I doubted whether my soul was strong enough —
for in a man this is but duty.
Fortune’s lure did not master me,
no fair beam of an eye made me drunk,
but I doubted whether my soul was strong enough
if fate’s heavier trial should await.
I withstood a woman as she pleaded,
I heard my beloved, how she sobbed —
now let any storm of fate come;
calmly I await it; oh, I am strong.

(To P.)

Blond Ipoly’s little dark daughter!
I could eat up those lovely eyes of yours.
It wounds me when it looks at me, and when it does not,
it robs me of the sun.
Good that on your face, in its sweet little dimple,
I see a mischievous spirit playing,
which, when you wound, pours balm into my wound
and smiles, when needed, in place of my sun.

Blond Ipoly’s little dark daughter!
I could eat up that chattering little mouth of yours;
it hurts when I do not hear it prattle, and hurts
when I do, for it gives no hope.
Good that the two swaying hills of your breast
still wave with warmth even then,
and when you do not speak, they speak for you,
and when you speak, they say: the girl is false.

Blond Ipoly’s little dark daughter!
I could eat up that bewitching soul of yours.
When you are far, you draw me to you;
when you are near, you drive me away.
Good that even at the world’s end
I would still be far, and you would draw me back;
good that the Ipoly has so overflowed
that I cannot reach you, dark girl.

I have known fairer ones than you, girl,
better ones too have bent to me;
I cannot have you, and do not long to own you,
which, I know well, leads to disenchantment.

What draws me, then, so ardently to you,
why does it hurt if your heart beats for another,
what mirage trembles even over your faults? —
You have surely bewitched me, little girl.

I give myself up to the spell;
light-rapture, scent, I take with delight;
beyond this hall and these dear eyes
let time and world not exist for me!

Play, play, gypsy! it hurts, but still it is sweet,
the sound you draw out of my soul;
what slumbered there as a secret foreboding,
under your bow it all comes to life. —

In your music a struggling heart’s whole world:
a shriek of joy, a dying sigh,
the echo of a better spirit-world quivers,
soft melting sorrow and the wild din of battle. —

Then to the music the dance too set in;
I lace the dear girl onto my arm,
with self-possession, proudly, I lead her up,
as the strong stem leads the swaying bloom.

She leans to me, then mischievously leaves me,
hovers around, pining, naughty —
defiance and reconciling, jealousy and dalliance
sway by turns in the waves of the dance.

Then I feel her heart’s quickening beat,
her breath — the girl falls onto my arm,
I press her to me, and in whirling frenzy
sky and earth vanish; I embrace only her.

When the spell at last dissolves,
light, scent, and music die out, cease,
and the everyday world looks down on me again
by the unpoetic morning’s beams:

your image, girl, remains in its full delight,
than which the having of your heart is perhaps no more —
and stays yet free of all the dross
that the having is forced to follow.

You were the fairest in the rank of fair girls;
no face was more smiling, no eye more modest,
and when I saw my face painted in their depth,
I believed I was already in the kingdom of heaven.
The feelings of your breast are unfolding now;
your youth protected them, and the world’s wind
could not yet make them feel its freezing touch.
I see in you, clearly, God’s own thought;
nothing is needed but the lily’s stem in your hand,
and I set you, a saint, on the consecrated altar.
And then, as your soul soared, vying
with mine beyond the earth into the fairy world,
I believed I had found my soul’s mate at last,
believed I would be the world’s orphan no more,
and as in God’s house, so my soul trembled
as I laid my love at your feet,
wondering whether it would not be an offending gift
on the altar of your breast, where so pure a flame burns.
Foolish heart! who believed, oh, who would have believed
that it was all learned by rote before a mirror,
and that she whom I so adored, this ideal of my heart,
is none other than a pretty girl for sale.
Others step up to her with hats on,
what is sacred to me is the butt of their jests.
And you smile and make merry along with them,
strike sparks of wit at me too, if it falls so.
Ah, it is no use; the good merchant suits the pleasure
of all — who knows in earnest which one buys?

Oh, in what are you better, tell me, tell me, than the harlot?
She too allures, like you, and waits, like you, a good buyer —
neither of you can give a heaven save of silk,
your rose is artificial, it does not grow from your heart.
When you smile, you watch whether it becomes you,
when you weep, the tear runs down by measure,
and when one day fate calls you to die,
even then you watch for an alluring shape and place.
Oh, do you not fear that the great God will strike you,
to drive such a bargain with his most holy fire,
for ragged trinkets, for a few forints,
or waiting a bonnet, as the greatest reward? –
So the woman-spirit once sung of has sunk so low
that a nobler aim of life stands before her no more?
Yet the man, even so, even so is better than the woman,
for when he lies, he asks at least a prouder fee.
Ah, but what am I saying? — you can still grant bliss,
you are so natural, only lock up your heart well!
What does it matter that you became his wife only because
no better ones happened, just then, to come along? —
Struggling passions and the kinship of souls
are all threshed straw, foolish prattle only.
Mad is the poet who torments himself with that,
his heart breaks — and they watch him, smiling.
Your happy husband one day, leaning on your snow-mound,
sunk in the rapture of your heart-beats,
does not even faintly guess what is within it:
comfort, freedom — and only his face is wanting.

Rain patters down, rain patters down,
only a ghostly breeze sobs,
in the mist a crowd of crows wheels;
no sign of song, no sign of a flower.

The chattering cricket has fallen silent,
the working folk’s dear musician;
everything that lives seeks a nest,
the shepherd’s fire has burned to ash.

The little village has filled with life,
the chimneys smoke cheerfully,
beneath them a lamp flickers,
and at evening the spinners’ song rings out.

This life, girl, came with you
among us, and the cold winter stayed outside.
On the frost of your little window opposite,
ah, a new charm-flower springs.

If only that spring would not come —
which carries you off into the mountains;
life follows along again,
and we may stay with the winter’s frost.

Before you, as a herald, flies out
the little skylark, and at its song
in its fairest dress comes to meet you
the wilderness’s sister flower.

The echo rouses and listens
when the song of your lips rings out,
and as it weeps, longs, and smiles,
each becomes a singing bird.

Only when I glance across, ah,
into your little window, a rose is there —
for me only a pale frost-flower —
instead of your face, which used to smile across.

If my heart, brimming with song, has wound into a bouquet
the flowers of a garden tended with proud care,
why should I not pin you among them, shepherd girl,
the gentle wild flower of the open field?
For you, nature stood in place of a gardener;
the great God poured feeling into your breast,
and though it was a brief moment while you made me happy,
I do not know how you would stand behind the others.
Oh, for happiness is always brief;
our fairest moments are the ones that race off fastest.
Spring too withers, yet it deserves a song,
and the skylark comes to sing of it.
Your breast was my fair spring day, dear girl;
let this little song be the bird to your charms.

The whole world paid homage, girl,
and you mocked everyone;
you thought this tribute was your due,
and that no one would resist.

You were vexed that I alone
stayed mute and cold.
More and more coquetry scattered
still more radiance on your charms.

I needed a stronger armor now,
you needed a sharper arrow;
so it ran between us, so it ran long,
the war-game, the engagement.

But woe to him who plays
a sacrilegious game with the heart’s feeling!
It is dangerous, as the fire is
to the moth that flies around it.

You went on conquering with wiles
until you were conquered, little false one,
and that felt so good to me
that now I am yours myself.

You say, girl, that indeed
I have been in love many a time,
and my oath of faithfulness —
how shall I put it? — is doubtful.
But see, how many stars fall
down, and not one is missed;
in my heart too the feeling
blooms in its full plenty. —
What fell down, girl,
was not a real star,
and pity me the rather
that I once took it for one. —
If you feel that you are a real
star, dear soul,
you will not fall from my heart’s sky —
and still I dread and dread to lose you.

I take back, girl,
my oath of faithfulness;
I give back, girl,
in this mute farewell kiss,
behold, your love.

Like a bird of passage
my foreboding carries me off;
my soul must rove,
for me to rest at
there is no haven, no homeland.

Why should our oath’s
pale specter stand still,
warning of sorrow and hatred,
until in its place at last
its reconciled memory steps. —

Surely your heart, which was mine,
will not hate me for this,
that the wanderer stopped
to admire the flower
and went on his way?

Surely your breast, girl,
which held me dear,
will not curse me now either,
that its fate would not
let me stay longer?

Surely you do not believe, when
another comes who is more faithful,
that he feels perhaps more
than I, and that what my breast felt
was not love at all?

Where is the song that enchants
and then is never heard again?
Where the infinitely lovely dream,
the eternal color on the flower,
that we need not mourn?

Your face was the falling star
in the night of my life,
that with pure radiance
burns a moment and goes down,
like a playful apparition.

And I, who saw its path,
follow it weeping,
and its memory, forever,
like a heavenly vision’s,
stays so holy to me.

