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(from "To: Mimi Romanelli" ~indebted to suggestion of https://hellopoetry.com/MacGM/ for filling me up one of the trillions of missing datapoints in my slowly diminishing insights & missing knowledges <> "I am happy, Dear, to have walked with steady faith on the waters of our uncertainty all the way to that island which is your heart and where pain blossoms. Finally: happy." from the poem by Rilke "To: Mimi Romanelli" see notes '~~~' so worthy of my/our attentions, his reflections on loss, grief and mortality, for in the natural course of this poet's story, the interplay of this shopping list of preoccupations, foremost on this temporal frontal lobe in these waning days of my perhaps, last summery summary, that falls upon your eyes with my guilt that you have clicked upon this e~pistle, in and un~ tentionally & tensionally thus demanding & tendering post-haste my apology so be advised, be learned, and query why an essay on ending mortality should be be finished with a concluding a "Finally: happy." by breaching this poet Rilke essay, one discovers this poet sees through the storms of his preoccupations, "the red of his blood," because he loves another human, being, so many would agree, yet so few are so certain, as Rilke, and yet, "*It is still always that death which continues inside of me, which works in me, which transforms my heart, which deepens the red of my blood, which weighs down the life that had been ours so that it may become a bittersweet drop coursing through my veins and penetrating everything, and which ought to be mine forever. And while I am completely engulfed in my sadness, I am happy to sense that you exist, Beautiful. I am happy to have flung myself without fear into your beauty just as a bird flings itself into space. I am happy, Dear, to have walked with steady faith on the waters of our uncertainty all the way to that island which is your heart and where pain blossoms.* Finally: happy." <> Writ the last week of August, and the first of September 2025
0
Sep 2, 2025
Sep 2, 2025 at 12:49 PM UTC
nat-lipstadt
Finally: Happy
(from "To: Mimi Romanelli" ~indebted to suggestion of https://hellopoetry.com/MacGM/ for filling me up one of the trillions of missing datapoints in my slowly diminishing insights & missing knowledges <> "I am happy, Dear, to have walked with steady faith on the waters of our uncertainty all the way to that island which is your heart and where pain blossoms. Finally: happy." from the poem by Rilke "To: Mimi Romanelli" see notes '~~~' so worthy of my/our attentions, his reflections on loss, grief and mortality, for in the natural course of this poet's story, the interplay of this shopping list of preoccupations, foremost on this temporal frontal lobe in these waning days of my perhaps, last summery summary, that falls upon your eyes with my guilt that you have clicked upon this e~pistle, in and un~ tentionally & tensionally thus demanding & tendering post-haste my apology so be advised, be learned, and query why an essay on ending mortality should be be finished with a concluding a "Finally: happy." by breaching this poet Rilke essay, one discovers this poet sees through the storms of his preoccupations, "the red of his blood," because he loves another human, being, so many would agree, yet so few are so certain, as Rilke, and yet, "*It is still always that death which continues inside of me, which works in me, which transforms my heart, which deepens the red of my blood, which weighs down the life that had been ours so that it may become a bittersweet drop coursing through my veins and penetrating everything, and which ought to be mine forever. And while I am completely engulfed in my sadness, I am happy to sense that you exist, Beautiful. I am happy to have flung myself without fear into your beauty just as a bird flings itself into space. I am happy, Dear, to have walked with steady faith on the waters of our uncertainty all the way to that island which is your heart and where pain blossoms.* Finally: happy." <> Writ the last week of August, and the first of September 2025
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These are modern English translations of poems by the German poets Hermann Allmers, Hannah Arendt, Ingeborg Bachmann, Paul Celan, H. Distler, Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Günter Grass, Heinrich Heine, Johann Georg Jacobi, Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, Rainer Maria Rilke, Friedrich Schiller, Angelus Silesius and Georg Trakl. To the boy Elis by Georg Trakl, an Austrian poet who wrote in German loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Elis, when the blackbird cries from the black forest, it announces your downfall. Your lips sip the rock-spring's blue coolness. Your brow sweats blood recalling ancient myths and dark interpretations of birds' flight. Yet you enter the night with soft footfalls; the ripe purple grapes hang suspended as you wave your arms more beautifully in the blueness. A thornbush crackles; where now are your moonlike eyes? How long, oh Elis, have you been dead? A monk dips waxed fingers into your body's hyacinth; Our silence is a black abyss from which sometimes a docile animal emerges slowly lowering its heavy lids. A black dew drips from your temples: the lost gold of vanished stars. I believe that in the second stanza the blood on Elis's forehead may be a reference to the apprehensive ****** sweat of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. If my interpretation is correct, Elis hears the blackbird's cries, anticipates the danger represented by a harbinger of death, but elects to continue rather than turn back. From what I have been able to gather, the color blue had a special significance for Georg Trakl: it symbolized longing and perhaps a longing for death. The colors blue, purple and black may represent a progression toward death in the poem. Heinrich Heine The Seas Have Their Pearls by Heinrich Heine loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch The seas have their pearls, The heavens their stars; But my heart, my heart, My heart has its love! The seas and the sky are immense; Yet far greater still is my heart, And fairer than pearls and stars Are the radiant beams of my love. As for you, tender maiden, Come steal into my great heart; My heart, and the sea, and the heavens Are all melting away with love! Rainer Maria Rilke Rainer Maria Rilke [1875-1926] was a Bohemian-Austrian poet generally considered to be a major poet of the German language. He also wrote more than 400 poems in French. He was born René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke in Prague, then the capital of Bohemia and part of Austria-Hungary. During Rilke's early years his mother, who had lost a baby daughter, dressed him in girl's clothing. In 1895 and 1896, he studied literature, art history, and philosophy in Prague and Munich. In 1902 Rilke traveled to Paris to write about the sculptor Auguste Rodin. Rilke became deeply involved with the sculpture of Rodin and for a time served as Rodin's secretary. Under Rodin's influence Rilke transformed his poetic style from the subjective to the objective. His best-known poem, "Archaic Torso of Apollo," was written about a sculpture by Rodin and speaks about the life-transforming properties (and demands) of great art. Rilke allegedly died the most poetic of deaths, having been pricked by a rose. He was in ill health, the wound failed to heal, and he died as a result. Poems translated here include Herbsttag ("Autumn Day"), Der Panther ("The Panther"), Archaïscher Torso Apollos ("Archaic Torso of Apollo"), Komm, Du ("Come, You"), Das Lied des Bettlers ("The Beggar's Song"), Liebeslied ("Love Song"), and the First Elegy, also known as the First Duino Elegy. Archaischer Torso Apollos (“Archaic Torso of Apollo”) by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch We cannot know the beheaded god nor his eyes' forfeited visions. But still the figure's trunk glows with the strange vitality of a lamp lit from within, while his composed will emanates dynamism. Otherwise the firmly muscled abdomen could not beguile us, nor the centering ***** make us smile at the thought of their generative animus. Otherwise the stone might seem deficient, unworthy of the broad shoulders, of the groin projecting procreation's triangular spearhead upwards, unworthy of the living impulse blazing wildly within like an inchoate star—demanding our belief. You must change your life. TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: This is a poem about a major resolution: changing the very nature of one's life. While it is only my personal interpretation of the poem above, I believe Rilke was saying to himself: "I must change my life." Why? Perhaps because he wanted to be a real artist, and when confronted with real, dynamic, living and breathing art of Rodin, he realized that he had to inject similar vitality, energy and muscularity into his poetry. Michelangelo said that he saw the angel in a block of marble, then freed it. Perhaps Rilke had to find the dynamic image of Apollo, the God of Poetry, in his materials, which were paper, ink and his imagination.—Michael R. Burch Archaïscher Torso Apollos Wir kannten nicht sein unerhörtes Haupt, darin die Augenäpfel reiften. Aber sein Torso glüht noch wie ein Kandelaber, in dem sein Schauen, nur zurückgeschraubt, sich hält und glänzt. Sonst könnte nicht der Bug der Brust dich blenden, und im leisen Drehen der Lenden könnte nicht ein Lächeln gehen zu jener Mitte, die die Zeugung trug. Sonst stünde dieser Stein entstellt und kurz unter der Schultern durchsichtigem Sturz und flimmerte nicht so wie Raubtierfelle und bräche nicht aus allen seinen Rändern aus wie ein Stern: denn da ist keine Stelle, die dich nicht sieht. Du mußt dein Leben ändern. Herbsttag ("Autumn Day") by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Lord, it is time. Let the immense summer go. Lay your long shadows over the sundials and over the meadows, let the free winds blow. Command the late fruits to fatten and shine; O, grant them another Mediterranean hour! Urge them to completion, and with power convey final sweetness to the heavy wine. Who has no house now, never will build one. Who's alone now, shall continue alone; he'll wake, read, write long letters to friends, and pace the tree-lined pathways up and down, restlessly, as autumn leaves drift and descend. Herbsttag Herr: es ist Zeit. Der Sommer war sehr groß. Leg deinen Schatten auf die Sonnenuhren, und auf den Fluren laß die Winde los. Befiel den letzten Früchten voll zu sein; gib ihnen noch zwei südlichere Tage, dränge sie zur Vollendung hin und jage die letzte Süße in den schweren Wein. Wer jetzt kein Haus hat, baut sich keines mehr. Wer jetzt allein ist, wird es lange bleiben, wird wachen, lesen, lange Briefe schreiben und wird in den Alleen hin und her unruhig wandern, wenn die Blätter treiben. Du im Voraus (“You who never arrived”) by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch You who never arrived in my arms, my Belovéd, lost before love began... How can I possibly know which songs might please you? I have given up trying to envision you in portentous moments before the next wave impacts... when all the vastness and immenseness within me, all the far-off undiscovered lands and landscapes, all the cities, towers and bridges, all the unanticipated twists and turns in the road, and all those terrible terrains once traversed by strange gods— engender new meaning in me: your meaning, my enigmatic darling... You, who continually elude me. You, my Belovéd, who are every garden I ever gazed upon, longingly, through some country manor’s open window, so that you almost stepped out, pensively, to meet me; who are every sidestreet I ever chanced upon, even though you’d just traipsed tantalizingly away, and vanished, while the disconcerted shopkeepers’ mirrors still dizzily reflected your image, flashing you back at me, startled by my unwarranted image! Who knows, but perhaps the same songbird’s cry echoed through us both, yesterday, separate as we were, that evening? Du im Voraus Du im Voraus verlorne Geliebte, Nimmergekommene, nicht weiß ich, welche Töne dir lieb sind. Nicht mehr versuch ich, dich, wenn das Kommende wogt, zu erkennen. Alle die großen Bildern in mir, im Fernen erfahrene Landschaft, Städte und Türme und Brücken und un- vermutete Wendung der Wege und das Gewaltige jener von Göttern einst durchwachsenen Länder: steigt zur Bedeutung in mir deiner, Entgehende, an. Ach, die Gärten bist du, ach, ich sah sie mit solcher Hoffnung. Ein offenes Fenster im Landhaus—, und du tratest beinahe mir nachdenklich heran. Gassen fand ich,— du warst sie gerade gegangen, und die spiegel manchmal der Läden der Händler waren noch schwindlich von dir und gaben erschrocken mein zu plötzliches Bild.—Wer weiß, ob derselbe Vogel nicht hinklang durch uns gestern, einzeln, im Abend? Der Panther ("The Panther") by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch His weary vision's so overwhelmed by iron bars, his exhausted eyes see only blank Oblivion. His world is not our world. It has no stars. No light. Ten thousand bars. Nothing beyond. Lithe, swinging with a rhythmic easy stride, he circles, his small orbit tightening, an electron losing power. Paralyzed, soon regal Will stands stunned, an abject thing. Only at times the pupils' curtains rise silently, and then an image enters, descends through arrested shoulders, plunges, centers somewhere within his empty heart, and dies. Komm, Du (“Come, You”) by Ranier Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch This was Rilke’s last poem, written ten days before his death. He died open-eyed in the arms of his doctor on December 29, 1926, in the Valmont Sanatorium, of leukemia and its complications. I had a friend who died of leukemia and he was burning up with fever in the end. I believe that is what Rilke was describing here: he was literally burning alive. Come, you—the last one I acknowledge; return— incurable pain searing this physical mesh. As I burned in the spirit once, so now I burn with you; meanwhile, you consume my flesh. This wood that long resisted your embrace now nourishes you; I surrender to your fury as my gentleness mutates to hellish rage— uncaged, wild, primal, mindless, outré. Completely free, no longer future’s pawn, I clambered up this crazy pyre of pain, certain I’d never return—my heart’s reserves gone— to become death’s nameless victim, purged by flame. Now all I ever was must be denied. I left my memories of my past elsewhere. That life—my former life—remains outside. Inside, I’m lost. Nobody knows me here. Komm, Du Komm du, du letzter, den ich anerkenne, heilloser Schmerz im leiblichen Geweb: wie ich im Geiste brannte, sieh, ich brenne in dir; das Holz hat lange widerstrebt, der Flamme, die du loderst, zuzustimmen, nun aber nähr’ ich dich und brenn in dir. Mein hiesig Mildsein wird in deinem Grimmen ein Grimm der Hölle nicht von hier. Ganz rein, ganz planlos frei von Zukunft stieg ich auf des Leidens wirren Scheiterhaufen, so sicher nirgend Künftiges zu kaufen um dieses Herz, darin der Vorrat schwieg. Bin ich es noch, der da unkenntlich brennt? Erinnerungen reiß ich nicht herein. O Leben, Leben: Draußensein. Und ich in Lohe. Niemand der mich kennt. Liebes-Lied (“Love Song”) by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch How can I withhold my soul so that it doesn’t touch yours? How can I lift mine gently to higher things, alone? Oh, I would gladly find something lost in the dark in that inert space that fails to resonate until you vibrate. There everything that moves us, draws us together like a bow enticing two taut strings to sing together with a simultaneous voice. Whose instrument are we becoming together? Whose, the hands that excite us? Ah, sweet song! Liebes-Lied Wie soll ich meine Seele halten, daß sie nicht an deine rührt? Wie soll ich sie hinheben über dich zu andern Dingen? Ach gerne möcht ich sie bei irgendwas Verlorenem im Dunkel unterbringen an einer fremden stillen Stelle, die nicht weiterschwingt, wenn deine Tiefen schwingen. Doch alles, was uns anrührt, dich und mich, nimmt uns zusammen wie ein Bogenstrich, der aus zwei Saiten eine Stimme zieht. Auf welches Instrument sind wir gespannt? Und welcher Geiger hat uns in der Hand? O süßes Lied. Das Lied des Bettlers (“The Beggar’s Song”) by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I live outside your gates, exposed to the rain, exposed to the sun; sometimes I’ll cradle my right ear in my right palm; then when I speak my voice sounds strange, alien ... I'm unsure whose voice I’m hearing: mine or yours. I implore a trifle; the poets cry for more. Sometimes I cover both eyes and my face disappears; there it lies heavy in my hands looking peaceful, instead, so that no one would ever think I have no place to lay my head. Translator's note: I believe the last line may be a reference to a statement made by Jesus Christ in the gospels: that foxes have their dens, but he had no place to lay his head. Rilke may also have had in mind Jesus saying that what someone does "to the least of these" they would also be doing to him. Das Lied des Bettlers Ich gehe immer von Tor zu Tor, verregnet und verbrannt; auf einmal leg ich mein rechtes Ohr in meine rechte Hand. Dann kommt mir meine Stimme vor, als hätt ich sie nie gekannt. Dann weiß ich nicht sicher, wer da schreit, ich oder irgendwer. Ich schreie um eine Kleinigkeit. Die Dichter schrein um mehr. Und endlich mach ich noch mein Gesicht mit beiden Augen zu; wie's dann in der Hand liegt mit seinem Gewicht sieht es fast aus wie Ruh. Damit sie nicht meinen ich hätte nicht, wohin ich mein Haupt tu. This is my translation of the first of Rilke’s Duino Elegies. Rilke began the first Duino Elegy in 1912, as a guest of Princess Marie von Thurn und Taxis, at Duino Castle, near Trieste on the Adriatic Sea. First Elegy by Ranier Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Who, if I objected, would hear me among the angelic orders? For if the least One pressed me intimately against its breast, I would be lost in its infinite Immensity! Because beauty, which we mortals can barely endure, is the beginning of terror; we stand awed when it benignly declines to annihilate us. Every Angel is terrifying! And so I restrain myself, swallowing the sound of my pitiful sobbing. For whom may we turn to, in our desire? Not to Angels, nor to men, and already the sentient animals are aware that we are all aliens in this metaphorical existence. Perhaps some tree still stands on a hillside, which we can study with our ordinary vision. Perhaps the commonplace street still remains amid man’s fealty to materiality— the concrete items that never destabilize. Oh, and of course there is the night: her dark currents caress our faces ... But whom, then, do we live for? That longed-for but mildly disappointing presence the lonely heart so desperately desires? Is life any less difficult for lovers? They only use each other to avoid their appointed fates! How can you fail to comprehend? Fling your arms’ emptiness into this space we occupy and inhale: may birds fill the expanded air with more intimate flying! Yes, the springtime still requires you. Perpetually a star waits for you to recognize it. A wave recedes toward you from the distant past, or as you walk beneath an open window, a violin yields virginally to your ears. All this was preordained. But how can you incorporate it? ... Weren't you always distracted by expectations, as if every event presaged some new beloved? (Where can you harbor, when all these enormous strange thoughts surging within you keep you up all night, restlessly rising and falling?) When you are full of yearning, sing of loving women, because their passions are finite; sing of forsaken women (and how you almost envy them) because they could love you more purely than the ones you left gratified. Resume the unattainable exaltation; remember: the hero survives; even his demise was merely a stepping stone toward his latest rebirth. But spent and exhausted Nature withdraws lovers back into herself, as if lacking the energy to recreate them. Have you remembered Gaspara Stampa with sufficient focus— how any abandoned girl might be inspired by her fierce example and might ask herself, "How can I be like her?" Shouldn't these ancient sufferings become fruitful for us? Shouldn’t we free ourselves from the beloved, quivering, as the arrow endures the bowstring's tension, so that in the snap of release it soars beyond itself? For there is nowhere else where we can remain. Voices! Voices! Listen, heart, as levitating saints once listened, until the elevating call soared them heavenward; and yet they continued kneeling, unaware, so complete was their concentration. Not that you could endure God's voice—far from it! But heed the wind’s voice and the ceaseless formless message of silence: It murmurs now of the martyred young. Whenever you attended a church in Naples or Rome, didn't they come quietly to address you? And didn’t an exalted inscription impress its mission upon you recently, on the plaque in Santa Maria Formosa? What they require of me is that I gently remove any appearance of injustice— which at times slightly hinders their souls from advancing. Of course, it is endlessly strange to no longer inhabit the earth; to relinquish customs one barely had the time to acquire; not to see in roses and other tokens a hopeful human future; no longer to be oneself, cradled in infinitely caring hands; to set aside even one's own name, forgotten as easily as a child’s broken plaything. How strange to no longer desire one's desires! How strange to see meanings no longer cohere, drifting off into space. Dying is difficult and requires retrieval before one can gradually decipher eternity. The living all err in believing the too-sharp distinctions they create themselves. Angels (men say) don't know whether they move among the living or the dead. The eternal current merges all ages in its maelstrom until the voices of both realms are drowned out in its thunderous roar. In the end, the early-departed no longer need us: they are weaned gently from earth's agonies and ecstasies, as children outgrow their mothers’ ******* But we, who need such immense mysteries, and for whom grief is so often the source of our spirit's progress— how can we exist without them? Is the legend of the lament for Linos meaningless— the daring first notes of the song pierce our apathy; then, in the interlude, when the youth, lovely as a god, has suddenly departed forever, we experience the emptiness of the Void for the first time— that harmony which now enraptures and comforts and aids us? Second Elegy by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Every angel is terrifying. And yet, alas, I invoke you, one of the soul’s lethal raptors, well aware of your nature. As in the days of Tobias, when one of you, obscuring his radiance, stood at the simple threshold, appearing ordinary rather than appalling while the curious youth peered through the window. But if the Archangel emerged today, perilous, from beyond the stars and took even one step toward us, our hammering hearts would pound us to death. What are you? Who are you? Joyous from the beginning; God’s early successes; Creation’s favorites; creatures of the heights; pollen of the flowering godhead; cusps of pure light; stately corridors; rising stairways; exalted thrones; filling space with your pure essence; crests of rapture; shields of ecstasy; storms of tumultuous emotions whipped into whirlwinds ... until one, acting alone, recreates itself by mirroring the beauty of its own countenance. While we, when deeply moved, evaporate; we exhale ourselves and fade away, growing faint like smoldering embers; we drift away like the scent of smoke. And while someone might say: “You’re in my blood! You occupy this room! You fill this entire springtime!” ... Still, what becomes of us? We cannot be contained; we vanish whether inside or out. And even the loveliest, who can retain them? Resemblance ceaselessly rises, then is gone, like dew from dawn’s grasses. And what is ours drifts away, like warmth from a steaming dish. O smile, where are you bound? O heavenward glance: are you a receding heat wave, a ripple of the heart? Alas, but is this not what we are? Does the cosmos we dissolve into savor us? Do the angels reabsorb only the radiance they emitted themselves, or sometimes, perhaps by oversight, traces of our being as well? Are we included in their features, as obscure as the vague looks on the faces of pregnant women? Do they notice us at all (how could they) as they reform themselves? Lovers, if they only knew how, might mutter marvelous curses into the night air. For it seems everything eludes us. See: the trees really do exist; our houses stand solid and firm. And yet we drift away, like weightless sighs. And all creation conspires to remain silent about us: perhaps from shame, perhaps some inexpressible hope? Lovers, gratified by each other, I ask to you consider: You cling to each other, but where is your proof of a connection? Sometimes my hands become aware of each other and my time-worn, exhausted face takes shelter in them, creating a slight sensation. But because of that, can I still claim to be? You, the ones who writhe with each other’s passions until, overwhelmed, someone begs: “No more!...”; You who swell beneath each other’s hands like autumn grapes; You, the one who dwindles as the other increases: I ask you to consider ... I know you touch each other so ardently because each caress preserves pure continuance, like the promise of eternity, because the flesh touched does not disappear. And yet, when you have survived the terror of initial intimacy, the first lonely vigil at the window, the first walk together through the blossoming garden: lovers, do you not still remain who you were before? If you lift your lips to each other’s and unite, potion to potion, still how strangely each drinker eludes the magic. Weren’t you confounded by the cautious human gestures on Attic gravestones? Weren’t love and farewell laid so lightly on shoulders they seemed composed of some ethereal substance unknown to us today? Consider those hands, how weightlessly they rested, despite the powerful torsos. The ancient masters knew: “We can only go so far, in touching each other. The gods can exert more force. But that is their affair.” If only we, too, could discover such a pure, contained Eden for humanity, our own fruitful strip of soil between river and rock. For our hearts have always exceeded us, as our ancestors’ did. And we can no longer trust our own eyes, when gazing at godlike bodies, our hearts find a greater repose. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Excerpt from “To the Moon” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe loose translations/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Scattered, pole to starry pole, glide Cynthia's mild beams, whispering to the receptive soul whatever moonbeams mean. Bathing valley, hill and dale with her softening light, loosening from earth’s frigid chains my restless heart tonight! Over the landscape, near and far, broods darkly glowering night; yet welcoming as Friendship’s eye, she, soft!, bequeaths her light. Touched in turn by joy and pain, my startled heart responds, then floats, as Whimsy paints each scene, to soar with her, beyond... I mean Whimsy in the sense of both the Romantic Imagination and caprice. Here, I have the idea of Peter Pan flying off with Tinker Bell to Neverland. My translation was informed by a translation by John S. Dwight. Der Erlkönig (“The Elf King”) by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe loose translations/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Who rides tonight with the wind so wild? A loving father, holding his child. Please say the boy’s safe from all evil and harm! He rests secure in his dear father’s arms. My son, my son, what’s that look on your face? Father, he’s there, in that dark, scary place! The elfin king! With his dagger and crown! Son, it’s only the mist, there’s no need to frown. My dear little boy, you must come play with me! Such marvelous games! We’ll play and be free! Many bright flowers we'll gather together! Son, why are you wincing? It’s only the weather. Father, O father, how could you not hear What the elfin king said to me, drawing so near? Be quiet, my son, and pay “him” no heed: It was only the wind gusts stirring the trees. Come with me now, you're a fine little lad! My daughters will kiss you, then you’ll be glad! My daughters will teach you to dance and to sing! They’ll call you a prince and give you a ring! Father, please look, in the gloom, don’t you see The dark elfin daughters keep beckoning me? My son, all I can see and all I can say Is the wind makes the grey willows sway. Why stay with your father? He’s deaf, blind and dumb! If you’re unwilling I’ll force you to come! Father, he’s got me and won’t let me go! The cruel elfin king is hurting me so! At last struck with horror his father looks down: His gasping son’s holding a strange golden crown! Then homeward through darkness, all the faster he sped, But cold in his arms, his dear child lay dead. The Fisher by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch The river swirled and rippled; nearby an angler lay, and watched his lure with a careless eye, like any other day. But as he watched in a strange half-dream, he saw the waters part, and from the river’s depths emerged a maiden, or a **** A Lorelei, she sang to him her strange, bewitching song: “Which of my sisters would you snare, with your human hands, so strong? To make us die in scorching air, ripped from our land, so clear! Why not leave your arid land And rest forever here?” “The sun and lady-moon, they lave their tresses in the main, and find such cleansing in each wave, they return twice bright again. These deep-blue waters, fresh and clear, O, feel their strong allure! Wouldn’t you rather sink and drown into our land, so pure?” The water swirled and bubbled up; it lapped his naked feet; he imagined that he felt the touch of the siren’s kisses sweet. She sang to him of mysteries in her soft, resistless strain, till he sank into the water and never was seen again. My translation was informed by a translation by William Edmondstoune Aytoun and Theodore Martin. Kennst du das Land (“Do You Know the Land”) by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Do you know of the land where the bright lemons bloom? Where the orange glows gold in the occult gloom? Where the gentlest winds fan the palest blue skies? Where the myrtles and laurels elegantly rise? Excerpt from “Hassan Aga” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch What whiteness shimmers, distant on the lea? Could it be snow? Or is it swans we see? Snow? Melted with a recent balmy day. Swans? All departed, long since flown away. Neither snow, nor swans! What can it be? The tent of Hassan