I have come to take my leave, girl, of you.
I beg you, beg you, do not be afraid, alarmed!
I did not come to wring out tears,
nor to curse feeling, or fate;
only for a kiss — and God be with you!

For it was not to sigh and grow pale
that we bound our union, girl!
Each minute of ours was a filled cup,
and now that we have toasted the noble wine,
shall we weep, perhaps, that it is gone?

No, no — for from a woman’s heart
I expected no more than there was;
and you too knew that joy,
that passion, that the poet,
to live, must rove.

He whom the spring once refreshed
when he sank down, parched —
would he not be mad forever
to stay there chained
in exchange for one cup of water?

Such a spring you were, girl, to my heart;
such a spring I was, girl, to you;
the thirst and the parching are over now,
the wanderer of life is beckoned on;
dear girl, God be with you!

If a new day of joy dawns on you,
perhaps the past will come to mind;
but if your happiness grows so great
that you forget even me in it,
I will overlook that too, dear woman. —

And now embrace me! Oh, only do not fear
that I will crumple your lace.
How much time you have squandered on me,
you have missed a dance already!
Hurry, lady! — And now, God be with you!

(To A.)

You say, girl, that to your window
little doves come flying, flying,
and while you let them in to you,
they tap there, cooing,

with tender, playful nipping
they nestle to your white breast,
until they fly away again,
and you know not from where, or whither.

Oh, do not even know, do not even know!
Each is a maddened longing,
sprung in secret in a bleeding heart,
that broke its nest and flew far off.

It flew to seek happiness,
came to rest at your window;
let it be, let it fly on,
and do not even know whither, from where!

You were dear when I first saw you,
proudly looking at me with cold eyes.
This coldness, I thought, perhaps suits
the truly beautiful best of all.

I saw you again; you went out to conquer.
You let your charms shine here and there,
like a rosebud half veiled
that yet opens a space for foreboding too.

And I grew unfaithful to your first cold self;
your newer self made me unfaithful at once;
I believed that God had created
nothing more glorious than this harmonious whole.

And it may be — but your love created it:
you began to love, and a new charm poured over you;
now it has reached, oh I see, its perfection,
the charm a woman’s breast can breathe.

You laid your ornaments off from yourself,
and in wonder I see your charms grow;
the gaudiness of artifice is dwarfed
beside you — oh, you yourself are fairest.

And though I have you, girl, all of you,
your every grace is still always new to me;
each time I must win every one anew,
and every yielding is a new grace.

In every smile, word, glance
your whole world of grace is there,
and yet, when you kiss, embrace me a thousandfold,
a thousand times I believe myself the victor.

It is all only a fable, all only a fable,
what our poets sing
in praise of a pining,
ideal, pure love.

The fairest flame does not burn long
if it can find no fuel;
a fool is he who battles without a goal
until, worn out, he sinks down.

And when the lord of the earth falls
pleading in the dust before a girl,
it is fitting that she too should at once
share the Eden of her breast with him.

He from whose soul has already died
the pride of this self-awareness
is not worthy to be a man,
not worthy of a girl’s grace.

And if in a girl’s heart there is not
the awareness of this holy law,
let her love a fellow girl, for that
she may adore in ideal purity.

Only now do I love you greatly,
since, girl, you are already mine;
every kiss, every embrace
strikes my heart like a fresh flame.

Let another sing the lavish spring,
a thousand flowers, music of a hundred voices,
let another enjoy the bright sunbeam,
only leave me the harsh winter night!

Spring, birdsong, the bright sunbeam
heaven made to ease our sorrow;
the long winter night is still
the home of love, of the moment’s poetry.

Outside the wind roars, my little room is warm,
in my hearth the fire burns crackling,
on a soft couch, among swollen pillows,
a sweet girl draws me to her.

We feel through and through that we are for each other;
the world is torn away from us,
there is no constraint between us, no cold rule,
no pity hounds us, no curiosity.

The happiness that lives in one of us
gives real delight to the other,
not as outside, where living for one, ah,
becomes a terrible hell for countless others.

And while, weighing many base interests together,
the heart bolted to another comes only to ruin,
you seek in me no fame, no treasures,
you love nothing but the man.

Embrace me, girl, embrace me once more,
let me kiss your warm breast!
You who stand so fair among men,
in my arms lay aside your holy modesty!

Here a mightier deity holds sway;
this deity, you know, is love,
which covers all with its veil of charm.
It endures much, but not that you be cold, girl.

Press closer to me still, my beloved,
let me listen to your heart’s beating,
while your rounded arm, like a ring of charm,
encircles your surging breast.

Let us speak softly of sweet things,
mixed with kisses imperceptibly,
till our whispering breaks off at times
and blends together with dream-images.

You have dozed off; half-awake
I still listen to your slow breathing,
still take delight when your careless sleep
unveils some newer grace.

I lay my head to the delight-hills of your breast
and bring my breath to a boil between them,
your locks of hair net my hand,
gently I unwind them and run it over

the wave-shapes of your fair form,
such as an artist’s fairest dream gives birth to.
But no, but no — even the fairest dream
cannot draw me so, cannot kindle me thus.

And when the rich sense of their perfection
rocks my soul in a delight-rapture,
while slowly sleep comes round me,
carrying on the sublime images;

if I were to rise into the heaven of gods,
I might not even notice the change. —
But oh yes — your kiss would be missing,
and for that heaven offers no compensation.

If the word is only the husk of our feeling,
why should I write? to delude you?

If the word is a faithful interpreter, then I dread
that with my feeling I will frighten you.

Do not read, then, when I write to you;
who knows, is it a mask or a feeling.

But among them are the white lines;
those speak to a kindred soul.

If you understand them, then I am happy;
if you do not understand — I too keep silent.

Shun me, as the magnet shuns the other’s pole,
as the sailor the crag in his path,
hate me, as the angel hates damnation,
as the quiet night the wild-roaring day:
only do not be indifferent toward me!

And if I see that in your heart, toward mine,
there is some feeling, whatever it be,
hope will feed me all the while,
for one who hates may perhaps still love.
Only do not be indifferent toward me!

When I hear that beauty is a coquette
and longs ceaselessly for homage,
that its unfeeling heart may at once
have more slaves and more brilliance:
I remember you, oh dear woman,
for you refute this charge,
and I am reconciled with the world too
when I think of your beauty.

When I hear that virtue is proud
and looks down on the one who has sinned,
with an icy breast, without mercy,
like a god over the world:
I remember you, oh dear woman,
for you refute this charge,
and I am reconciled with the world too
when I think of your virtue.

Oh but I feel, in this world the poet
is an orphaned voice over wastelands,
his fate to wear a bleeding crown of thorns
above his accursed brow;
I remember you, oh dear woman,
and think of my life in sorrow. — —
Oh, you who refute everything, why,
why do you not refute this one thing?

You spoke well, oh, when on a clear morning
we gaze out over a charming landscape,
the workshop of life hums around us,
and sunbeam fills every space:
it is not the single tree, the crag, that seizes us,
but the spirit that hovers above them,
and the aching sense of our littleness
longs to melt into it, and trembles.

You spoke well, oh, when at quiet midnight
we look out over the million stars,
and standing between our dust-speck world
and the infinite, the magic of foreboding draws us:
it is not the night and the star that seize us,
but the spirit that strays among them,
and, like a stranger and yet our kin,
the past gives our soul an aching delight.

You spoke well, oh, when we listen to music
and our soul is the ship on its surging tide,
now in playful cheer before a rosy shore,
now tossed amid wild storm and crags:
it is not the single note that seizes us,
but the spirit that speaks in its depth,
and though we half-understand its tones only,
it seizes, seizes, and our soul, rejoicing, fears.

But that you did not say, so I will say it:
that, dear woman, when you are near me,
it is not your playful cheer, your rich charms,
not the proud flight of your soul that enchants me,
but that spirit that hovers around you
and brings such a world into holy unity,
and what midnight, the summer day, what music gives birth to,
all of it brims through you at once.

When this soul struggles and sinks down,
it rises again, though all is against it,
and whatever sorrow or delight life brings,
it has felt all of it through in this battle.

And because it is too noble to crawl there in the dust
of the commonplace, they mock it; and so
a wild anger rises in it — hatred, perhaps,
for the world that no longer understands anything better.

Like a conflagration, consuming, it falls upon itself;
from its moment’s brightness one heap of ash remains;
it kneads it into a new world, and, a maddened god,
sets specter-shadows on it for desolate dwellers.

I see, woman, how you tremble, how you fear me
and long to lead me back within my bounds;
oh, do not fear — though the tempest shatters everything,
it would not harm the gentle flower.

I do not care what anyone else judges of me,
only do you understand my orphaned soul,
and when you see me struck by fate and broken,
know in me your faithful brother.

The happy do not like to see sorrow,
and the unbelieving man, at the morning of your life,
alarms you, for he is so sad, so bleak a figure,
like an accursed wandering specter sentenced to rove:

oh, but do not judge him hastily,
like the cowardly churl, but bless your fate
that it carried you over your life by a gentler road
than the one on which damnation scourged me.

For your heart too, woman, is noble enough to break;
ah, if you understood — but, foolish fancies —
better not to understand, for to understand and love
you would have to live through all that I suffer.

I too was once, like you, a believer;
my soul, with a poet’s fervor, embraced an ideal,
I fused with it, and, as one who suffers,
my heart started up to find it had found only dross.

Happier sister, do not cast me off, then!
So long now have I been a weeping orphan.
He who offers sympathy gives strength too,
and the heart grows better at the heart of the good.

Do not deny me, then, one request:
give a single kiss to my brow, woman;
remembrance will find balm in it,
and it will be a shield in my future, when it comes with me.

I see, woman, how you tremble, how you fear me.
Let them write on my grave: he gained one kiss,
which was no Judas-kiss. Oh, this one grace
the god of my fate perhaps will not begrudge.

The company had gone into the mountains;
I too went on the dear woman’s arm;
little by little our companions fell behind,
and I was left alone with the woman.

Our words thinned, then fell silent,
and we did not notice; so many thoughts
hovered around — we listened, and believed
our heartbeat gave them speech.

And we took for a dialogue the wind
that whispered, chattering, among the branches,
and the bird’s farewell song,
and the sun’s last glance.

At last we stood upon the summit;
breathless she leaned on me,
with delight she drank the fresh air
and the fragrant breath of the flowers.

In my arm I felt her heartbeats
together with mine, and so imagined
that the dear soul perhaps felt all
that I feel, all that I long for.

The sun had set, all was hushed,
only the cricket filled the evening,
like the heartbeat of nature, which
throbs with us, feels with us, breathes.

Below our feet the mist lay in the valley;
we stood as on the brink of a deluge;
everything ceased, everything fell away,
the two of us alone were left alive.

The confession was already on my lips;
the mist tore, I saw the village,
and to my mind came every bond and clasp
from which the soul flees all in vain.

And yet — oh, great is the power of the moment;
then, let whatever follow it,
after one blessed moment lived through,
the struggle of all the rest of life is no great price. —

I looked at her face, and the angel-face
has power to purify the sinner;
the confession froze on my lips,
I could not, ah, do more than sigh.

Sadly I led her homeward,
but even in my grief there was comfort:
"I am happy even so, for I love her,
and if she knew, she would suffer by it."

Were I but a star, fixed on the vault of heaven,
and gazed down from there, pining, woman, on you;
were I but a tempest, driving with sobs
the wild night against your closed window!

Were I but a flower dwelling in the meadows,
and your gentle step withered me there,
only to live with it and die for you
would the grace of fate allow me!

And yet — rather than see your charms
bloom for another with star-eyes,
while I, like a storm, weep with a torn breast
and you find your happiness in someone else,

and, like a meadow-flower, unnoticed,
with a smiling face you kill, trample me down —
far from your breast, in frozen hope
let me be a barren crag, with wilderness around!

Only let one knowledge hover over me:
that your soul, lady, pines toward me, toward me,
that without me, even in God’s Eden,
you would notice an empty place!

When I sometimes venture such a word:
you have no truer friend than I am,
a doubtful smile plays on your lips — perhaps
you take it only for a customary compliment.
But no, but no, you believe my word,
you know that he who knows you loves you.
Your heart trembles rather, perhaps, at this:
that it is more than friendship I feel.
You probe for it when you sometimes smile,
and the result perhaps brings you to anger.
I endure it. — Wish it, and I die,
or, what is harder still, I keep silent;
wish it, and I shun you,
only do not tell me not to love you!

Forgive me, woman, if for a moment I believed
that I could be made happy by you;
forgive me, if for a moment I forgot
the strict rules of society.

The poet’s soul is so much a stranger,
so aching, above this artificial earth,
that to find on it a kindred soul like yours
felt almost good.

I forgot that you have a husband, and the husband
lays claim and right to your whole self,
and like a mine-goblin, though he knows not its worth,
locks up the rich heaps of treasure.

I forgot that between woman and man
the world endures no nobler bond;
but though I laugh at its folly,
this once I will not endure it, if it gnaws at you.

Rather than that you should give me bliss,
and a slandering tongue take up your name,
rather than that I should see fall on you,
oh woman, a single doubting eye,

let me not drink the honey of one kiss to my grave,
let the cup turn away from my lips,
let the charm of poetry perish there,
where my soul walks orphaned, forsaken.

God be with you, woman! — see, I am calm,
do you not see there is a smile on my lips?
Let me suffer, but may you never know
how deep in my breast the sorrow, the pain.

Believe me frivolous, believe me bad, if you must,
that I could forget you so soon;
believe that I was not worthy of you,
and my breast a plundered, echoing, empty dwelling!

So your parting from me will be easy,
while if you knew what torment I suffer,
knew how worthy of you I am,
perhaps these fair eyes would weep for me.

When winter comes, and you believe already
that perhaps even God has forgotten you,
and the heart, stiffened in death’s struggle,
fears nothing and believes nothing,

then comes the smiling daughter of the East,
the fairy of spring, and brings comfort;
in the mute hollow of my prison,
oh, with what sweet delight I feel it.

I was already the autumn leaf of existence;
death had pressed me to its breast,
and bringing a flower of life, behold,
the guardian spirit came — and that was you, woman.

Here you stand, my dear little flowers,
children of freedom and of the sun;
I too am that, and now together
we shall pine sadly in this prison.

A word of power keeps me locked away,
but you — why did a frail woman strike you down?
Oh, he, to torment, to torture me,
and she sent you to bring sweet ease.

You do bring ease, my fair flowers,
you breathe fragrance and die of it,
like the soul that, living for others,
calmly endures whatever its fate.

Oh, do not grieve, then, for the garden
where the butterfly and the soft breeze embraced you,
nor that you do not adorn with a flood of color
the fairest and noblest breast!

Behold, as if a fairy voice spoke
from your leaves, I understand you.
You know it: there is a holier calling
than all of these, the one you have.

Here you stand, my dear little flowers,
and your mother, the sun, comes seeking you,
looks more warmly into my prison,
and at her smile this heart too is happier.

Look in, look in, the star of my life!
From you comes everything good, everything fair,
and before you sin, blindness, destruction
step in dismay into mournful night.

Look in, look in, the star of my soul,
where you are not, neither is God there;
only do not kiss from my flowers
the dew that hangs upon them!

This drop we will share, my flowers,
and the ray we will share too;
it is everything, but the dearest thing as well,
that we still have from life.

This little drop brings word that the flower does not
wither orphaned: dew gives it life;
this little drop brings word that our anguish
will yet find likewise its own dew.

And the ray declares God great,
though a cloud should cover our fate;
and if it is night, just because it is night,
every heart waits surely for the dawn.

If I were a star beside God’s throne,
I would still descend to this dust-earth;
here would happiness open to me in you,
such as heaven gives me nowhere else.

If I were a flower of Eden’s garden,
and your bleak dwelling were a wasteland,
either the flood of Eden’s fragrance would come with me,
or I would wither with you, like a grave-flower.

The whim of my fate set me in your circle,
and my own will, behold, carries me into exile;
he who for your having would give up Eden,
for your peace gives up even you.

Why did you entrust your secret to me, oh woman,
why did you confess to me that you love?
You hold me to be very strong,
to cast such a burden on my shoulders.
I have become an Atlas; your secret is the world,
mine only its weight, not its enjoyment;
but it is the holy world of your peace —
do not fear, I will not break it; I carry it on.

I would wish that the whole world
might share my fervent love,
that the flower might breathe it forth,
the swift winds herald it;
the sunbeam and the stars,
all things... let only me be mute,
for when I try to speak,
my heart contracts, my voice trembles.

Oh, if this kiss’s burning breath
could last a hundred years,
which it keeps hidden, till it drained
every enchantment, every spell,

if the embrace of your arms
were heaven, my beloved:
I would tremble that it ends with you
the sooner, though it be endless.

A few fleeting minutes are all I own,
as fleeting as they are blessed—
for in these minutes shines the bliss
of centuries, a whole heaven.

We love each other, my beloved,
we love each other endlessly,
and yet only a mournful sigh,
instead of a playful song and roses,
sobs along above our path,
like fate’s mocking laughter.

My heart, like a spoiled
child, is never content;
it longs for more, for more—
the torment of half-having kills,
the present flees, the future racks me
and drives a cloud above me.

And you, like a timid, flitting bee—
a shadow, a nothing draws near,
and at once you start away—,
you close your opening breast
to the ray that gave you life,
because of one cool breeze.—

When this rich season is lost,
we shall smile at ourselves,
that we were so foolish;
but in that smile a tear will shine.
And the world will laugh,
for which we sacrificed it.

I believed I was your ray, and you the rose
that takes its scent and color only from it;
I loved you, and my love’s happiness
was that without me you would wither early.