Aga, shining! There the wounded warrior lies, repining. His mother and sisters to his side have come, But his shame-faced wife weeps for herself, at home. Excerpt from “The Song of the Spirits over the Waters” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Wind is water's amorous pursuer: the Wind, upswept, heaves waves from their depths. And you, mortal soul, how you resemble water! And a mortal’s Fate, how alike the wind! My translation was informed by a translation by John S. Dwight. Excerpt from “One and All” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch How the solitary soul yearns to merge into the Infinite and find itself once more at peace. Rid of blind desire & the impatient will, our restless thoughts and plans are stilled. We yield our Selves, then awake in bliss. My translation was informed by a translation by John S. Dwight. Prometheus by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch obscure Your heavens, Zeus, with a nebulous haze! and, like boys beheading thistles, decapitate oaks and alps. yet leave me the earth with its rude dwellings and my hut You didn’t build. also my hearth, whose cheerful glow You envy. i know nothing more pitiful under the sun than these vampiric godlings! undernourished with insufficient sacrifices and airy prayers! my poor Majesty, if not for a few fools' hopes, those of children and beggars, You would starve! when i was a child, i didn't know up from down, and my eye strayed erratically toward the sun strobing high above, as if the heavens had ears to hear my lamentations, and a heart like mine, to feel pity for the oppressed. who assisted me when i stood alone against the Titans' insolence? who saved me from slavery, or, otherwise, from death? didn’t you handle everything yourself, my radiant heart? how you shone then, so innocent and holy, even though deceived and expressing thanks to a listless Entity above. revere you, zeus? for what? when did u ever ease my afflictions, or those of the oppressed? when did u ever stanch the tears of the anguished, the fears of the frightened? didn’t omnipotent Time and eternal Fate forge my manhood? my masters and urs likewise? u were deluded if u thought I would hate life or flee into faraway deserts, just because so few of my boyish dreams blossomed. now here I sit, fashioning Humans in My own Image, creating a Race like Myself, who, for all Their suffering and weeping, for all Their happiness and rejoicing, in the end shall pay u no heed, like Me! Nähe des Geliebten (“Near His Beloved”) by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I think of you when the sun shines softly on me; also when the moon silvers each tree. I see you in the spirit the shimmering dust resembles; also at the stroke of twelve when the night watchman trembles. I hear you in the sighing of the restless, surging seas; also in the quiet groves when everything’s at peace. I am with you, though so far! Yet I know you’re always near. Oh what I'd yield, as sun to star, to have you here! Ich denke dein, wenn mir der Sonne Schimmer Vom Meere strahlt; Ich denke dein, wenn sich des Mondes Flimmer In Quellen malt. Ich sehe dich, wenn auf dem fernen Wege Der Staub sich hebt; In tiefer Nacht, wenn auf dem schmalen Stege Der Wandrer bebt. Ich höre dich, wenn dort mit dumpfem Rauschen Die Welle steigt. Im stillen Haine geh ich oft zu lauschen, Wenn alles schweigt. Ich bin bei dir, du seist auch noch so ferne. Du bist mir nah! Die Sonne sinkt, bald leuchten mir die Sterne. O wärst du da! Gefunden (“Found”) by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Into the woodlands, alone, I went. Seeking nothing, my sole intent. But I saw a flower deep in the shade gleaming like starlight in a still glade. I reached down to pluck it when it shyly asked: “Why would you snap me so cruelly in half?” So I dug up the flower, by the roots and all, then planted it gently by the garden wall. Now in a dark corner where I planted the flower, it blooms just as brightly to this very hour. Ich ging im Walde So für mich hin, Und nichts zu suchen, Das war mein Sinn. Im Schatten sah ich Ein Blümchen stehn, Wie Sterne leuchtend Wie Äuglein schön. Ich wollt es brechen, Da sagt' es fein: Soll ich zum Welken, Gebrochen sein? Ich grubs mit allen Den Würzeln aus, Zum Garten trug ichs Am hübschen Haus. Und pflanzt es wieder Am stillen Ort; Nun zweigt es immer Und blüht so fort. Wandrers Nachtlied (“Wanderer’s Night Song”) by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch 1. From the hilltops comes peace; through the treetops scarcely the wind breathes. Do you feel the lassitude touch you? The little birds grow silent in the forest. Wait, soon you’ll rest too. 2. From the distant hilltops comes peaceful repose; through the swaying treetops a calming wind blows. Do you feel the lassitude touch you? The birds grow silent in the forest. Wait, soon you’ll rest too. Über allen Gipfeln ist Ruh’ in allen Wipfeln spürest du kaum einen Hauch. Die Vögelein schweigen im Walde. Warte, nur balde ruhest du auch. Wandrers Nachtlied (“Wanderer’s Night Song”) by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch 1. You who descend from heaven, calming all suffering and pain, the one who doubly refreshes those who are doubly disconsolate; I’m so weary of useless contention! Why all this pain and lust? Sweet peace descending, Come, oh, come into my breast! 2. You who descend from heaven, calming all suffering and pain, the one who doubly refreshes those who are doubly disconsolate; I’m so **** tired of this muddle! What’s the point of all this pain and lust? Sweet peace, Come, oh, come into my breast! Der du von dem Himmel bist, Alles Leid und Schmerzen stillest, Den, der doppelt elend ist, Doppelt mit Erquickung füllest, Ach, ich bin des Treibens müde! Was soll all der Schmerz und Lust? Süßer Friede, Komm, ach komm in meine Brust! ON LOOKING AT SCHILLER’S SKULL by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Here in this charnel-house full of bleaching bones, like yesteryear’s fading souvenirs, I see the skulls arranged in strange ordered rows. Who knows whose owners might have beheaded peers, packed tightly here despite once repellent hate? Here weaponless, they stand, in this gentled state. These arms and hands, they once were so delicate! How articulately they moved! Ah me! What athletes once paced about on these padded feet? Still there’s no hope of rest for you, lost souls! Deprived of graves, forced here like slaves to occupy this overworld, unlamented ghouls! Now who’s to know who loved one orb here detained? Except for me; reader, hear my plea: I know the grandeur of the mind it contained! Yes, and I know the impulse true love would stir here, where I stand in this alien land surrounded by these husks, like a treasurer! Even in this cold, in this dust and mould I am startled by a strange, ancient reverie, ... as if this shrine to death could quicken me! One shape out of the past keeps calling me with its mystery! Still retaining its former angelic grace! And at that ecstatic sight, I am back at sea ... Swept by that current to where immortals race. O secret vessel, you gave Life its truth. It falls on me now to recall your expressive face. I turn away, abashed here by what I see: this mould was worth more than all the earth. Let me breathe fresh air and let my wild thoughts run free! What is there better in this dark Life than he who gives us a sense of man’s divinity, of his place in the universe? A man who’s both flesh and spirit—living verse! To The Muse by Friedrich Schiller loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I do not know what I would be, without you, gentle Muse!, but I’m sick at heart to see those who disabuse. GOETHE & SCHILLER XENIA EPIGRAMS She says an epigram’s too terse to reveal her tender heart in verse … but really, darling, ain’t the thrill of a kiss much shorter still? ―#2 from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch There are more translations of the Xenia epigrams of Goethe and Schiller later on this page. Through the fields of solitude by Hermann Allmers set to music by Johannes Brahms translation by David B. Gosselin with Michael R. Burch Peacefully, I rest in the tall green grass For a long time only gazing as I lie, Caught in the endless hymn of crickets, And encircled by a wonderful blue sky. And the lovely white clouds floating across The depths of the heavens are like silky lace; I feel as though my soul has long since fled, Softly drifting with them through eternal space. This poem was set to music by the German composer Johannes Brahms in what has been called its “the most sublime incarnation.” A celebrated recording of the song was made in 1958 by the baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau with Jörg Demus accompanying him on the piano. Hannah Arendt was a Jewish-German philosopher and Holocaust survivor who also wrote poetry. H.B. for Hermann Broch by Hannah Arendt loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Survival. But how does one live without the dead? Where is the sound of their lost company? Where now, their companionable embraces? We wish they were still with us. We are left with the cry that ripped them away from us. Left with the veil that shrouds their empty gazes. What avails? That we commit ourselves to their memories, and through this commitment, learn to survive. I Love the Earth by Hannah Arendt loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I love the earth like a trip to a foreign land and not otherwise. Even so life spins me on its loom softly into never-before-seen patterns. Until suddenly like the last farewells of a new journey, the great silence breaks the frame. Bertolt Brecht fled **** Germany along with Albert Einstein, Thomas Mann and many other German intellectuals. So he was writing from bitter real-life experience. The Burning of the Books by Bertolt Brecht, a German poet loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch When the Regime commanded the unlawful books to be burned, teams of dull oxen hauled huge cartloads to the bonfires. Then a banished writer, one of the best, scanning the list of excommunicated texts, became enraged — he'd been excluded! He rushed to his desk, full of contemptuous wrath, to write fiery letters to the incompetents in power — Burn me! he wrote with his blazing pen — Haven't I always reported the truth? Now here you are, treating me like a liar! Burn me! Parting by Bertolt Brecht loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch We embrace; my fingers trace rich cloth while yours encounter only moth- eaten fabric. A quick hug: you were invited to the gay soiree while the minions of the "law" relentlessly pursue me. We talk about the weather and our eternal friendship's magic. Anything else would be too bitter, too tragic. The Mask of Evil by Bertolt Brecht loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch A Japanese carving hangs on my wall — the mask of an ancient demon, limned with golden lacquer. Not altogether unsympathetically, I observe the bulging veins of its forehead, noting the grotesque effort it takes to be evil. Radio Poem by Bertolt Brecht loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch You, little box, held tightly to me, escaping, so that your delicate tubes do not break; carried from house to house, from ship to train, so that my enemies may continue communicating with me on land and at sea and even in my bed, to my pain; the last thing I hear at night, the first when I awake, recounting their many conquests and my litany of cares, promise me not to go silent all of a sudden, unawares. These are three English translations of Holocaust poems written in German by the Jewish poet Paul Celan. The first poem, "Todesfuge" in the original German, is one of the most famous Holocaust poems, with its haunting refrain of a German "master of death" killing Jews by day and writing "Your golden hair Margarete" by starlight. The poem demonstrates how terrible things can become when one human being is granted absolute power over other human beings. Paul Celan was the pseudonym of Paul Antschel. (Celan is an anagram of Ancel, the Romanian form of his surname.) Celan was born in Czernovitz, Romania in 1920. The son of German-speaking Jews, Celan spoke German, Romanian, Russian, French and understood Yiddish. During the Holocaust, his parents were deported and eventually died in **** labor camps; Celan spent eighteen months in a **** concentration camp before escaping. Todesfuge ("Death Fugue") by Paul Celan loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Black milk of daybreak, we drink it come morning; we drink it come midday; we drink it, come night; we drink it and drink it. We are digging a grave like a hole in the sky; there's sufficient room to lie there. The man of the house plays with vipers; he writes in the Teutonic darkness, "Your golden hair Margarete …" He writes poems by the stars, whistles hounds to stand by, whistles Jews to dig graves, where together they'll lie. He commands us to strike up bright tunes for the dance! Black milk of daybreak, we drink you each morning; we drink you at midday; we drink you at night; we drink you and drink you. The man of the house plays with serpents, he writes … he writes when the night falls, "Your golden hair Margarete … Your ashen hair Shulamith …" We are digging dark graves where there's more room, on high. His screams, "You dig there!" and "Hey you, dance and sing!" He grabs his black nightstick, his eyes pallid blue, cries, "Hey you, dig more deeply! You others, keep dancing!" Black milk of daybreak, we drink you each morning; we drink you at midday, we drink you at night; we drink you and drink you. The man of the house writes, "Your golden hair Margarete … Your ashen hair Shulamith." He toys with our lives. He screams, "Play for me! Death's a master of Germany!" His screams, "Stroke dark strings, soon like black smoke you'll rise to a grave in the clouds; there's sufficient room for Jews there!" Black milk of daybreak, we drink you at midnight; we drink you at noon; Death's the master of Germany! We drink you come evening; we drink you and drink you … a master of Deutschland, with eyes deathly blue. With bullets of lead our pale master will ****** you! He writes when the night falls, "Your golden hair Margarete …" He unleashes his hounds, grants us graves in the skies. He plays with his serpents; he's a master of Germany … your golden hair Margarete … your ashen hair Shulamith. O, Little Root of a Dream by Paul Celan loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch O, little root of a dream you enmire me here; I'm undermined by blood — no longer seen, enslaved by death. Touch the curve of my face, that there may yet be an earthly language of ardor, that someone else's eyes may see yet see me, though I'm blind, here where you deny me voice. You Were My Death by Paul Celan loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch You were my death; I could hold you when everything abandoned me — even breath. “To Young” for Edward Young, the poet who wrote “Night Thoughts” by Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock (1724–1803) loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Die, aged prophet: your crowning work your fulcrum; now tears of joy tremble on angel-lids as heaven extends its welcome. Why linger here? Have you not already built, great Mover, a monument beyond the clouds? Now over your night-thoughts, too, the pallid free-thinkers hover, feeling there's prophecy amid your song as it warns of the dead-awakening trump, of the coming final doom, and heaven’s eternal wisdom. Die: you have taught me Death’s dread name, elide, bears notes of joy to the ears of the just! Yet remain my teacher still, become my genius and guide. My translation was informed by a translation by William Taylor. Excerpts from “The Choirs” by Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock (1724–1803) loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Dear Dream, which I must never behold fulfilled, pale diaphanous Mist, yet brighter than orient day!, float back to me, and hover yet again before my swimming sight! Do they wear crowns in vain, those who forbear to recognize your heavenly portraiture? Must they be encased in marble, one and all, ere the transfiguration be wrought? Yes! For would the grave allow, I’d always sing with inspiration stringing the lyre,— amid your Vision’s tidal joy, my pledge for loftier verse. Great is your power, my Desire! Few have ever known how it feels to melt in bliss; fewer still have ever felt devotion’s raptures rise on sacred Music’s wing! Few have trembled with joy as adoring choirs mingled their hallowed songs of heartfelt praise (punctuated by each awe-full pause) with unseen choirs above! On each arched eyelash, on each burning cheek, the fledgling tear quivers; for they imagine the goal,— each shimmering golden crown where angels wave their palms. Deep, strong, the song seizes swelling hearts, never scorning the tears it imbues, whether shrouding souls in gloom or steeping them in holy awe. Borne on the deep, slow sounds, now holy awe descends. Myriad voices sweep the assembly, blending their choral force,— their theme, Impending Doom! Joy, Joy! They can scarcely bear it! The organ’s thunder roundly rolls,— louder and louder, to the congregations’ cries, till the temple also trembles. Enough! I sink! The wave of worshipers bows before the altar,—bows low to the earth; they taste the communal cup, then drink devoutly, deeply, still. One day, when my bones rest beside this church as the assembled worshipers sing their songs of praise, the conscious grave shall acknowledge their vision with heaves of sweet flowerets in bloom. And on that morning, ringing through the rocks, as hymns are sung in praise, O, joyous tune!, I’ll hear—“He rose again!” Vibrating through my tomb. My translation was informed by a translation by William Taylor. A Lonely Cot by Johann Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim (1719-1803) loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch A lonely cot is all I own: it stands on grass that’s never mown beside a brook (it’s passing small), near where bright frothing fountains fall. Here a spreading beech lifts up its head and half conceals my humble shed: from winter winds my sole retreat and refuge from the summer’s heat. In the beech’s boughs the nightingale sweetly sings her plaintive tale: so sweetly, passing rustics stray with loitering steps to catch her lay! Sweet blue-eyed maid with hair so fair, my heart's desire! my fondest care! I hurry home—How late the hour! Come share, sweet maid, my sheltering bower! Excerpts from “Song” by Johann Georg Jacobi loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Friend, tell me where the violet fled, so lately gaily blowing? That once perfumed fair Flora’s tread, its choicest scents bestowing? Swain, give up verse and hang your head: the violet lies dead! Friend, what became of the blushing rose, the pride of the blossoming morning? The garland every groom bestows upon his blushing darling? Swain, give up verse and hang your head: the rose lies dead! And say, what of the village maid, so late my cot adorning? The one I assayed in our secret glade, as pale and fair as the morning? Swain, give up verse and hang your head: the erstwhile maid lies dead! Friend, what became of the gentle swain who sang, in rural measures, of the lovely violet, blushing rose, and girls like exotic treasures? Maid, close his book and hang your head: the swain lies dead! Dunkles zu sagen (“Expressing the Dark”) by Ingeborg Bachmann, an Austrian poet loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I strum the strings of life and death like Orpheus and in the beauty of the earth and in your eyes that instruct the sky, I find only dark things to say. Untitled The dark shadow I followed from the beginning led me into the deep barrenness of winter. —Ingeborg Bachmann, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller #2 - Love Poetry She says an epigram’s too terse to reveal her tender heart in verse ... but really, darling, ain’t the thrill of a kiss much shorter still? ―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch #5 - Criticism Why don’t I openly criticize the man? Because he’s a friend; thus I reproach him in silence, as I do my own heart. ―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch #11 - Holiness What is holiest? This heart-felt love binding spirits together, now and forever. ―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch #12 - Love versus Desire You love what you have, and desire what you lack because a rich nature expands, while a poor one contracts. ―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch #19 - Nymph and Satyr As shy as the trembling doe your horn frightens from the woods, she flees the huntsman, fainting, uncertain of love. ―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch #20 - Desire What stirs the virgin’s heaving ******* to sighs? What causes your bold gaze to brim with tears? ―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch #23 - The Apex I Everywhere women yield to men, but only at the apex do the manliest men surrender to femininity. ―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch #24 - The Apex II What do we mean by the highest? The crystalline clarity of triumph as it shines from the brow of a woman, from the brow of a goddess. ―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch #25 -Human Life Young sailors brave the sea beneath ten thousand sails while old men drift ashore on any bark that avails. ―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch #35 - Dead Ahead What’s the hardest thing of all to do? To see clearly with your own eyes what’s ahead of you. ―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch #36 - Unexpected Consequence Friends, before you utter the deepest, starkest truth, please pause, because straight away people will blame you for its cause. ―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch #41 - Earth vs. Heaven By doing good, you nurture humanity; but by creating beauty, you scatter the seeds of divinity. ―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Unholy Trinity by Angelus Silesius loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Man has three enemies: himself, the world, and the devil. Of these the first is, by far, the most irresistible evil. True Wealth by Angelus Silesius loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch There is more to being rich than merely having; the wealthiest man can lose everything not worth saving. The Rose by Angelus Silesius loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch The rose merely blossoms and never asks why: heedless of her beauty, careless of every eye. The Rose by Angelus Silesius loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch The rose lack "reasons" and merely sways with the seasons; she has no ego but whoever put on such a show? Eternal Time by Angelus Silesius loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Eternity is time, time eternity, except when we are determined to "see." Visions by Angelus Silesius loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Our souls possess two eyes: one examines time, the other visions eternal and sublime. Godless by Angelus Silesius loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch God is absolute Nothingness beyond our sense of time and place; the more we try to grasp Him, The more He flees from our embrace. The Source by Angelus Silesius loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Water is pure and clean when taken at the well-head: but drink too far from the Source and you may well end up dead. Ceaseless Peace by Angelus Silesius loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Unceasingly you seek life's ceaseless wavelike motion; I seek perpetual peace, all storms calmed. Whose is the wiser notion? Well Written by Angelus Silesius loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Friend, cease! Abandon all pretense! You must yourself become the Writing and the Sense. Worm Food by Angelus Silesius loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch No worm is buried so deep within the soil that God denies it food as reward for its toil. Mature Love by Angelus Silesius loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch New love, like a sparkling wine, soon fizzes. Mature love, calm and serene, abides. God's Predicament by Angelus Silesius loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch God cannot condemn those with whom he would dwell, or He would have to join them in hell! Clods by Angelus Silesius loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch A ruby is not lovelier than a dirt clod, nor an angel more glorious than a frog. Günter Grass Günter Wilhelm Grass (1927-) is a German-Kashubian novelist, poet, playwright, illustrator, graphic artist, sculptor and recipient of the 1999 Nobel Prize in Literature. He is widely regarded as Germany's most famous living writer. Grass is best known for his first novel, The Tin Drum (1959), a key text in European magic realism. The Tin Drum was adapted into a film that won both the Palme d'Or and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. The Swedish Academy, upon awarding Grass the Nobel Prize in Literature, noted him as a writer "whose frolicsome black fables portray the forgotten face of history." “Was gesagt werden muss” (“What must be said”) by Günter Grass loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Why have I remained silent, so long, failing to mention something openly practiced in war games which now threaten to leave us merely meaningless footnotes? Someone’s alleged “right” to strike first might annihilate a beleaguered nation whose people march to a martinet’s tune, compelled to pageants of orchestrated obedience. Why? Merely because of the suspicion that a bomb might be built by Iranians. But why do I hesitate, forbidding myself to name that other nation, where, for years —shrouded in secrecy— a formidable nuclear capability has existed beyond all control, simply because no inspections were ever allowed? The universal concealment of this fact abetted by my own incriminating silence now feels like a heavy, enforced lie, an oppressive inhibition, a vice, a strong constraint, which, if dismissed, immediately incurs the verdict “anti-Semitism.” But now my own country, guilty of its unprecedented crimes which continually demand remembrance, once again seeking financial gain (although with glib lips we call it “reparations”) has delivered yet another submarine to Israel— this one designed to deliver annihilating warheads capable of exterminating all life where the existence of even a single nuclear weapon remains unproven, but where suspicion now serves as a substitute for evidence. So now I will say what must be said. Why did I remain silent so long? Because I thought my origins, tarred by an ineradicable stain, forbade me to declare the truth to Israel, a country to which I am and will always remain attached. Why is it only now that I say, in my advancing age, and with my last drop of ink on the final page that Israel’s nuclear weapons endanger an already fragile world peace? Because tomorrow might be too late, and so the truth must be heard today. And because we Germans, already burdened with many weighty crimes, could become enablers of yet another, one easily foreseen, and thus no excuse could ever erase our complicity. Furthermore, I’ve broken my silence because I’m sick of the West’s hypocrisy and because I hope many others too will free themselves from the shackles of silence, and speak out to renounce violence by insisting on permanent supervision of Israel’s atomic power and Iran’s by an international agency accepted by both governments. Only thus can we find the path to peace for Israelis and Palestinians and everyone else living in a region currently consumed by madness —and ultimately, for ourselves. Published in Süddeutschen Zeitung (April 4, 2012) “Totentanz” by H. Distler loose translation/ interpretation by Michael R. Burch Erster Spruch: Lass alles, was du hast, auf dass du alles nehmst! Verschmäh die Welt, dass du sie tausendfach bekömmst! Im Himmel ist der Tag, im Abgrund ist die Nacht. Hier ist die Dämmerung: Wohl dem, der's recht betracht! First Aphorism: Leave everything, that you may take all! Scorn the world, that you may receive it a thousandfold! In the heavens it is day, in the abyss it is night. Here it is twilight: Blessed is the one who comprehends! First Aphorism: Leave everything, that you may take all! Scorn the world, seize it like a great ball! In the heavens it is day, in the abyss, night. Understand if you can: Here it is twilight! Der Tod: Zum Tanz, zum Tanze reiht euch ein: Kaiser, Bischof, Bürger, Bauer, arm und ***** und gross und klein, heran zu mir! Hilft keine Trauer. Wohl dem, der rechter Zeit bedacht, viel gute Werk vor sich zu bringen, der seiner Sünd sich losgemacht - Heut heisst's: Nach meiner Pfeife springen! Death: To the dance, to the dance, take your places: emperor, bishop, townsman, farmer, poor and rich, big and small, come to me! Grief helps nothing. Blessed is the one who deems the time right to do many good deeds, to rid himself of his sins – Today you must dance to my tune! Zweiter Spruch: Mensch, die Figur der Welt vergehet mit der Zeit. Was trotz'st du dann so viel auf ihre Herrlichkeit? Second Aphorism: Man, the world’s figure decays with time. Why do you go on so much about her glory? Der Kaiser: O Tod, dein jäh Erscheinen friert mir das Mark in den Gebeinen. Mussten Könige, Fürsten, Herren sich vor mir neigen und mich ehren, dass ich nun soll ohn Gnade werden gleichwie du, Tod, ein Schleim der Erden? Der ich den Menschen Haupt und Schirmer - du machst aus mir ein Speis' der Würmer. Emperor: Oh Death, your sudden appearance freezes the marrow in my bones. Did kings, princes and gentlemen bow down before me and honor me, that I should I become, without mercy, just like you, Death, slime of the earth? I was my people’s leader and protector – you made me a meal for worms. Der Tod: Herr Kaiser, warst du der Höchste hier, voran sollst du tanzen neben mir. Dein war das Schwert der Gerechtigkeit, zu schlichten den Streit, zu lindern das Leid; doch Ruhm- und Ehrsucht machten dich blind, sahst nicht dein eigen grosse Sünd. Drum fällt dir mein Ruf so schwer in den Sinn. - Halt an, Bischof, den Tanz beginn! Death: Emperor, you were the highest here, thus you shall dance next to me. Yours was the sword of justice, to settle disputes and alleviate suffering; but your obsession with fame and glory blinded you, you failed to see your own immense sinfulness. Hence my reputation is so difficult for you to comprehend. – Halt, Bishop, the dance begins! Dritter Spruch: Wann du willst gradeswegs ins ew'ge Leben gehn, so lass die Welt und dich zur linken Seite stehn! Third Aphorism: If you would enter directly into eternal life, leave the world and yourself by the wayside!