I believed that I was the sea’s tide,
and you were the moon, the gentle-rayed moon
that throws a mantle of light on the sea’s tide,
and when it clouds over, with it all dies out.

I was the sailor, you the gentle light of a star;
I trusted you, calm, with all my treasure
that my heart’s shipwreck had still spared,
suffered on the crag of icy breasts.

And I did not murmur. My heart’s whole love,
which a moment before embraced worlds,
attaching itself now, little girl, to you,
found in your breast a new and better world.

There, I thought, my heart will rest,
like the sailor when he comes to the long-awaited shore,
and like a breeze your soul will hover round me,
which is better, nobler than every earthly woman.

So I believed; and you are better, perhaps, than many earthly women,
but still a woman. You love as is the custom,
you smile when perhaps you felt no joy,
you weep, and your tear digs no furrow of grief.

Ah, you are a rose; you seek only light, only light,
any light at all, and you live without me too;
you are the moon, and if you send to the wild sea-tide
mourning or a smile, you only change the game.

You are a star, a bright star, burning far off,
but woe to him whom it leads;
its cold ray is a faithless escort
when a storm rises over the ship.

But rose, moon, star, girl are not at fault;
only he is at fault who looks for more in them;
God be with you, girl! the poet is only mad
who seeks a mate for himself on this earth. —

If you knew you could not love,
why did your mouth lie that it felt?
You would have been a star to me,
a cold point of light in the night,
and our heart looks on it at peace,
knowing well that it cannot reach it.

Oh but, woman, you led me on,
and became the wandering flame of my life.
In the storm you left me, laughing.
It collapsed, forsaken,
my road is lost; too late I feel:
ruin behind me, ruin ahead.

You say I may yet love another,
I who squandered all on you, —
you say a new faith, a new hope awaits, —
that the haunting of your memory,
and the holy spell of poetry,
you say, will give my heart its balm.
Oh, if such an eye can lie too,
if an angel-face can hide a hell,
and with such feeling I find mockery,
then a curse on all poetry!

You are wicked, oh woman, I see it plain,
you who were my ideal!
I believed your soul came down from heaven,
and your desire, your love, crawls in the dust.
You do not understand me — you who were
the holiest altar in my heart,
and I love you even now,
though I shun you, though I hate you. —
As the butterfly, by a magic charm,
is drawn by the flame until it dies in it,
your eye’s ray draws and kills,
when it lays bare its hell, its heaven.

You have conquered us, then, great world,
with your wild noise, your merchant’s reckoning
you frightened off our dream-images,
and still you wait for our startled hearts
to thank you for having robbed them.

Oh, if our bliss was a dream as well,
why, why did you not leave it to us?
Man was great within it, and the world,
every little flower better, more vivid,
and so, real or dream, it made no difference.

And what did you offer in place of our glorious dream?
Ah, your frozen breath, you world!
And if anything still gives delight,
it is only the holy memory of the past,
and in it the heart’s torn-out love.

Let us part, then! Oh woman, see, this heart
will not let me ask a blessing on your road.
So selfish, see, is love,
that if you cannot be happy with me,
it does me good to know you are unhappy.

For you are unhappy only so long
as I stand in your heart in full light.
While I love you, I suffer too,
and rather than lose you,
let a wild curse beat me to my grave.

It will be dear to me, as a token
that our love did not dwindle off stunted,
unnoticed, like a pale moon,
but like a flower, a tree that falls
in the storm, in its richest splendor.

If fate has ordained that we
shall never be each other’s anyway,
nothing remains but the last farewell,
and then to forget everything, everything.

Why gaze at the bliss we possessed,
its door now locked forever?
For the fallen angel too, that he did not forget
was part of the lot of his damnation.

See, the world’s calendar is so short;
three days is the word of eternal faithfulness,
and a man’s fall lasts only while it is news,
good at most for a heartless jest.

Oh, you too will learn from the world;
good for the one who can forget;
small is the joy he loses,
and how much smaller still are its tears.

I too will learn to forget you,
and learn it through my whole life,
till beneath an unmourned, empty grave
I shall perhaps learn what I must forget.

I believed you were happy without me,
and that the pain of our parting fell to me alone;
I believed that in a loving husband’s arms
your breast had found rest, like a sailor in port.

I see you again. On the roses of your face
I now find withering instead of the old cheer;
instead of happiness, the once-merry, now-languid eyes
shine in tears.

You vied with the song of the skylarks,
and your voice now weeps, like the orphaned autumn wind,
on the withering flowers of your breast that
opened so richly, as you loved.

Youth has not yet left you,
oh woman, tell me, what is it that withers you so early;
or was it not youth, but love,
that conjured the spring upon you then?

Ah, I do not so seek the roses
of your face, but the mourning that sits upon it;
the roses bloom for another, but the mourning
stands there for me, belongs to me alone.

Your breast trembles, your face burns, dear woman;
duty and nature struggle in your heart;
whichever wins, you sink down,
the mute lips’ motion whispers it to me.
Do not look at me, oh turn away, my sweet,
if it is again only a game you play with me,
for if I can look into your fair eyes,
I shall go mad, if those lie too.
Who would have believed that when this word,
which I once awaited so pining,
sounds softly down from your fair lips,
it could hide hell within itself.
So terrible is God even in blessing,
or why does he not give me strength to bear it?
My sorrow did not kill me, only to torment me, and delight
kills me with torment, that I may not reach its joy.
Now it lays my treasure open before me,
when I have already cast it off forever;
now it gives my beloved into my arms,
when a deep grave yawns between me and her.
I had already lulled my passions to sleep,
I was calm; why did you come, like a seraph, now,
to shake awake the dreams of the long-extinguished?
For a new renunciation deals me death again.
Are you a fairy, that you have charmed back
one sweet moment from time gone by,
or was it all a dream, the suffering
that parted me from my beloved’s heart?
Your kiss has roused it now, and my dreams’
heavy shapes have all flowed apart.
The distance is gone — gone the heavy days;
in my arms, oh, you alone remain?
Who says still that I should cast you back
into the grave that a man opened between us,
you whom the great heaven gave to me,
as the holy pledge of its infinite grace?
Why? for your sake, perhaps, you tyrant world?
You who with an icy breast write rules for the heart,
mow hay from the flowers of our soul,
but cannot make good a single smile.
No, no — even if in place of the world
a god should rise in rebellion against me,
I would call hell and sin to my alliance,
but of you, oh woman, I would still not let go.

The struggle on your face has stilled at last,
and like the sky after a storm, has kindled;
your breast alone heaves, as the sea heaves
when the wind has wearied of its fury.
Faint, you sink upon my longing arms,
as ivy onto the oak’s strong trunk;
pleading you whisper: I have grown too weak to stand,
oh, hold me up, or I shall fall with you.
Your dreaming eyes you close halfway,
and from your lips, half-parted to speak,
the sound dies out, as if afraid; the word
startles awake your soul’s poetic dream,
and filters into a fevered breath,
whose sweetness my face can feel.
So nature has conquered you;
you have ceased, woman, to live in yourself,
your heart beats with a single beat, a single hope,
only within my heart. — —
Beyond my breast there is no life for you.
If fate should tear you from me now,
I would carry off your soul as well,
and you would remain a corpse. — —
The universe grows dark around us,
there is no life beyond us on this earth,
the petty barriers of decorum
and vain social rules fall away,
there is no desire in our hearts, no thought
that would fly beyond this sweet moment.
And like the soul that rises from the body,
united with the spirit of God,
is blessed, for only now has it become whole,
no longer torn apart by narrow bounds
between which it wept so long:
so between our souls the barrier too has fallen,
and we are blessed that, united thus,
we have drawn nearer to our God;
one small step more, and we shall flow together
with the soul of the world. —
Why does God not make us nothing now?
We have tasted a moment of his Eden,
which fell to earth like a star.
Why does God not make us nothing now?
After such happiness, a greater one
he has not power enough to give.
Ah, perhaps that we may wake again,
and the enchantment perish around us,
while our world, with its poetless face,
stares down at us once more! —

(To Borka)

There is wisdom, woman, in love,
though the mind may call it madness;
to carry us to harbor on the river of our life
the love of our heart alone is able.

The mind deliberates, doubts, seeking
with pale care a surer road,
which to God’s ordaining word
remains forever a deep secret:

while the heart, yielding its little boat
to playful spirits,
flung this way and that by the swift waves,
darts safe across between the whirlpools.

The mind fixes a distant shore as its goal,
and the present flows away in longing care;
the heart’s goal lies within itself,
and that goal is happy love.

Our bond was not knit by prudence,
nor by the world’s law of decorum;
within itself, like a strong divinity,
love alone created it.

We did not look whether good or ill
would be born of the present we enjoyed;
why should we look into the doubtful future
while the flower of the present is ours?