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Nov 29, 2024
Nov 29, 2024 at 6:03 AM UTC
michael-r-burch
German Poetry translations by Michael R. Burch
These are modern English translations of poems by the German poets Hermann Allmers, Hannah Arendt, Ingeborg Bachmann, Paul Celan, H. Distler, Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Günter Grass, Heinrich Heine, Johann Georg Jacobi, Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, Rainer Maria Rilke, Friedrich Schiller, Angelus Silesius and Georg Trakl. To the boy Elis by Georg Trakl, an Austrian poet who wrote in German loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Elis, when the blackbird cries from the black forest, it announces your downfall. Your lips sip the rock-spring's blue coolness. Your brow sweats blood recalling ancient myths and dark interpretations of birds' flight. Yet you enter the night with soft footfalls; the ripe purple grapes hang suspended as you wave your arms more beautifully in the blueness. A thornbush crackles; where now are your moonlike eyes? How long, oh Elis, have you been dead? A monk dips waxed fingers into your body's hyacinth; Our silence is a black abyss from which sometimes a docile animal emerges slowly lowering its heavy lids. A black dew drips from your temples: the lost gold of vanished stars. I believe that in the second stanza the blood on Elis's forehead may be a reference to the apprehensive ****** sweat of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. If my interpretation is correct, Elis hears the blackbird's cries, anticipates the danger represented by a harbinger of death, but elects to continue rather than turn back. From what I have been able to gather, the color blue had a special significance for Georg Trakl: it symbolized longing and perhaps a longing for death. The colors blue, purple and black may represent a progression toward death in the poem. Heinrich Heine The Seas Have Their Pearls by Heinrich Heine loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch The seas have their pearls, The heavens their stars; But my heart, my heart, My heart has its love! The seas and the sky are immense; Yet far greater still is my heart, And fairer than pearls and stars Are the radiant beams of my love. As for you, tender maiden, Come steal into my great heart; My heart, and the sea, and the heavens Are all melting away with love! Rainer Maria Rilke Rainer Maria Rilke [1875-1926] was a Bohemian-Austrian poet generally considered to be a major poet of the German language. He also wrote more than 400 poems in French. He was born René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke in Prague, then the capital of Bohemia and part of Austria-Hungary. During Rilke's early years his mother, who had lost a baby daughter, dressed him in girl's clothing. In 1895 and 1896, he studied literature, art history, and philosophy in Prague and Munich. In 1902 Rilke traveled to Paris to write about the sculptor Auguste Rodin. Rilke became deeply involved with the sculpture of Rodin and for a time served as Rodin's secretary. Under Rodin's influence Rilke transformed his poetic style from the subjective to the objective. His best-known poem, "Archaic Torso of Apollo," was written about a sculpture by Rodin and speaks about the life-transforming properties (and demands) of great art. Rilke allegedly died the most poetic of deaths, having been pricked by a rose. He was in ill health, the wound failed to heal, and he died as a result. Poems translated here include Herbsttag ("Autumn Day"), Der Panther ("The Panther"), Archaïscher Torso Apollos ("Archaic Torso of Apollo"), Komm, Du ("Come, You"), Das Lied des Bettlers ("The Beggar's Song"), Liebeslied ("Love Song"), and the First Elegy, also known as the First Duino Elegy. Archaischer Torso Apollos (“Archaic Torso of Apollo”) by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch We cannot know the beheaded god nor his eyes' forfeited visions. But still the figure's trunk glows with the strange vitality of a lamp lit from within, while his composed will emanates dynamism. Otherwise the firmly muscled abdomen could not beguile us, nor the centering ***** make us smile at the thought of their generative animus. Otherwise the stone might seem deficient, unworthy of the broad shoulders, of the groin projecting procreation's triangular spearhead upwards, unworthy of the living impulse blazing wildly within like an inchoate star—demanding our belief. You must change your life. TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: This is a poem about a major resolution: changing the very nature of one's life. While it is only my personal interpretation of the poem above, I believe Rilke was saying to himself: "I must change my life." Why? Perhaps because he wanted to be a real artist, and when confronted with real, dynamic, living and breathing art of Rodin, he realized that he had to inject similar vitality, energy and muscularity into his poetry. Michelangelo said that he saw the angel in a block of marble, then freed it. Perhaps Rilke had to find the dynamic image of Apollo, the God of Poetry, in his materials, which were paper, ink and his imagination.—Michael R. Burch Archaïscher Torso Apollos Wir kannten nicht sein unerhörtes Haupt, darin die Augenäpfel reiften. Aber sein Torso glüht noch wie ein Kandelaber, in dem sein Schauen, nur zurückgeschraubt, sich hält und glänzt. Sonst könnte nicht der Bug der Brust dich blenden, und im leisen Drehen der Lenden könnte nicht ein Lächeln gehen zu jener Mitte, die die Zeugung trug. Sonst stünde dieser Stein entstellt und kurz unter der Schultern durchsichtigem Sturz und flimmerte nicht so wie Raubtierfelle und bräche nicht aus allen seinen Rändern aus wie ein Stern: denn da ist keine Stelle, die dich nicht sieht. Du mußt dein Leben ändern. Herbsttag ("Autumn Day") by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Lord, it is time. Let the immense summer go. Lay your long shadows over the sundials and over the meadows, let the free winds blow. Command the late fruits to fatten and shine; O, grant them another Mediterranean hour! Urge them to completion, and with power convey final sweetness to the heavy wine. Who has no house now, never will build one. Who's alone now, shall continue alone; he'll wake, read, write long letters to friends, and pace the tree-lined pathways up and down, restlessly, as autumn leaves drift and descend. Herbsttag Herr: es ist Zeit. Der Sommer war sehr groß. Leg deinen Schatten auf die Sonnenuhren, und auf den Fluren laß die Winde los. Befiel den letzten Früchten voll zu sein; gib ihnen noch zwei südlichere Tage, dränge sie zur Vollendung hin und jage die letzte Süße in den schweren Wein. Wer jetzt kein Haus hat, baut sich keines mehr. Wer jetzt allein ist, wird es lange bleiben, wird wachen, lesen, lange Briefe schreiben und wird in den Alleen hin und her unruhig wandern, wenn die Blätter treiben. Du im Voraus (“You who never arrived”) by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch You who never arrived in my arms, my Belovéd, lost before love began... How can I possibly know which songs might please you? I have given up trying to envision you in portentous moments before the next wave impacts... when all the vastness and immenseness within me, all the far-off undiscovered lands and landscapes, all the cities, towers and bridges, all the unanticipated twists and turns in the road, and all those terrible terrains once traversed by strange gods— engender new meaning in me: your meaning, my enigmatic darling... You, who continually elude me. You, my Belovéd, who are every garden I ever gazed upon, longingly, through some country manor’s open window, so that you almost stepped out, pensively, to meet me; who are every sidestreet I ever chanced upon, even though you’d just traipsed tantalizingly away, and vanished, while the disconcerted shopkeepers’ mirrors still dizzily reflected your image, flashing you back at me, startled by my unwarranted image! Who knows, but perhaps the same songbird’s cry echoed through us both, yesterday, separate as we were, that evening? Du im Voraus Du im Voraus verlorne Geliebte, Nimmergekommene, nicht weiß ich, welche Töne dir lieb sind. Nicht mehr versuch ich, dich, wenn das Kommende wogt, zu erkennen. Alle die großen Bildern in mir, im Fernen erfahrene Landschaft, Städte und Türme und Brücken und un- vermutete Wendung der Wege und das Gewaltige jener von Göttern einst durchwachsenen Länder: steigt zur Bedeutung in mir deiner, Entgehende, an. Ach, die Gärten bist du, ach, ich sah sie mit solcher Hoffnung. Ein offenes Fenster im Landhaus—, und du tratest beinahe mir nachdenklich heran. Gassen fand ich,— du warst sie gerade gegangen, und die spiegel manchmal der Läden der Händler waren noch schwindlich von dir und gaben erschrocken mein zu plötzliches Bild.—Wer weiß, ob derselbe Vogel nicht hinklang durch uns gestern, einzeln, im Abend? Der Panther ("The Panther") by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch His weary vision's so overwhelmed by iron bars, his exhausted eyes see only blank Oblivion. His world is not our world. It has no stars. No light. Ten thousand bars. Nothing beyond. Lithe, swinging with a rhythmic easy stride, he circles, his small orbit tightening, an electron losing power. Paralyzed, soon regal Will stands stunned, an abject thing. Only at times the pupils' curtains rise silently, and then an image enters, descends through arrested shoulders, plunges, centers somewhere within his empty heart, and dies. Komm, Du (“Come, You”) by Ranier Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch This was Rilke’s last poem, written ten days before his death. He died open-eyed in the arms of his doctor on December 29, 1926, in the Valmont Sanatorium, of leukemia and its complications. I had a friend who died of leukemia and he was burning up with fever in the end. I believe that is what Rilke was describing here: he was literally burning alive. Come, you—the last one I acknowledge; return— incurable pain searing this physical mesh. As I burned in the spirit once, so now I burn with you; meanwhile, you consume my flesh. This wood that long resisted your embrace now nourishes you; I surrender to your fury as my gentleness mutates to hellish rage— uncaged, wild, primal, mindless, outré. Completely free, no longer future’s pawn, I clambered up this crazy pyre of pain, certain I’d never return—my heart’s reserves gone— to become death’s nameless victim, purged by flame. Now all I ever was must be denied. I left my memories of my past elsewhere. That life—my former life—remains outside. Inside, I’m lost. Nobody knows me here. Komm, Du Komm du, du letzter, den ich anerkenne, heilloser Schmerz im leiblichen Geweb: wie ich im Geiste brannte, sieh, ich brenne in dir; das Holz hat lange widerstrebt, der Flamme, die du loderst, zuzustimmen, nun aber nähr’ ich dich und brenn in dir. Mein hiesig Mildsein wird in deinem Grimmen ein Grimm der Hölle nicht von hier. Ganz rein, ganz planlos frei von Zukunft stieg ich auf des Leidens wirren Scheiterhaufen, so sicher nirgend Künftiges zu kaufen um dieses Herz, darin der Vorrat schwieg. Bin ich es noch, der da unkenntlich brennt? Erinnerungen reiß ich nicht herein. O Leben, Leben: Draußensein. Und ich in Lohe. Niemand der mich kennt. Liebes-Lied (“Love Song”) by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch How can I withhold my soul so that it doesn’t touch yours? How can I lift mine gently to higher things, alone? Oh, I would gladly find something lost in the dark in that inert space that fails to resonate until you vibrate. There everything that moves us, draws us together like a bow enticing two taut strings to sing together with a simultaneous voice. Whose instrument are we becoming together? Whose, the hands that excite us? Ah, sweet song! Liebes-Lied Wie soll ich meine Seele halten, daß sie nicht an deine rührt? Wie soll ich sie hinheben über dich zu andern Dingen? Ach gerne möcht ich sie bei irgendwas Verlorenem im Dunkel unterbringen an einer fremden stillen Stelle, die nicht weiterschwingt, wenn deine Tiefen schwingen. Doch alles, was uns anrührt, dich und mich, nimmt uns zusammen wie ein Bogenstrich, der aus zwei Saiten eine Stimme zieht. Auf welches Instrument sind wir gespannt? Und welcher Geiger hat uns in der Hand? O süßes Lied. Das Lied des Bettlers (“The Beggar’s Song”) by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I live outside your gates, exposed to the rain, exposed to the sun; sometimes I’ll cradle my right ear in my right palm; then when I speak my voice sounds strange, alien ... I'm unsure whose voice I’m hearing: mine or yours. I implore a trifle; the poets cry for more. Sometimes I cover both eyes and my face disappears; there it lies heavy in my hands looking peaceful, instead, so that no one would ever think I have no place to lay my head. Translator's note: I believe the last line may be a reference to a statement made by Jesus Christ in the gospels: that foxes have their dens, but he had no place to lay his head. Rilke may also have had in mind Jesus saying that what someone does "to the least of these" they would also be doing to him. Das Lied des Bettlers Ich gehe immer von Tor zu Tor, verregnet und verbrannt; auf einmal leg ich mein rechtes Ohr in meine rechte Hand. Dann kommt mir meine Stimme vor, als hätt ich sie nie gekannt. Dann weiß ich nicht sicher, wer da schreit, ich oder irgendwer. Ich schreie um eine Kleinigkeit. Die Dichter schrein um mehr. Und endlich mach ich noch mein Gesicht mit beiden Augen zu; wie's dann in der Hand liegt mit seinem Gewicht sieht es fast aus wie Ruh. Damit sie nicht meinen ich hätte nicht, wohin ich mein Haupt tu. This is my translation of the first of Rilke’s Duino Elegies. Rilke began the first Duino Elegy in 1912, as a guest of Princess Marie von Thurn und Taxis, at Duino Castle, near Trieste on the Adriatic Sea. First Elegy by Ranier Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Who, if I objected, would hear me among the angelic orders? For if the least One pressed me intimately against its breast, I would be lost in its infinite Immensity! Because beauty, which we mortals can barely endure, is the beginning of terror; we stand awed when it benignly declines to annihilate us. Every Angel is terrifying! And so I restrain myself, swallowing the sound of my pitiful sobbing. For whom may we turn to, in our desire? Not to Angels, nor to men, and already the sentient animals are aware that we are all aliens in this metaphorical existence. Perhaps some tree still stands on a hillside, which we can study with our ordinary vision. Perhaps the commonplace street still remains amid man’s fealty to materiality— the concrete items that never destabilize. Oh, and of course there is the night: her dark currents caress our faces ... But whom, then, do we live for? That longed-for but mildly disappointing presence the lonely heart so desperately desires? Is life any less difficult for lovers? They only use each other to avoid their appointed fates! How can you fail to comprehend? Fling your arms’ emptiness into this space we occupy and inhale: may birds fill the expanded air with more intimate flying! Yes, the springtime still requires you. Perpetually a star waits for you to recognize it. A wave recedes toward you from the distant past, or as you walk beneath an open window, a violin yields virginally to your ears. All this was preordained. But how can you incorporate it? ... Weren't you always distracted by expectations, as if every event presaged some new beloved? (Where can you harbor, when all these enormous strange thoughts surging within you keep you up all night, restlessly rising and falling?) When you are full of yearning, sing of loving women, because their passions are finite; sing of forsaken women (and how you almost envy them) because they could love you more purely than the ones you left gratified. Resume the unattainable exaltation; remember: the hero survives; even his demise was merely a stepping stone toward his latest rebirth. But spent and exhausted Nature withdraws lovers back into herself, as if lacking the energy to recreate them. Have you remembered Gaspara Stampa with sufficient focus— how any abandoned girl might be inspired by her fierce example and might ask herself, "How can I be like her?" Shouldn't these ancient sufferings become fruitful for us? Shouldn’t we free ourselves from the beloved, quivering, as the arrow endures the bowstring's tension, so that in the snap of release it soars beyond itself? For there is nowhere else where we can remain. Voices! Voices! Listen, heart, as levitating saints once listened, until the elevating call soared them heavenward; and yet they continued kneeling, unaware, so complete was their concentration. Not that you could endure God's voice—far from it! But heed the wind’s voice and the ceaseless formless message of silence: It murmurs now of the martyred young. Whenever you attended a church in Naples or Rome, didn't they come quietly to address you? And didn’t an exalted inscription impress its mission upon you recently, on the plaque in Santa Maria Formosa? What they require of me is that I gently remove any appearance of injustice— which at times slightly hinders their souls from advancing. Of course, it is endlessly strange to no longer inhabit the earth; to relinquish customs one barely had the time to acquire; not to see in roses and other tokens a hopeful human future; no longer to be oneself, cradled in infinitely caring hands; to set aside even one's own name, forgotten as easily as a child’s broken plaything. How strange to no longer desire one's desires! How strange to see meanings no longer cohere, drifting off into space. Dying is difficult and requires retrieval before one can gradually decipher eternity. The living all err in believing the too-sharp distinctions they create themselves. Angels (men say) don't know whether they move among the living or the dead. The eternal current merges all ages in its maelstrom until the voices of both realms are drowned out in its thunderous roar. In the end, the early-departed no longer need us: they are weaned gently from earth's agonies and ecstasies, as children outgrow their mothers’ ******* But we, who need such immense mysteries, and for whom grief is so often the source of our spirit's progress— how can we exist without them? Is the legend of the lament for Linos meaningless— the daring first notes of the song pierce our apathy; then, in the interlude, when the youth, lovely as a god, has suddenly departed forever, we experience the emptiness of the Void for the first time— that harmony which now enraptures and comforts and aids us? Second Elegy by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Every angel is terrifying. And yet, alas, I invoke you, one of the soul’s lethal raptors, well aware of your nature. As in the days of Tobias, when one of you, obscuring his radiance, stood at the simple threshold, appearing ordinary rather than appalling while the curious youth peered through the window. But if the Archangel emerged today, perilous, from beyond the stars and took even one step toward us, our hammering hearts would pound us to death. What are you? Who are you? Joyous from the beginning; God’s early successes; Creation’s favorites; creatures of the heights; pollen of the flowering godhead; cusps of pure light; stately corridors; rising stairways; exalted thrones; filling space with your pure essence; crests of rapture; shields of ecstasy; storms of tumultuous emotions whipped into whirlwinds ... until one, acting alone, recreates itself by mirroring the beauty of its own countenance. While we, when deeply moved, evaporate; we exhale ourselves and fade away, growing faint like smoldering embers; we drift away like the scent of smoke. And while someone might say: “You’re in my blood! You occupy this room! You fill this entire springtime!” ... Still, what becomes of us? We cannot be contained; we vanish whether inside or out. And even the loveliest, who can retain them? Resemblance ceaselessly rises, then is gone, like dew from dawn’s grasses. And what is ours drifts away, like warmth from a steaming dish. O smile, where are you bound? O heavenward glance: are you a receding heat wave, a ripple of the heart? Alas, but is this not what we are? Does the cosmos we dissolve into savor us? Do the angels reabsorb only the radiance they emitted themselves, or sometimes, perhaps by oversight, traces of our being as well? Are we included in their features, as obscure as the vague looks on the faces of pregnant women? Do they notice us at all (how could they) as they reform themselves? Lovers, if they only knew how, might mutter marvelous curses into the night air. For it seems everything eludes us. See: the trees really do exist; our houses stand solid and firm. And yet we drift away, like weightless sighs. And all creation conspires to remain silent about us: perhaps from shame, perhaps some inexpressible hope? Lovers, gratified by each other, I ask to you consider: You cling to each other, but where is your proof of a connection? Sometimes my hands become aware of each other and my time-worn, exhausted face takes shelter in them, creating a slight sensation. But because of that, can I still claim to be? You, the ones who writhe with each other’s passions until, overwhelmed, someone begs: “No more!...”; You who swell beneath each other’s hands like autumn grapes; You, the one who dwindles as the other increases: I ask you to consider ... I know you touch each other so ardently because each caress preserves pure continuance, like the promise of eternity, because the flesh touched does not disappear. And yet, when you have survived the terror of initial intimacy, the first lonely vigil at the window, the first walk together through the blossoming garden: lovers, do you not still remain who you were before? If you lift your lips to each other’s and unite, potion to potion, still how strangely each drinker eludes the magic. Weren’t you confounded by the cautious human gestures on Attic gravestones? Weren’t love and farewell laid so lightly on shoulders they seemed composed of some ethereal substance unknown to us today? Consider those hands, how weightlessly they rested, despite the powerful torsos. The ancient masters knew: “We can only go so far, in touching each other. The gods can exert more force. But that is their affair.” If only we, too, could discover such a pure, contained Eden for humanity, our own fruitful strip of soil between river and rock. For our hearts have always exceeded us, as our ancestors’ did. And we can no longer trust our own eyes, when gazing at godlike bodies, our hearts find a greater repose. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Excerpt from “To the Moon” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe loose translations/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Scattered, pole to starry pole, glide Cynthia's mild beams, whispering to the receptive soul whatever moonbeams mean. Bathing valley, hill and dale with her softening light, loosening from earth’s frigid chains my restless heart tonight! Over the landscape, near and far, broods darkly glowering night; yet welcoming as Friendship’s eye, she, soft!, bequeaths her light. Touched in turn by joy and pain, my startled heart responds, then floats, as Whimsy paints each scene, to soar with her, beyond... I mean Whimsy in the sense of both the Romantic Imagination and caprice. Here, I have the idea of Peter Pan flying off with Tinker Bell to Neverland. My translation was informed by a translation by John S. Dwight. Der Erlkönig (“The Elf King”) by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe loose translations/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Who rides tonight with the wind so wild? A loving father, holding his child. Please say the boy’s safe from all evil and harm! He rests secure in his dear father’s arms. My son, my son, what’s that look on your face? Father, he’s there, in that dark, scary place! The elfin king! With his dagger and crown! Son, it’s only the mist, there’s no need to frown. My dear little boy, you must come play with me! Such marvelous games! We’ll play and be free! Many bright flowers we'll gather together! Son, why are you wincing? It’s only the weather. Father, O father, how could you not hear What the elfin king said to me, drawing so near? Be quiet, my son, and pay “him” no heed: It was only the wind gusts stirring the trees. Come with me now, you're a fine little lad! My daughters will kiss you, then you’ll be glad! My daughters will teach you to dance and to sing! They’ll call you a prince and give you a ring! Father, please look, in the gloom, don’t you see The dark elfin daughters keep beckoning me? My son, all I can see and all I can say Is the wind makes the grey willows sway. Why stay with your father? He’s deaf, blind and dumb! If you’re unwilling I’ll force you to come! Father, he’s got me and won’t let me go! The cruel elfin king is hurting me so! At last struck with horror his father looks down: His gasping son’s holding a strange golden crown! Then homeward through darkness, all the faster he sped, But cold in his arms, his dear child lay dead. The Fisher by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch The river swirled and rippled; nearby an angler lay, and watched his lure with a careless eye, like any other day. But as he watched in a strange half-dream, he saw the waters part, and from the river’s depths emerged a maiden, or a **** A Lorelei, she sang to him her strange, bewitching song: “Which of my sisters would you snare, with your human hands, so strong? To make us die in scorching air, ripped from our land, so clear! Why not leave your arid land And rest forever here?” “The sun and lady-moon, they lave their tresses in the main, and find such cleansing in each wave, they return twice bright again. These deep-blue waters, fresh and clear, O, feel their strong allure! Wouldn’t you rather sink and drown into our land, so pure?” The water swirled and bubbled up; it lapped his naked feet; he imagined that he felt the touch of the siren’s kisses sweet. She sang to him of mysteries in her soft, resistless strain, till he sank into the water and never was seen again. My translation was informed by a translation by William Edmondstoune Aytoun and Theodore Martin. Kennst du das Land (“Do You Know the Land”) by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Do you know of the land where the bright lemons bloom? Where the orange glows gold in the occult gloom? Where the gentlest winds fan the palest blue skies? Where the myrtles and laurels elegantly rise? Excerpt from “Hassan Aga” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch What whiteness shimmers, distant on the lea? Could it be snow? Or is it swans we see? Snow? Melted with a recent balmy day. Swans? All departed, long since flown away. Neither snow, nor swans! What can it be? The tent of Hassan Aga, shining! There the wounded warrior lies, repining. His mother and sisters to his side have come, But his shame-faced wife weeps for herself, at home. Excerpt from “The Song of the Spirits over the Waters” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Wind is water's amorous pursuer: the Wind, upswept, heaves waves from their depths. And you, mortal soul, how you resemble water! And a mortal’s Fate, how alike the wind! My translation was informed by a translation by John S. Dwight. Excerpt from “One and All” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch How the solitary soul yearns to merge into the Infinite and find itself once more at peace. Rid of blind desire & the impatient will, our restless thoughts and plans are stilled. We yield our Selves, then awake in bliss. My translation was informed by a translation by John S. Dwight. Prometheus by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch obscure Your heavens, Zeus, with a nebulous haze! and, like boys beheading thistles, decapitate oaks and alps. yet leave me the earth with its rude dwellings and my hut You didn’t build. also my hearth, whose cheerful glow You envy. i know nothing more pitiful under the sun than these vampiric godlings! undernourished with insufficient sacrifices and airy prayers! my poor Majesty, if not for a few fools' hopes, those of children and beggars, You would starve! when i was a child, i didn't know up from down, and my eye strayed erratically toward the sun strobing high above, as if the heavens had ears to hear my lamentations, and a heart like mine, to feel pity for the oppressed. who assisted me when i stood alone against the Titans' insolence? who saved me from slavery, or, otherwise, from death? didn’t you handle everything yourself, my radiant heart? how you shone then, so innocent and holy, even though deceived and expressing thanks to a listless Entity above. revere you, zeus? for what? when did u ever ease my afflictions, or those of the oppressed? when did u ever stanch the tears of the anguished, the fears of the frightened? didn’t omnipotent Time and eternal Fate forge my manhood? my masters and urs likewise? u were deluded if u thought I would hate life or flee into faraway deserts, just because so few of my boyish dreams blossomed. now here I sit, fashioning Humans in My own Image, creating a Race like Myself, who, for all Their suffering and weeping, for all Their happiness and rejoicing, in the end shall pay u no heed, like Me! Nähe des Geliebten (“Near His Beloved”) by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I think of you when the sun shines softly on me; also when the moon silvers each tree. I see you in the spirit the shimmering dust resembles; also at the stroke of twelve when the night watchman trembles. I hear you in the sighing of the restless, surging seas; also in the quiet groves when everything’s at peace. I am with you, though so far! Yet I know you’re always near. Oh what I'd yield, as sun to star, to have you here! Ich denke dein, wenn mir der Sonne Schimmer Vom Meere strahlt; Ich denke dein, wenn sich des Mondes Flimmer In Quellen malt. Ich sehe dich, wenn auf dem fernen Wege Der Staub sich hebt; In tiefer Nacht, wenn auf dem schmalen Stege Der Wandrer bebt. Ich höre dich, wenn dort mit dumpfem Rauschen Die Welle steigt. Im stillen Haine geh ich oft zu lauschen, Wenn alles schweigt. Ich bin bei dir, du seist auch noch so ferne. Du bist mir nah! Die Sonne sinkt, bald leuchten mir die Sterne. O wärst du da! Gefunden (“Found”) by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Into the woodlands, alone, I went. Seeking nothing, my sole intent. But I saw a flower deep in the shade gleaming like starlight in a still glade. I reached down to pluck it when it shyly asked: “Why would you snap me so cruelly in half?” So I dug up the flower, by the roots and all, then planted it gently by the garden wall. Now in a dark corner where I planted the flower, it blooms just as brightly to this very hour. Ich ging im Walde So für mich hin, Und nichts zu suchen, Das war mein Sinn. Im Schatten sah ich Ein Blümchen stehn, Wie Sterne leuchtend Wie Äuglein schön. Ich wollt es brechen, Da sagt' es fein: Soll ich zum Welken, Gebrochen sein? Ich grubs mit allen Den Würzeln aus, Zum Garten trug ichs Am hübschen Haus. Und pflanzt es wieder Am stillen Ort; Nun zweigt es immer Und blüht so fort. Wandrers Nachtlied (“Wanderer’s Night Song”) by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch 1. From the hilltops comes peace; through the treetops scarcely the wind breathes. Do you feel the lassitude touch you? The little birds grow silent in the forest. Wait, soon you’ll rest too. 2. From the distant hilltops comes peaceful repose; through the swaying treetops a calming wind blows. Do you feel the lassitude touch you? The birds grow silent in the forest. Wait, soon you’ll rest too. Über allen Gipfeln ist Ruh’ in allen Wipfeln spürest du kaum einen Hauch. Die Vögelein schweigen im Walde. Warte, nur balde ruhest du auch. Wandrers Nachtlied (“Wanderer’s Night Song”) by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch 1. You who descend from heaven, calming all suffering and pain, the one who doubly refreshes those who are doubly disconsolate; I’m so weary of useless contention! Why all this pain and lust? Sweet peace descending, Come, oh, come into my breast! 2. You who descend from heaven, calming all suffering and pain, the one who doubly refreshes those who are doubly disconsolate; I’m so **** tired of this muddle! What’s the point of all this pain and lust? Sweet peace, Come, oh, come into my breast! Der du von dem Himmel bist, Alles Leid und Schmerzen stillest, Den, der doppelt elend ist, Doppelt mit Erquickung füllest, Ach, ich bin des Treibens müde! Was soll all der Schmerz und Lust? Süßer Friede, Komm, ach komm in meine Brust! ON LOOKING AT SCHILLER’S SKULL by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Here in this charnel-house full of bleaching bones, like yesteryear’s fading souvenirs, I see the skulls arranged in strange ordered rows. Who knows whose owners might have beheaded peers, packed tightly here despite once repellent hate? Here weaponless, they stand, in this gentled state. These arms and hands, they once were so delicate! How articulately they moved! Ah me! What athletes once paced about on these padded feet? Still there’s no hope of rest for you, lost souls! Deprived of graves, forced here like slaves to occupy this overworld, unlamented ghouls! Now who’s to know who loved one orb here detained? Except for me; reader, hear my plea: I know the grandeur of the mind it contained! Yes, and I know the impulse true love would stir here, where I stand in this alien land surrounded by these husks, like a treasurer! Even in this cold, in this dust and mould I am startled by a strange, ancient reverie, ... as if this shrine to death could quicken me! One shape out of the past keeps calling me with its mystery! Still retaining its former angelic grace! And at that ecstatic sight, I am back at sea ... Swept by that current to where immortals race. O secret vessel, you gave Life its truth. It falls on me now to recall your expressive face. I turn away, abashed here by what I see: this mould was worth more than all the earth. Let me breathe fresh air and let my wild thoughts run free! What is there better in this dark Life than he who gives us a sense of man’s divinity, of his place in the universe? A man who’s both flesh and spirit—living verse! To The Muse by Friedrich Schiller loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I do not know what I would be, without you, gentle Muse!, but I’m sick at heart to see those who disabuse. GOETHE & SCHILLER XENIA EPIGRAMS She says an epigram’s too terse to reveal her tender heart in verse … but really, darling, ain’t the thrill of a kiss much shorter still? ―#2 from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch There are more translations of the Xenia epigrams of Goethe and Schiller later on this page. Through the fields of solitude by Hermann Allmers set to music by Johannes Brahms translation by David B. Gosselin with Michael R. Burch Peacefully, I rest in the tall green grass For a long time only gazing as I lie, Caught in the endless hymn of crickets, And encircled by a wonderful blue sky. And the lovely white clouds floating across The depths of the heavens are like silky lace; I feel as though my soul has long since fled, Softly drifting with them through eternal space. This poem was set to music by the German composer Johannes Brahms in what has been called its “the most sublime incarnation.” A celebrated recording of the song was made in 1958 by the baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau with Jörg Demus accompanying him on the piano. Hannah Arendt was a Jewish-German philosopher and Holocaust survivor who also wrote poetry. H.B. for Hermann Broch by Hannah Arendt loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Survival. But how does one live without the dead? Where is the sound of their lost company? Where now, their companionable embraces? We wish they were still with us. We are left with the cry that ripped them away from us. Left with the veil that shrouds their empty gazes. What avails? That we commit ourselves to their memories, and through this commitment, learn to survive. I Love the Earth by Hannah Arendt loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I love the earth like a trip to a foreign land and not otherwise. Even so life spins me on its loom softly into never-before-seen patterns. Until suddenly like the last farewells of a new journey, the great silence breaks the frame. Bertolt Brecht fled **** Germany along with Albert Einstein, Thomas Mann and many other German intellectuals. So he was writing from bitter real-life experience. The Burning of the Books by Bertolt Brecht, a German poet loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch When the Regime commanded the unlawful books to be burned, teams of dull oxen hauled huge cartloads to the bonfires. Then a banished writer, one of the best, scanning the list of excommunicated texts, became enraged — he'd been excluded! He rushed to his desk, full of contemptuous wrath, to write fiery letters to the incompetents in power — Burn me! he wrote with his blazing pen — Haven't I always reported the truth? Now here you are, treating me like a liar! Burn me! Parting by Bertolt Brecht loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch We embrace; my fingers trace rich cloth while yours encounter only moth- eaten fabric. A quick hug: you were invited to the gay soiree while the minions of the "law" relentlessly pursue me. We talk about the weather and our eternal friendship's magic. Anything else would be too bitter, too tragic. The Mask of Evil by Bertolt Brecht loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch A Japanese carving hangs on my wall — the mask of an ancient demon, limned with golden lacquer. Not altogether unsympathetically, I observe the bulging veins of its forehead, noting the grotesque effort it takes to be evil. Radio Poem by Bertolt Brecht loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch You, little box, held tightly to me, escaping, so that your delicate tubes do not break; carried from house to house, from ship to train, so that my enemies may continue communicating with me on land and at sea and even in my bed, to my pain; the last thing I hear at night, the first when I awake, recounting their many conquests and my litany of cares, promise me not to go silent all of a sudden, unawares. These are three English translations of Holocaust poems written in German by the Jewish poet Paul