With the future comes the end, in any case,
of all things, later or sooner;
no matter — whether that end be regret, or death,
whether bliss thrills through it or the worm of sorrow gnaws.

And shall the flower not open, then,
shall the sun not shine, then,
and shall we rather renounce our desires
so that desires may not forsake us?

Ruin too is the substance of love,
and you too, woman, it will surely bury.
Now think it over: follow your heart or your mind,
so that later you may not reproach me!

Whoever wishes to love me,
let them love wildly, savagely,
let them despise every barrier
that God or man sets before them.

Whoever wishes to love me,
let angel and devil be with them,
let fame and comfort be before them
nothing, nothing, only love.

And though beaten by fate across the world,
let them bless love and be happy! —
Even at that price they have not bought too dear
the thing that holds the bliss of heaven!

It is not then that I make my sweetest verse,
when the agitated lyre is in my hand,
nor do I taste the loveliest flowers
of poetic fancy in surging songs.
The song is only longing, a presentiment, that draws and draws
toward you, toward you, enchanted, fairy homeland.
It is a little brook that hurries down, sobbing,
though here and there it snatches off a flower
and the sky’s deceiving mirror lends it light.
Another happiness, another homeland is what it waits for,
till, finding the sea’s tides,
it finds rest and forgets its songs.
Ah, I too have found rest upon your breast, my lady.
My song has fallen silent. — What should it sing of now?
All that it only sensed now takes on substance —
what words could not hold, I hold in my beloved,
and pressing my hot brow against her breast,
I listen to her sweetest tales.

2. ROMANCE AND BALLAD

Among the flower beds
the little girl stands,
like an opening bud
in the rays of dawn.

And as she sings with delight,
beneath her snow-white fingers —
flower after flower
falls a sacrifice.

And the rose speaks: do not harm me,
enjoy me, here I bloom in splendor;
you will cast me off when I wither
in the warmth of your breast.

But the girl only smiles,
reaches eagerly for it,
the rose breaks off,
and its dewy tear falls.

The years rush on; the rose-stock
blossoms again,
and again the girl stands there,
but pale and suffering.

Her stolen rose, perhaps,
withers there on her cheeks,
the dew glistens there
on her reddened eyelids.

"Ah, rose, only bloom;
I will not despoil you,
to kiss my breast
and then be cast away.

How your wound must have hurt
I feel only now —
and for me, alas, no new spring
will bloom as it does for you!"

Among the rich foliage of the grove
the shepherd muses,
his little flock grazes there,
but his longing is far away.
And while a merry little bell
chimes beside him,
many a playful daydream
dallies around him.
And lo, he seizes his flute,
its voice rings out,
that he may pour his soul
into his longing song.
And as if his dreams
were becoming flesh,
all is so transfigured
in his imagination:
the clear high sky
and its hot ray,
among the flowering boughs
the droning of bees,
the chattering brook
and the mischievous breeze
that stealthily embraces
the little rose.
And that the picture, at last,
might lack nothing,
from the thick foliage
a girl steps before him,
dark hair, a lily face,
an undulating breast,
exactly such as he
had just been singing of.
"My little lamb is lost,"
says the small girl, —
"woe to the one who gains
by others’ loss;
if you see it, good boy,
oh, give it back to me,
and heaven will send a blessing on you
as my reward instead."
"Here it is, dear girl,
your strayed little sheep;
you said: heaven will send
a blessing on you for this,"
says the shepherd, — "and lo,
heaven is in your eyes,
oh girl, surely you will
still keep your word.
Woe to the one who gains
by another’s loss;
my heart stays with you,
however you drive it off —
give your heart for it,
then," and embracing
the girl, only now he feels
that he did not dream it.

Up front goes the long gypsy wagon,
and as the road jolts, it jerks them about.
Now even the merriest one plays harder,
for already he sees the village’s end.

With shouting, amid the cracking of whips,
the wedding train follows, the length of the village;
prouder still is the beribboned horse
that the fair bride is on the wagon.

At the village’s end, by a little house window,
with weeping eyes the girl looks out,
and like a fading flower under snow,
her face is covered by a white kerchief.

Long the poor thing gazes at the bridegroom,
gazes after her own happy betrothed —
ah, that sweet embrace just now,
that kiss, if only she had not seen it.

But she saw it; and lo, the dun horse in the traces
turns straight toward her gateway,
stops there, whinnies to find it shut,
all in vain — the whip cracks,

the wedding party vanishes in a cloud of dust,
the girl collapses, sobbing:
"Ah, even the dun horse has not forgotten,
and its master’s arm already holds another."

The rose-cheeked girl’s
point of view, her logic,
aged sage, puts you to shame,
and while the mildew of your books
brings only confusion to our heads,
this teaches us to live.

Pál to the right, Lenke to the left,
this one this way, that one that,
they looked without a word,
until, taking heart,
Pál on bended knee
begs a kiss; the girl blushes.

One kiss is not so very much,
and if it leaves a mark for two moments,
that is not the end of the world.
Why does the girl fear it, then —
her face blooms from it
as a flower from the sun.

Nor does the girl fear it;
she is only so vexed at this:
why beg, when one could simply take!
Or, if she no longer blushes
to kneel at the dust of her feet,
why beg for so little!

Who is it that, through the silent night,
keeps watch at a barren grave?
Who is it that, like a genius of mourning,
covers it with tears?

And while the freezing autumn wind
sweeps past, indifferent,
the bare grave with flowers, ah,
who is it that adorns?

Oh woman, perhaps this mound
covers your faithful beloved,
and for his memory
the tears of your eyes are falling?

Or have you lost your child,
the child that rests here,
and the mother carries to it
her pearls as playthings?

Yes, wanderer, here lie
my faithful husband, my child,
but oh, do not believe that at their death
I weep like a coward.

They fell in battle,
beneath a consecrated banner;
such a death gives them the laurel,
and gives me peace.

But I weep, for they are lost
to my homeland and to me,
without the homeland over their grave
being free.

On a sickbed a young woman lies faint,
like a falling rose,
above her, like a withered branch,
the husband stands rigid. —

In her arms a little girl plays,
and the woman brightens now and then,
a ray trembles on her lips
out of past happinesses.

As when the sun has already set,
and a stray ray
still wanders, smiling,
among the tears of the evening dew.

Once more she feels that she has not lived
in vain on this earth,
that her soul lives on in her child,
and is made young again.

A holy peace descends into her soul,
she begins to speak softly.
In her voice a withered spring’s
last song can be heard:

"Above my grave, oh my beloved,
let no proud stone stand,
let the quiet graveyard
bring no rose for adornment.

Let the church not chant
its holy prayer over the sods of my grave;
if I have deserved it, then heaven
will give some other reward."

A brown grave-board, a mute grave,
and its country so barren,
in heaven and on earth, written
in yellow hue, is death.

At the bottom of the grave a young woman
slumbers with fair dreams,
for her prayer was heard
and the heavens fulfilled it.

On her grave there are no statues,
there is no proud mound of stone,
her husband stands there, and in his breast
the pain has turned to stone.

There is no rose above her,
ah, but her daughter kneels there,
you would think the dead woman had become an angel
to keep watch over the grave...

And during this solemnity
heaven too is present there,
in the girl’s breast, like a branch,
virgin love lies hidden.

And the dead woman smiles up there,
over her ashes below a blessing hovers,
for in her stead her daughter already
makes him happy — for she loves.

In a little room a pale lamp burns,
on a sickbed a dying child lies at rest,
around it kneel its brothers and sisters,
beside it the mother sits in silence.

Only by stealth do her tears roll down,
while she looks, smiling, on the sick one,
and wipes its sweating face —
that holy comforter, the mother’s hand.

"Shall I tell you, say, my dear child,
a lovely tale of a golden-haired fairy,
or of the old days’ heroic warriors
and their lives full of adventure?

Shall I tell of that lovely land
where there are always flowers, birdsong,
or shall I recount all the beautiful, good things
that I shall someday buy you, child of my heart?"

"Tell me no tale of fairy or of warrior,
oh my good mother," the sick one says softly,
"do not speak of the land that is so enchanting,
and I find joy no longer even in play.

Only make me a fair garment,
mother — my brothers and sisters, do you not see
what holy figure stands there, and how sweetly
it calls me to the fair land, to go with it?

Ah, it is he, it is the Son of God,
whom you have so often shown me in our Bible,
how he calls the playing children
and whom you so often bade me follow.

Do you not hear that he promises, for playthings,
swaying grass, sunbeam, and dew,
breeze and birdsong, which knows such enchanting
tales as my good mother used to know.

He promises that when my little brothers and sisters
come into the open, I may play with them,
and if you look to heaven with faith, my good mother,
I shall see your face, too, smiling.

Now God be with you, I am going, I am going."
And it falls asleep — the pale lamp flickers,
its little brothers and sisters still kneel there,
the mother sits, but her tears are spent.

In a foreign land, beyond the sea,
the poet lives, orphaned, exiled,
and the merchant folk do not understand his song,
his homeland-grief in his weeping eyes.