Celan. The first poem, "Todesfuge" in the original German, is one of the most famous Holocaust poems, with its haunting refrain of a German "master of death" killing Jews by day and writing "Your golden hair Margarete" by starlight. The poem demonstrates how terrible things can become when one human being is granted absolute power over other human beings. Paul Celan was the pseudonym of Paul Antschel. (Celan is an anagram of Ancel, the Romanian form of his surname.) Celan was born in Czernovitz, Romania in 1920. The son of German-speaking Jews, Celan spoke German, Romanian, Russian, French and understood Yiddish. During the Holocaust, his parents were deported and eventually died in **** labor camps; Celan spent eighteen months in a **** concentration camp before escaping. Todesfuge ("Death Fugue") by Paul Celan loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Black milk of daybreak, we drink it come morning; we drink it come midday; we drink it, come night; we drink it and drink it. We are digging a grave like a hole in the sky; there's sufficient room to lie there. The man of the house plays with vipers; he writes in the Teutonic darkness, "Your golden hair Margarete …" He writes poems by the stars, whistles hounds to stand by, whistles Jews to dig graves, where together they'll lie. He commands us to strike up bright tunes for the dance! Black milk of daybreak, we drink you each morning; we drink you at midday; we drink you at night; we drink you and drink you. The man of the house plays with serpents, he writes … he writes when the night falls, "Your golden hair Margarete … Your ashen hair Shulamith …" We are digging dark graves where there's more room, on high. His screams, "You dig there!" and "Hey you, dance and sing!" He grabs his black nightstick, his eyes pallid blue, cries, "Hey you, dig more deeply! You others, keep dancing!" Black milk of daybreak, we drink you each morning; we drink you at midday, we drink you at night; we drink you and drink you. The man of the house writes, "Your golden hair Margarete … Your ashen hair Shulamith." He toys with our lives. He screams, "Play for me! Death's a master of Germany!" His screams, "Stroke dark strings, soon like black smoke you'll rise to a grave in the clouds; there's sufficient room for Jews there!" Black milk of daybreak, we drink you at midnight; we drink you at noon; Death's the master of Germany! We drink you come evening; we drink you and drink you … a master of Deutschland, with eyes deathly blue. With bullets of lead our pale master will ****** you! He writes when the night falls, "Your golden hair Margarete …" He unleashes his hounds, grants us graves in the skies. He plays with his serpents; he's a master of Germany … your golden hair Margarete … your ashen hair Shulamith. O, Little Root of a Dream by Paul Celan loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch O, little root of a dream you enmire me here; I'm undermined by blood — no longer seen, enslaved by death. Touch the curve of my face, that there may yet be an earthly language of ardor, that someone else's eyes may see yet see me, though I'm blind, here where you deny me voice. You Were My Death by Paul Celan loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch You were my death; I could hold you when everything abandoned me — even breath. “To Young” for Edward Young, the poet who wrote “Night Thoughts” by Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock (1724–1803) loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Die, aged prophet: your crowning work your fulcrum; now tears of joy tremble on angel-lids as heaven extends its welcome. Why linger here? Have you not already built, great Mover, a monument beyond the clouds? Now over your night-thoughts, too, the pallid free-thinkers hover, feeling there's prophecy amid your song as it warns of the dead-awakening trump, of the coming final doom, and heaven’s eternal wisdom. Die: you have taught me Death’s dread name, elide, bears notes of joy to the ears of the just! Yet remain my teacher still, become my genius and guide. My translation was informed by a translation by William Taylor. Excerpts from “The Choirs” by Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock (1724–1803) loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Dear Dream, which I must never behold fulfilled, pale diaphanous Mist, yet brighter than orient day!, float back to me, and hover yet again before my swimming sight! Do they wear crowns in vain, those who forbear to recognize your heavenly portraiture? Must they be encased in marble, one and all, ere the transfiguration be wrought? Yes! For would the grave allow, I’d always sing with inspiration stringing the lyre,— amid your Vision’s tidal joy, my pledge for loftier verse. Great is your power, my Desire! Few have ever known how it feels to melt in bliss; fewer still have ever felt devotion’s raptures rise on sacred Music’s wing! Few have trembled with joy as adoring choirs mingled their hallowed songs of heartfelt praise (punctuated by each awe-full pause) with unseen choirs above! On each arched eyelash, on each burning cheek, the fledgling tear quivers; for they imagine the goal,— each shimmering golden crown where angels wave their palms. Deep, strong, the song seizes swelling hearts, never scorning the tears it imbues, whether shrouding souls in gloom or steeping them in holy awe. Borne on the deep, slow sounds, now holy awe descends. Myriad voices sweep the assembly, blending their choral force,— their theme, Impending Doom! Joy, Joy! They can scarcely bear it! The organ’s thunder roundly rolls,— louder and louder, to the congregations’ cries, till the temple also trembles. Enough! I sink! The wave of worshipers bows before the altar,—bows low to the earth; they taste the communal cup, then drink devoutly, deeply, still. One day, when my bones rest beside this church as the assembled worshipers sing their songs of praise, the conscious grave shall acknowledge their vision with heaves of sweet flowerets in bloom. And on that morning, ringing through the rocks, as hymns are sung in praise, O, joyous tune!, I’ll hear—“He rose again!” Vibrating through my tomb. My translation was informed by a translation by William Taylor. A Lonely Cot by Johann Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim (1719-1803) loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch A lonely cot is all I own: it stands on grass that’s never mown beside a brook (it’s passing small), near where bright frothing fountains fall. Here a spreading beech lifts up its head and half conceals my humble shed: from winter winds my sole retreat and refuge from the summer’s heat. In the beech’s boughs the nightingale sweetly sings her plaintive tale: so sweetly, passing rustics stray with loitering steps to catch her lay! Sweet blue-eyed maid with hair so fair, my heart's desire! my fondest care! I hurry home—How late the hour! Come share, sweet maid, my sheltering bower! Excerpts from “Song” by Johann Georg Jacobi loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Friend, tell me where the violet fled, so lately gaily blowing? That once perfumed fair Flora’s tread, its choicest scents bestowing? Swain, give up verse and hang your head: the violet lies dead! Friend, what became of the blushing rose, the pride of the blossoming morning? The garland every groom bestows upon his blushing darling? Swain, give up verse and hang your head: the rose lies dead! And say, what of the village maid, so late my cot adorning? The one I assayed in our secret glade, as pale and fair as the morning? Swain, give up verse and hang your head: the erstwhile maid lies dead! Friend, what became of the gentle swain who sang, in rural measures, of the lovely violet, blushing rose, and girls like exotic treasures? Maid, close his book and hang your head: the swain lies dead! Dunkles zu sagen (“Expressing the Dark”) by Ingeborg Bachmann, an Austrian poet loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I strum the strings of life and death like Orpheus and in the beauty of the earth and in your eyes that instruct the sky, I find only dark things to say. Untitled The dark shadow I followed from the beginning led me into the deep barrenness of winter. —Ingeborg Bachmann, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller #2 - Love Poetry She says an epigram’s too terse to reveal her tender heart in verse ... but really, darling, ain’t the thrill of a kiss much shorter still? ―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch #5 - Criticism Why don’t I openly criticize the man? Because he’s a friend; thus I reproach him in silence, as I do my own heart. ―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch #11 - Holiness What is holiest? This heart-felt love binding spirits together, now and forever. ―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch #12 - Love versus Desire You love what you have, and desire what you lack because a rich nature expands, while a poor one contracts. ―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch #19 - Nymph and Satyr As shy as the trembling doe your horn frightens from the woods, she flees the huntsman, fainting, uncertain of love. ―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch #20 - Desire What stirs the virgin’s heaving ******* to sighs? What causes your bold gaze to brim with tears? ―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch #23 - The Apex I Everywhere women yield to men, but only at the apex do the manliest men surrender to femininity. ―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch #24 - The Apex II What do we mean by the highest? The crystalline clarity of triumph as it shines from the brow of a woman, from the brow of a goddess. ―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch #25 -Human Life Young sailors brave the sea beneath ten thousand sails while old men drift ashore on any bark that avails. ―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch #35 - Dead Ahead What’s the hardest thing of all to do? To see clearly with your own eyes what’s ahead of you. ―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch #36 - Unexpected Consequence Friends, before you utter the deepest, starkest truth, please pause, because straight away people will blame you for its cause. ―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch #41 - Earth vs. Heaven By doing good, you nurture humanity; but by creating beauty, you scatter the seeds of divinity. ―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Unholy Trinity by Angelus Silesius loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Man has three enemies: himself, the world, and the devil. Of these the first is, by far, the most irresistible evil. True Wealth by Angelus Silesius loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch There is more to being rich than merely having; the wealthiest man can lose everything not worth saving. The Rose by Angelus Silesius loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch The rose merely blossoms and never asks why: heedless of her beauty, careless of every eye. The Rose by Angelus Silesius loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch The rose lack "reasons" and merely sways with the seasons; she has no ego but whoever put on such a show? Eternal Time by Angelus Silesius loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Eternity is time, time eternity, except when we are determined to "see." Visions by Angelus Silesius loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Our souls possess two eyes: one examines time, the other visions eternal and sublime. Godless by Angelus Silesius loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch God is absolute Nothingness beyond our sense of time and place; the more we try to grasp Him, The more He flees from our embrace. The Source by Angelus Silesius loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Water is pure and clean when taken at the well-head: but drink too far from the Source and you may well end up dead. Ceaseless Peace by Angelus Silesius loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Unceasingly you seek life's ceaseless wavelike motion; I seek perpetual peace, all storms calmed. Whose is the wiser notion? Well Written by Angelus Silesius loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Friend, cease! Abandon all pretense! You must yourself become the Writing and the Sense. Worm Food by Angelus Silesius loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch No worm is buried so deep within the soil that God denies it food as reward for its toil. Mature Love by Angelus Silesius loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch New love, like a sparkling wine, soon fizzes. Mature love, calm and serene, abides. God's Predicament by Angelus Silesius loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch God cannot condemn those with whom he would dwell, or He would have to join them in hell! Clods by Angelus Silesius loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch A ruby is not lovelier than a dirt clod, nor an angel more glorious than a frog. Günter Grass Günter Wilhelm Grass (1927-) is a German-Kashubian novelist, poet, playwright, illustrator, graphic artist, sculptor and recipient of the 1999 Nobel Prize in Literature. He is widely regarded as Germany's most famous living writer. Grass is best known for his first novel, The Tin Drum (1959), a key text in European magic realism. The Tin Drum was adapted into a film that won both the Palme d'Or and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. The Swedish Academy, upon awarding Grass the Nobel Prize in Literature, noted him as a writer "whose frolicsome black fables portray the forgotten face of history." “Was gesagt werden muss” (“What must be said”) by Günter Grass loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Why have I remained silent, so long, failing to mention something openly practiced in war games which now threaten to leave us merely meaningless footnotes? Someone’s alleged “right” to strike first might annihilate a beleaguered nation whose people march to a martinet’s tune, compelled to pageants of orchestrated obedience. Why? Merely because of the suspicion that a bomb might be built by Iranians. But why do I hesitate, forbidding myself to name that other nation, where, for years —shrouded in secrecy— a formidable nuclear capability has existed beyond all control, simply because no inspections were ever allowed? The universal concealment of this fact abetted by my own incriminating silence now feels like a heavy, enforced lie, an oppressive inhibition, a vice, a strong constraint, which, if dismissed, immediately incurs the verdict “anti-Semitism.” But now my own country, guilty of its unprecedented crimes which continually demand remembrance, once again seeking financial gain (although with glib lips we call it “reparations”) has delivered yet another submarine to Israel— this one designed to deliver annihilating warheads capable of exterminating all life where the existence of even a single nuclear weapon remains unproven, but where suspicion now serves as a substitute for evidence. So now I will say what must be said. Why did I remain silent so long? Because I thought my origins, tarred by an ineradicable stain, forbade me to declare the truth to Israel, a country to which I am and will always remain attached. Why is it only now that I say, in my advancing age, and with my last drop of ink on the final page that Israel’s nuclear weapons endanger an already fragile world peace? Because tomorrow might be too late, and so the truth must be heard today. And because we Germans, already burdened with many weighty crimes, could become enablers of yet another, one easily foreseen, and thus no excuse could ever erase our complicity. Furthermore, I’ve broken my silence because I’m sick of the West’s hypocrisy and because I hope many others too will free themselves from the shackles of silence, and speak out to renounce violence by insisting on permanent supervision of Israel’s atomic power and Iran’s by an international agency accepted by both governments. Only thus can we find the path to peace for Israelis and Palestinians and everyone else living in a region currently consumed by madness —and ultimately, for ourselves. Published in Süddeutschen Zeitung (April 4, 2012) “Totentanz” by H. Distler loose translation/ interpretation by Michael R. Burch Erster Spruch: Lass alles, was du hast, auf dass du alles nehmst! Verschmäh die Welt, dass du sie tausendfach bekömmst! Im Himmel ist der Tag, im Abgrund ist die Nacht. Hier ist die Dämmerung: Wohl dem, der's recht betracht! First Aphorism: Leave everything, that you may take all! Scorn the world, that you may receive it a thousandfold! In the heavens it is day, in the abyss it is night. Here it is twilight: Blessed is the one who comprehends! First Aphorism: Leave everything, that you may take all! Scorn the world, seize it like a great ball! In the heavens it is day, in the abyss, night. Understand if you can: Here it is twilight! Der Tod: Zum Tanz, zum Tanze reiht euch ein: Kaiser, Bischof, Bürger, Bauer, arm und ***** und gross und klein, heran zu mir! Hilft keine Trauer. Wohl dem, der rechter Zeit bedacht, viel gute Werk vor sich zu bringen, der seiner Sünd sich losgemacht - Heut heisst's: Nach meiner Pfeife springen! Death: To the dance, to the dance, take your places: emperor, bishop, townsman, farmer, poor and rich, big and small, come to me! Grief helps nothing. Blessed is the one who deems the time right to do many good deeds, to rid himself of his sins – Today you must dance to my tune! Zweiter Spruch: Mensch, die Figur der Welt vergehet mit der Zeit. Was trotz'st du dann so viel auf ihre Herrlichkeit? Second Aphorism: Man, the world’s figure decays with time. Why do you go on so much about her glory? Der Kaiser: O Tod, dein jäh Erscheinen friert mir das Mark in den Gebeinen. Mussten Könige, Fürsten, Herren sich vor mir neigen und mich ehren, dass ich nun soll ohn Gnade werden gleichwie du, Tod, ein Schleim der Erden? Der ich den Menschen Haupt und Schirmer - du machst aus mir ein Speis' der Würmer. Emperor: Oh Death, your sudden appearance freezes the marrow in my bones. Did kings, princes and gentlemen bow down before me and honor me, that I should I become, without mercy, just like you, Death, slime of the earth? I was my people’s leader and protector – you made me a meal for worms. Der Tod: Herr Kaiser, warst du der Höchste hier, voran sollst du tanzen neben mir. Dein war das Schwert der Gerechtigkeit, zu schlichten den Streit, zu lindern das Leid; doch Ruhm- und Ehrsucht machten dich blind, sahst nicht dein eigen grosse Sünd. Drum fällt dir mein Ruf so schwer in den Sinn. - Halt an, Bischof, den Tanz beginn! Death: Emperor, you were the highest here, thus you shall dance next to me. Yours was the sword of justice, to settle disputes and alleviate suffering; but your obsession with fame and glory blinded you, you failed to see your own immense sinfulness. Hence my reputation is so difficult for you to comprehend. – Halt, Bishop, the dance begins! Dritter Spruch: Wann du willst gradeswegs ins ew'ge Leben gehn, so lass die Welt und dich zur linken Seite stehn! Third Aphorism: If you would enter directly into eternal life, leave the world and yourself by the wayside!