Yet he faithfully feeds his sorrow,
and the grateful sorrow holds him up again,
for if it tore loose from his breast,
the night of the grave would seize the poet too.

So he lives long, like the moaning
of a pain cried out across the wasteland,
which slowly flows away into nothingness,
finding no heart in which to live again.

A grave settles over the son of songs,
the oppressive fetter of a foreign soil;
ah, but this too he shakes off victorious,
the poet’s holy love of homeland.

And from his dust a sunflower springs,
which turns its face unceasingly to the east,
as if to say that there is the holy land
to which his blessings and his longings hasten.

And from his heart there comes a songbird,
which travels to visit his homeland,
there it sings out its grief, its bitterness,
and the holy presentiment that every heart feeds.

And from his soul a dark cloud forms,
which, thundering, settles on our peaks,
a holy wrath that shakes us from our dreams,
and at which the usurping sin takes fright.

"Go, go, warrior, if your holy homeland calls,
go, go, warrior, my God be with you;
if you conquer, then my love is your reward,
if you fall, your Vilma will follow too."

So says the girl; the hero struggles and bleeds,
though the Turkish army’s fury roars,
Csatár hears nothing but these few words
with which his beloved bade him farewell. —

Beaten, dwindled, they stand,
the warriors fighting for the homeland;
sadly Csatár stands among them, in his eyes
how blessed are the fallen.

They do not see the homeland’s burial,
the hope of victory is with them,
and he too asks no mercy, asks only death —
ah, but the victor will not grant it.

He knows well that the warrior’s comrade
is death; he would welcome it gladly
for a holy cause, while life in bondage
becomes the heaviest punishment.

So he leaves him to live, into a filthy yoke
he bends the neck not yet bowed.
And in mockery, into the hands of the conquered,
in the ranks of slaves, he gives him a weapon.

A winter night: chasing the snow-cloud
the wind gallops with the pale moonbeam;
a winter night: blazing in a flood of light,
like a noisy spectre the proud castle stands.

And while a wanton song rings from within,
and the wild music of drunken joys,
at its gate, as a guard, Csatár stands,
and grim thoughts wheel within his brain.

Merry is the castle: inside, a feast
of victory, and the brave Turkish chief’s wedding;
sad is Csatár, for two dead lie within him:
Vilma’s image and his fallen homeland.

With burning torches comes to pay homage
the pasha’s many servant-folk;
there they make music, while Csatár, turned to stone,
only gazes, gazes at the castle balcony.

There stands the chief, and laced upon his arm
stands beside him his smiling bride;
ah, what a sight opens in Csatár’s eye —
the lady is none other than his dear Vilma.

She, whom as the homeland’s truest daughter
the freedom’s fairest warrior
had thought worthy of his embrace,
had thought worthy of his noble heart,

holds her wedding at the homeland’s requiem,
bends to the kiss of its enemy,
and will bear a child in a captive land
for the oppressor of the homeland.

Oh woman! is this then your poet’s world,
which man divines within your breast?
Oh, are these then the virtues of woman’s love,
glittering like a mirage?

I do not know whether brave Csatár
thought all this, or thought nothing at all;
I do not know whether he even heard the music,
or only the tempest raging in his soul.

He raised the weapon with arms of iron,
twice he took the fair Vilma in his aim,
and as if he did not find her worthy
of death, again he only lowered it.

Or her farewell speech came to his mind:
"if you fall, your Vilma goes with you too."
And he did not wish, with the false faithbreaker,
even rest beyond the gulf of the grave.

"Live forever, girl, lest you should follow me,
and disturb my reconciled soul below.
Csatár needs," he says, "revenge and death."
A shot now, and the pasha sinks down.

Coldly Csatár laughs at the servant-host
rushing upon him with malicious glee,
for now there stands before him, like a good friend,
what he had long pined and begged for — his death.

And the fair Vilma, the twice-made widow,
what does she do, when she has wiped her tears?
She will look for a new admirer, who will be
the victor once her mourning has run its course.

"Stop, stop, my friends,
here I am home," — said Bogdány the warrior.
And the mounted band that followed him
looks on, startled, in amazement.

Ravaged villages stand around them,
a razed field and devastation,
while in the middle, the once-strong castle
is now a smoldering brown heap of stone.

"Here I am home," — Bogdány said again.
"My proud castle I left here;
all that my eye took in was mine,
and all I had flourished fair.

I was rich, but had I been
a hundred times richer, the heap of my treasure
all dwindles beside a single flower of mine,
and that enchanting flower was my Berta.

Lovely she was, like the dream of spring,
good, like the blessing sunbeam,
happiness itself envied her —
and now the grave of all this stands here.

I am become a beggar, worse than a beggar,
pity gives no easing,
go your ways, may my God bless you,
why should you share my savage fate.

For you a better fortune may yet turn;
me the war-steed will carry no more,
the exile has no cup of joy,
to friendship I am dead.

But if need be, for a hundred years
my breast will wait at peace in this place,
it will not, for it does not wish to die,
until it finds its dreadful blood-revenge."

Two castles stood proudly face to face,
as if each watched the other’s years;
two castle-lords stood face to face,
each longing to disgrace his foe.

Bogdány and Ernő were the two wrathful bans,
a confederate host marks each of them,
and the cause to which the one is sworn
finds an enemy in the other.

And yet — fate, who understands your whims? —
these two hearts met in one:
to brave Kocsárd’s fairy daughter
both had sacrificed their love.

What should we wonder, if even a poison-weed
adores the sun like a flower? —
the sun chose the flower:
it was Bogdány the ban, and he was heard.

Faction-fury bled our homeland then too,
against Aba stood Péter,
and the German emperor, with his hired host,
went ravaging across the land.

What cared he for the people’s wailing,
he who fought for the gleaming throne?
What cared his followers for that,
who awaited rich reward and plunder there?

Among them stood Ernő too with his host,
for Bogdány had stayed true to Aba;
both felt that here was the moment
that would give one of them the final victory.

"My Berta, my soul, may my God bless you,
the steed rages, the weapon clatters,
restless already is my battle-thirsting host,
and hear how the drawbridge thunders.

For a man, work comes first; the homeland
calls, and my reward I will take from you later;
I do not say farewell, my heart I have left here,"
— says Bogdány — "and yours comes with me."

He went; with her veil from the tower
Berta waved a last farewell,
then, as warmly as she embraced Bogdány,
she embraced her grief to her breast.

Night came; still Berta lingered there
on the balconied summit of the tower,
gazed into the star-sea of the night,
sent a sigh after the warrior.

But ah, lo, in the night’s accustomed hush
what noise is that which now awakes,
and from its otherwise so dark womb
what rises — what sea of flame is this?

The castle burns; with terrible howling
the war-folk swarm up the wall;
Ernő the ban is the besiegers’ leader,
flame on his face, iron in his hand.

The whole castle tangles in wild confusion,
each now wakes from his sleep,
the women run weeping and wailing,
no one trusts to a defense.

There is no force to hold back Ernő the ban,
the eagle has left his nest empty,
and dreams perhaps of gleaming victory,
while his own nest is treacherously cast down.

Only the tower is still unconquered;
"This way, this way, with me, warriors!
Here is the treasure," — says Ernő — "for which I long,
in which I live, for which I would die."

And the door creaks, at last it yields,
the sinner rushes up with longing arm,
already he clasps Berta — a single shriek —
and lo, Berta plunges into the depths.

Ernő stiffens, quietly he walks down,
with his folk he withdraws in silence;
the castle stands like a plundered temple,
empty, lightless, without a sound.

In one of the den-holes of the castle-ruin
there sits Bogdány like a graveyard spectre,
his face is pale, a hide-cloak hangs from him,
gray hair flutters on his aged head.

His broken body is now a bare grave,
which the spirit comes only to visit;
he has no desire, no feeling, nothing else
than this: trusting in the future — he waits.

"No, no, you do not conquer my life, death,
how many times do you begin the battle anew?
All in vain, I want to live yet,
my breast has not attained its revenge. —

Away with you, I do not wish to die!"
says Bogdány, and his voice trembles,
while, slowly rising on his crutch,
he quivers like the poplar’s foliage.

And lo, a noise arises without; in wild flight
comes Ernő and falls at Bogdány’s feet:
"Whoever you are, hide me, hide me, else
the people will murder me with great cruelty.

Péter has lost the throne; I was
to the very end his most faithful counselor." —
Bogdány stiffens, and tottering whispers:
"Look — do you not know my features?"

"Ah, Bogdány! at the door my pursuers,
so I am lost." — "No, no, you are not lost,"
says Bogdány, and stepping into the doorway
his face, his arm, live in new strength.

The victorious folk know their sick adherent,
and suspicion wakes in no one;
with reverence they look on his broken body,
and withdraw, quiet and at peace.

"You are saved, Ernő! now you may go! already
the Magyar protects his guest,
and besides, where God has already judged,
there let the arm of man beware.

Praise then and blessing on His holy name,
and now let it come, let death come,
I have no more reason to live, my breast
no longer fears anything, and awaits nothing.

My aim is fulfilled, which till now held me up."
With that he sinks upon Ernő’s arm;
the other shudders, seeing that with his last word
his enemy’s soul flies away.

And he became the hermit of the den-hole,
until heaven took pity on him too,
and the two foes and the object of their love
had long since made their peace in the grave.

Far, far away, on a roaring sea-shore,
old Kelemen Mikes stands alone,
his rusty sword, with which he fought the holy war,
now a crutch in his aged grip.

He has outlived his comrades, one and all,
only to bury them in a foreign land,
he has outlived everything, homeland and glory,
only his hope he could not forget.

He gazes longingly into the blue distance:
the cloud that drifted over his fair homeland,
does it bring him no faithful greeting,
does it not cheer him with news of victory?

Or only again, like death’s messenger,
does it roar past, dark and indifferent above him,
as if to say that with its holy cause
the homeland has forgotten its warrior too.

He gazes long, sunk in sorrow,
till a tear rolls from his eye onto his iron,
and the blood-accustomed friend gives a ring,
as if it cried out in its pain.

"Ah, father! your world must be going ill,
if you weep while iron is in your hand;
speak, only speak, what grieves you, let me defend you!"
says a youth, jaunty, overbold.

"Ah, you are a Magyar, and yet you ask my sorrow —
is there not grief enough in your own homeland?
Is there not there a people’s trampled freedom,
for which you might fight in a consecrated battle?

Leave my sorrow, tell me rather this:
does the heroic nation still flourish,
has the day of redemption come at last,
or does it only again, and again, suffer?

For though it drove me from its breast
and denied its grace to its son,
it could not forbid me to weep with it,
it could not take my share in its trouble." —

"Ah, father! it would be better for you to go to the grave
than to heed my disaster-laden words:
new torment comes in place of the old,
new disgrace endlessly upon the Magyar.

Grave and prison await every better heart,
the Magyar is become a wanderer in his homeland,
a rabble-people brings law to the land
that became ours in a hundred-year battle.

And if it cannot act, if only at least
I might still see the Magyar grieving,
might see that wrath rages in his soul,
and longing still burns toward a fairer future.

Oh but no, he is so mute, so calm,
as if he were born to the yoke;
let him endure, then — I have left the degenerate
to build my nest in a foreign land."

"Oh take care, take care, youth, of your words!
Do not lightly curse your homeland,"
says the warrior, and now it is a tear of joy
that streams brightly from his eye.

"You say new torment comes still unbroken,
new mockery every day upon the Magyar;
of this I have no fear — his young soul
will bear what fate has measured out to him.

What the dust’s cowardly worm perishes from,
the blow gives the war-steed new strength;
iron cage and brute force
do not make the lion into a lamb.

This I would fear: if a fawning grace-smile,
its lulling charm, should fall upon him,
seductive song, the soft chains of roses
that draw sleep over the heroic lion.

You say the nation does not lament,
does not weep in the manner of wronged women,
it endures in silence. — Thank God for it,
I may still be proud, then, of my homeland.

For do not believe this calm is a deadening.
Smooth is the sea when a storm arises;
calm is the heart in which self-worth
and strength enough for a great future still live.

And now back, child, to your sick mother;
was she dear only while you sucked nourishment,
fairy-dreams, from her breast?
Now you must, now, pay your debt.

Back, back, your arms are strong,
young life pulses in your veins,
and your homeland may yet have need
of every one of its children in the future.

The homeland is a lightning-struck, despoiled tree,
sparsely the green boughs stand upon it,
in its thousand-year stormy life
all its strongest have fallen away.

And would even the few abandon their trunk,
torn loose with its best strength?
Back, back — spring must come again,
and every bough must wait for it upon the trunk.

To the faithless one life comes no more,
withered, the wind will drive it far away;
what hangs upon the trunk still hangs on hope,
and let it not be ashamed of its bereavement."

In a far country, in quiet villages,
they knew the good old bard;
there was no girl, there was no youth
who did not know a song or two from him.
He came now and again, like a wandering bird,
and vanished — where, no one knew.
But his song the attentive echo
went on, long, long re-echoing. —
It was a festival wherever he entered;
merry children gathered round him,
further back youths and girls, absorbed,
listened to him untiringly.
Every hut stood open before him,
and proud was the one in which he rested;
words from the heart and a goblet of good wine
cheered the bard’s breast.
No one dared offer him money,
they knew well it would pain him;
song was the holy flower of his heart,
and spring does not bloom for money.
So he went, so he sang, the old one, long;
his locks were gray, his face was sorrowful,
but his song, enchantingly musing,
was young, moving, and loud.
Slowly it kindled, like a lamp’s flame,
fearful, like an eagle trying its wings,
and ever wider it spread, like a wildfire,
broke higher, like an eagle flying to the sun.
And the lute’s song grew too narrow for its heat,
it streamed out among the listeners,
every face kindled, a deep silence fell,
as if God were thundering above the clouds.
He sang of magnificent days,
splendid as a fairy tale,
whoever heard him saw blood flow,
and the youth’s breast went higher.
He sang of an oppressed homeland,
sadder than a beggar at the roadside,
whoever heard him thought he heard chains rattle,
and tears sat in the girl’s eyes.
The lute fell silent, he collapsed,
his face grew mournful, like a grave-mound
on which, in the night’s eerie hour,
there was life, and now is rest again.
Only when he looks around and sees how
the young face and young flaming breast burn,
only when he looks around and finds in a girl’s eye
a tear of pity, like a pure pearl,
then there runs through his whole being,
as through a storm-rich dark cloud
a holy lightning that flashes up for moments,

The god of battles has decided,
ancient Rome has won, Carthage falls,
and from her master’s eyelids she watches
what further painful sacrifice to give.

The master signals, and she gives her treasures,
he signals, and she burns her fleet,
and while her death-torch blazes up,
the victorious foes laugh in mockery.

They demand that she raze her wall,
and the defending bastions, too, fall down,
they demand her weapons, for they are dangerous
in the hands of the desperate and the slave.

And the one on which the foe’s blood still steams,
she gladly gives up her weapon too,
believing she will find a human heart in her master
when he sees her orphaned, sees her defenseless.

But to Hasdrubal his wife Tirza comes,
a mournful foreboding dwelling in her soul:
"Leader! leader!" — she says — "give rather your life,
if you must, but your sword never.

The sword that faithfully followed you in a hundred battles,
that made you what you now are, Hasdrubal —
what will you be without it? a ball that
the wanton child tosses at its whim.

Without his weapon a man is only a cloud
that roars in vain when it has no lightning;
this may yet be your last ally,
the one who can die has no fetters.

This will guard your gray head from shame;
later, perhaps, you will seek it, and it too is gone,
or if one day the homeland should call,
will Hasdrubal carry not even a sword to its defense?"

The leader understood the woman’s words,
and wanders into a far wilderness,
in his eye a flame burns and a teardrop glistens,
at his gray locks a foreign wind sings.

But Tirza is there with him, his faithful wife,
and at his side hangs his well-tried iron,
before him his four youthful children,
behind him, in blood and flame, the homeland.

Now at ease the victor rages,
with wild feasts upon the holy graves;
only by stealth, only in secret, can it wipe
even its tears — the humiliated homeland.

And it endured and waited; long is the road
along which the patience of peoples can go,
but woe to him who thinks it endless,
woe, if it reaches the point of despair.

It seemed there was nothing more to plunder,
no sacrifice that could still cause pain,
and yet the bitterest cup
was not her loss, was not death.

But the smile on her master’s lips,
the self-conceited pride, the scornful contempt,
which not only forges a chain upon his slave,
but brands a mark upon his brow.

"Who will stand surety for me," says the victor,
"that Carthage will keep her word?"
and demands of her that her noblest
youth be handed over as hostages.

A whole city its people must abandon,
lest a Phoenix rise from its ashes,
and among the wastes far from the sea
she may build, freely, a new nest.

This was the aim at which patience
broke, and despair began;
the tear dried up, the sigh died away,
silence came, as it does when the storm draws near.

After the silence an unwonted life arose,
each youth and old man went and came and worked,
no one commanded, and no one questioned,
but one spirit hovered over them all.

Noisily the roofs of the houses fell down,
of their beams a swift ship was built,
the women wove the sails, and to twist
the rope, child and graybeard were good too.

Every man became a warrior; into a weapon
the woman forged her jewels,
coldly she cut off her lovely hair,
and a kindling flame flashed through her eye.

The graves gave up their bronze biers,
which the devout son raised,
and they became a weapon for the one who,
before, had found them worthy of sacred tears.

In place of the razed defending bastion-wall
inventive care threw up ramparts,
and the haughty foe, where it had awaited
only a defenseless herd, found a warrior camp there.

And to Hasdrubal his wife Tirza comes,
a smile on her lips, in her eyes a storm,
she does not speak, but the hero understands her
when she silently looks at the rusty sword.

Meanwhile Carthage already stands ready,
weapon in hand, wrath in her heart,
but where is the leader who can die?
Dismayed, everyone now only asks.

And lo, with his Tirza there comes Hasdrubal,
foreign dust still lies on his sandal,
the exile’s tear still trembles in his eye,
but light glimmers in his tear, in his iron.

"I have brought," he says, "my sword to my homeland,
and with my sword this hand conquers, or can die."
"I have brought," says Tirza, "all that is mine
too," and, blazing, she looks at her four sons.

The battle flowed and flowed, as if two giants
fought, and the prize of their fight were the globe of the world,
and this were a skiff upon a wild sea,
on which only one of them escapes.

The battle flowed and flowed, as when in its lair
the bold hunter attacks the lion;
there life and victory are now but one,
no one fights any longer for glory.

There is no more child, woman, youth, or old man,
only a fighter ready to conquer or to die;
thousands fall, and there is not one
begging for Rome’s mercy.

The ramparts fall one by one,
and a heaped mass of the dead stands for rampart,
every house is a fortress, whose key is blood,
and the victor within finds only corpses.

Six days the battle flows by night and day,
the city is now but a smoking ruin,
but the citadel stands, though battered,
and small, yet a heroic host still fights within.

"Little crag-peak amid the sea’s flood!
how do you hold back these furious waves?
You will fall, the wave will close above you,
and you will be a vainly forgotten sacrifice.

So many faithful words, so much civic virtue —
shall it perish forever in vain,
what if a dawn yet rises on the homeland
that has need of a heroic arm again?"

Thus spoke Hasdrubal on the rampart-top,
before him the walls fall and fall,
within, hunger murders among the little host,
without, thousands of foes stand.

So he begs mercy for those who remain,
an exiled life among the wild wastes,
and Rome, which in her heavy victory
was wearied to death, now yielded.

So the hero goes, goes, having broken his iron,
his back bowed under heavy care,
he looks back, looks again, perhaps a tear
hangs on his eyelid, so he cannot see well.

Only a few old men and children follow him;
where are they, the brave warrior-sons?
Where Tirza and her two younger children?
for the other two already rest on shields.

He looks, looks and waits, but no one comes,
behind him the castle bursts into a sea of flame,
on its top stands Tirza, holding her two sons,
she looks up, wild, and is wrapped in the flames.

The hero wanders in far wastes,
where the world loses itself in nothingness,
and everywhere he hears a curse behind him,
sees flame, and fears he will be its prey.

Before him the air rots, the water is blood,
he finds no homeland to lay his head,
so fares he who does not share the homeland’s
final ruin, and lives his world out.

Now the haughty victor may rage,
amid wild feasts upon the holy graves,
but posterity judges, decides, and raises up,
while a heart beats, and holy will be this name: "Homeland".

What does the alarm-bell roar, what is this wailing,
through the night reddened by fire?
Zákány, Zákány comes, and his fierce kuruc men!
So the news cries out across Szatmár.

At this stir the people step to their thresholds,
and from their fur coats look idly about;
they know well that harmlessly above them
roars the storm that begins to gather.

They wait only as for a spectacle, for what will come,
and laugh heartily at Zákány’s cunning tricks,
their fame sent out across the land
on the gay embroidered wings of folk song.

And if now and then Zákány burns down a hut,
or here and there steals away a girl,
even that does not turn from him
the favor he has won from the people by his many pranks.

For God too sometimes sends a thunderbolt,
and the night-guest must have light;
the girl will sooner or later sin anyway,
and it is well if she may choose with whom.

But the labanc starts up from his sleep,
and flees, flees from his beloved’s arms,
but the salt-officer and the toll-man, their cash-boxes
forgotten, watch which way the road leads.

And the good friends bid farewell, with bleeding breast,
to their old cellar,
when the rainbow-thirsty kuruc men
turn as guests toward the countryside.

In Szatmár too the uproar is already going,
only Zákány still stands outside, alone,
at the town’s edge, on the top of a hill,
and sinks deep into the noise of the night.

Beneath him his night-dark horse stamps,
the wind blows its mane this way and that,
on it the hero sits like a young war-god,
his eyes burning with lightning and a smile.

And lo, from the neighboring house comes running,
toward him, a little girl in her nightdress,
her garment flutters, her golden hair floats,
and from terror her face is pale.

Trustingly she catches at the bridle
and pleads with the youth thus:
"Knight, knight! we are all lost,
unless you defend us still.

I am a frail woman, my father aged, old,
and a tax-collector, and the kuruc men are here;
hurry, hurry, show that my heart
did not trust in vain to your noble soul."

"And why do you believe that here no danger threatens you
alone with me in the silent night?
Who told you that I am not, perhaps,
the worst of all the robbers?"

says Zákány, surprised, and the girl
looks up, smiling, into his flaming eyes,
"Of all this," she says, "your face assures me,
the sealed letter of your noble soul."

As on the crag’s edge the wave breaks
and wave after wave changes its course,
so the kuruc bands broke
at the old tax-collector’s gate.

There stood Zákány, his hand on his sword,
and when his men came marauding
they read the command in his brows
and, cowed, gave the place a wide berth.

From a far corner Magócs watched this,
the fair-haired girl, and clasping her little hands
she says: "My God! whom even this wild folk fears —
how should he not conquer a maiden’s heart."

The morning grays already, the kuruc has vanished,
Zákány too would go, and yet only waits.
He, the dreadful one, the kuruc leader,
now finds no words for the farewell.

He who reaps there where another sowed,
who demands life and plunder with the sword,
now pines for a single kiss from Magócs,
and fears to ask the frail girl for a kiss.

But the forest’s witchery draws the frail one,
and she leans toward him unbidden;
as the ivy to the oak, so the hero’s
desire was well understood by fair Magócs too.

And blushing she offered her brow
to his ardent kiss, then she ran away,
but long she peeped after him still,
when Zákány was already galloping far off.

Off he galloped, into the wastes,
all his heroic deeds rose up before him,
to his mind came the pleasure he had won
here and there by force.

But no memory was so sweet
as the kiss he had just received,
and in no heroic deed was he so proud
as that he had now been able to renounce.

In a modest room a small fire warms,
beside it fair Magócs sits and spins,
at her feet a brown young warrior
lays his brow upon the girl’s knee.

Who would think him the kuruc leader?
The terrible steel has vanished from his side,
in place of armor a silken jerkin on his breast,
on his lips, instead of command, the voice of a song rises.

"Shall I tell you, girl, a tale of Zákány,
whom the child fears and the old man trembles at?"
"Away with it, away! gentle and smiling
is my paladin, whom I love. —"

"Oh let me paint the monster, let me,
and tell me, if your beloved were he, girl,
could you forgive his deeds,
or would you curse him — which perhaps were better?

Let me tell how a woe is the music,
a fire the torch, of the nightly revel
where he holds it. With him God visits;
after him the king collects no taxes.

By his horse’s hoofs the grass is burnt up,
to his word a curse, a blasphemy, answers. —"
"Say no more, even in your gentle arm
the breast shudders at these images."

"And yet, and yet, you see, girl, I am
this monster at whom you shuddered.
Take, then, take back from me your heart,
which you gave to your modest paladin."

"No, no, the one who deserved this heart,
from him I take it back no more.
In him I know only the great-souled warrior,
the loving youth."

"Dear little girl, my God be with you,
the happy days have set,
with me goes a curse, damnation follows me,
I am a homeless, hunted beast.

Dear little girl, my God be with you,
let the kuruc leader perish alone,
do not bind your precious being to his fate,
and forget Zákány, who kneeling begs you."

"Knight, knight, Zákány I do not know,
in his glory I never shared,
what reckoning he has with the world
I do not know at all, and it is no concern of mine.

But the one who shared joy with me,
his ill fortune too is half mine;
let him see that the one whom he thought worthy
of his heart was also worthy of it."

"Oh leave me, leave me, do you hear how
the approaching pursuing host already howls?"
"Lift me onto your horse, then, and let us go, warrior,
do not think I tremble within your heroic arm."

And with its double burden the steed races off,
behind it the rising dust throws sparks,
the wandering cloud is left behind it,
only the labanc host is ever on its track.

The steed races, before it dwindles and dwindles
the road, everything slips past beside it,
tree and bush, nothing goes with it now
but the waste and the host of the pursuers.

The steed races, races, the weapon cracks.
"Magócs! Magócs! why did you shudder so?"
"Onward only, onward, my beloved,
I am not yet used to the weapon’s voice."

"Magócs! Magócs! you are wounded,
I feel the warmth of your flowing blood."
"A thorn pricked me, why grieve at that,
onward only, onward, my beloved."