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This is my translation of the first of Rilke’s Duino Elegies. Rilke began the first Duino Elegy in 1912, as a guest of Princess Marie von Thurn und Taxis, at Duino Castle, near Trieste on the Adriatic Sea. First Elegy by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Who, if I objected, would hear me among the angelic orders? For if the least One pressed me intimately against its breast, I would be lost in its infinite Immensity! Because beauty, which we mortals can barely endure, is the beginning of terror; we stand awed when it benignly declines to annihilate us. Every Angel is terrifying! And so I restrain myself, swallowing the sound of my pitiful sobbing. For whom may we turn to, in our desire? Not to Angels, nor to men, and already the sentient animals are aware that we are all aliens in this metaphorical existence. Perhaps some tree still stands on a hillside, which we can study with our ordinary vision. Perhaps the commonplace street still remains amid man’s fealty to materiality— the concrete items that never destabilize. Oh, and of course there is the night: her dark currents caress our faces ... But whom, then, do we live for? That longed-for but mildly disappointing presence the lonely heart so desperately desires? Is life any less difficult for lovers? They only use each other to avoid their appointed fates! How can you fail to comprehend? Fling your arms’ emptiness into this space we occupy and inhale: may birds fill the expanded air with more intimate flying! Yes, the springtime still requires you. Perpetually a star waits for you to recognize it. A wave recedes toward you from the distant past, or as you walk beneath an open window, a violin yields virginally to your ears. All this was preordained. But how can you incorporate it? ... Weren't you always distracted by expectations, as if every event presaged some new beloved? (Where can you harbor, when all these enormous strange thoughts surging within you keep you up all night, restlessly rising and falling?) When you are full of yearning, sing of loving women, because their passions are finite; sing of forsaken women (and how you almost envy them) because they could love you more purely than the ones you left gratified. Resume the unattainable exaltation; remember: the hero survives; even his demise was merely a stepping stone toward his latest rebirth. But spent and exhausted Nature withdraws lovers back into herself, as if lacking the energy to recreate them. Have you remembered Gaspara Stampa with sufficient focus— how any abandoned girl might be inspired by her fierce example and might ask herself, "How can I be like her?" Shouldn't these ancient sufferings become fruitful for us? Shouldn’t we free ourselves from the beloved, quivering, as the arrow endures the bowstring's tension, so that in the snap of release it soars beyond itself? For there is nowhere else where we can remain. Voices! Voices! Listen, heart, as levitating saints once listened, until the elevating call soared them heavenward; and yet they continued kneeling, unaware, so complete was their concentration. Not that you could endure God's voice—far from it! But heed the wind’s voice and the ceaseless formless message of silence: It murmurs now of the martyred young. Whenever you attended a church in Naples or Rome, didn't they come quietly to address you? And didn’t an exalted inscription impress its mission upon you recently, on the plaque in Santa Maria Formosa? What they require of me is that I gently remove any appearance of injustice— which at times slightly hinders their souls from advancing. Of course, it is endlessly strange to no longer inhabit the earth; to relinquish customs one barely had the time to acquire; not to see in roses and other tokens a hopeful human future; no longer to be oneself, cradled in infinitely caring hands; to set aside even one's own name, forgotten as easily as a child’s broken plaything. How strange to no longer desire one's desires! How strange to see meanings no longer cohere, drifting off into space. Dying is difficult and requires retrieval before one can gradually decipher eternity. The living all err in believing the too-sharp distinctions they create themselves. Angels (men say) don't know whether they move among the living or the dead. The eternal current merges all ages in its maelstrom until the voices of both realms are drowned out in its thunderous roar. In the end, the early-departed no longer need us: they are weaned gently from earth's agonies and ecstasies, as children outgrow their mothers’ ******* But we, who need such immense mysteries, and for whom grief is so often the source of our spirit's progress— how can we exist without them? Is the legend of the lament for Linos meaningless— the daring first notes of the song pierce our apathy; then, in the interlude, when the youth, lovely as a god, has suddenly departed forever, we experience the emptiness of the Void for the first time— that harmony which now enraptures and comforts and aids us? Second Elegy by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Every angel is terrifying. And yet, alas, I invoke you, one of the soul’s lethal raptors, well aware of your nature. As in the days of Tobias, when one of you, obscuring his radiance, stood at the simple threshold, appearing ordinary rather than appalling while the curious youth peered through the window. But if the Archangel emerged today, perilous, from beyond the stars and took even one step toward us, our hammering hearts would pound us to death. What are you? Who are you? Joyous from the beginning; God’s early successes; Creation’s favorites; creatures of the heights; pollen of the flowering godhead; cusps of pure light; stately corridors; rising stairways; exalted thrones; filling space with your pure essence; crests of rapture; shields of ecstasy; storms of tumultuous emotions whipped into whirlwinds ... until one, acting alone, recreates itself by mirroring the beauty of its own countenance. While we, when deeply moved, evaporate; we exhale ourselves and fade away, growing faint like smoldering embers; we drift away like the scent of smoke. And while someone might say: “You’re in my blood! You occupy this room! You fill this entire springtime!” ... Still, what becomes of us? We cannot be contained; we vanish whether inside or out. And even the loveliest, who can retain them? Resemblance ceaselessly rises, then is gone, like dew from dawn’s grasses. And what is ours drifts away, like warmth from a steaming dish. O smile, where are you bound? O heavenward glance: are you a receding heat wave, a ripple of the heart? Alas, but is this not what we are? Does the cosmos we dissolve into savor us? Do the angels reabsorb only the radiance they emitted themselves, or sometimes, perhaps by oversight, traces of our being as well? Are we included in their features, as obscure as the vague looks on the faces of pregnant women? Do they notice us at all (how could they) as they reform themselves? Lovers, if they only knew how, might mutter marvelous curses into the night air. For it seems everything eludes us. See: the trees really do exist; our houses stand solid and firm. And yet we drift away, like weightless sighs. And all creation conspires to remain silent about us: perhaps from shame, perhaps from inexpressible hope? Lovers, gratified by each other, I ask to you consider: You cling to each other, but where is your proof of a connection? Sometimes my hands become aware of each other and my time-worn, exhausted face takes shelter in them, creating a slight sensation. But because of that, can I still claim to be? You, the ones who writhe with each other’s passions until, overwhelmed, someone begs: “No more!...”; You who swell beneath each other’s hands like autumn grapes; You, the one who dwindles as the other increases: I ask you to consider ... I know you touch each other so ardently because each caress preserves pure continuance, like the promise of eternity, because the flesh touched does not disappear. And yet, when you have survived the terror of initial intimacy, the first lonely vigil at the window, the first walk together through the blossoming garden: lovers, do you not still remain who you were before? If you lift your lips to each other’s and unite, potion to potion, still how strangely each drinker eludes the magic. Weren’t you confounded by the cautious human gestures on Attic gravestones? Weren’t love and farewell laid so lightly on shoulders they seemed composed of some ethereal substance unknown to us today? Consider those hands, how weightlessly they rested, despite the powerful torsos. The ancient masters knew: “We can only go so far, in touching each other. The gods can exert more force. But that is their affair.” If only we, too, could discover such a pure, contained Eden for humanity, our own fruitful strip of soil between river and rock. For our hearts have always exceeded us, as our ancestors’ did. And we can no longer trust our own eyes, when gazing at godlike bodies, our hearts find a greater repose. Archaischer Torso Apollos ("Archaic Torso of Apollo") by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation by Michael R. Burch We cannot know the beheaded god nor his eyes' forfeited visions. But still the figure's trunk glows with the strange vitality of a lamp lit from within, while his composed will emanates dynamism. Otherwise the firmly muscled abdomen could not beguile us, nor the centering ***** make us smile at the thought of their generative animus. Otherwise the stone might seem deficient, unworthy of the broad shoulders, of the groin projecting procreation's triangular spearhead upwards, unworthy of the living impulse blazing wildly within like an inchoate star—demanding our belief. You must change your life. Herbsttag ("Autumn Day") by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation by Michael R. Burch Lord, it is time. Let the immense summer go. Lay your long shadows over the sundials and over the meadows, let the free winds blow. Command the late fruits to fatten and shine; O, grant them another Mediterranean hour! Urge them to completion, and with power convey final sweetness to the heavy wine. Who has no house now, never will build one. Who's alone now, shall continue alone; he'll wake, read, write long letters to friends, and pace the tree-lined pathways up and down, restlessly, as autumn leaves drift and descend. Der Panther ("The Panther") by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation by Michael R. Burch His weary vision's so overwhelmed by iron bars, his exhausted eyes see only blank Oblivion. His world is not our world. It has no stars. No light. Ten thousand bars. Nothing beyond. Lithe, swinging with a rhythmic easy stride, he circles, his small orbit tightening, an electron losing power. Paralyzed, soon regal Will stands stunned, an abject thing. Only at times the pupils' curtains rise silently, and then an image enters, descends through arrested shoulders, plunges, centers somewhere within his empty heart, and dies. Komm, Du ("Come, You") by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation by Michael R. Burch This was Rilke’s last poem, written ten days before his death. He died open-eyed in the arms of his doctor on December 29, 1926, in the Valmont Sanatorium, of leukemia and its complications. I had a friend who died of leukemia and he was burning up with fever in the end. I believe that is what Rilke was describing here: he was literally burning alive. Come, you—the last one I acknowledge; return— incurable pain searing this physical mesh. As I burned in the spirit once, so now I burn with you; meanwhile, you consume my flesh. This wood that long resisted your embrace now nourishes you; I surrender to your fury as my gentleness mutates to hellish rage— uncaged, wild, primal, mindless, outré. Completely free, no longer future’s pawn, I clambered up this crazy pyre of pain, certain I’d never return—my heart’s reserves gone— to become death’s nameless victim, purged by flame. Now all I ever was must be denied. I left my memories of my past elsewhere. That life—my former life—remains outside. Inside, I’m lost. Nobody knows me here. Liebes-Lied ("Love Song") by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation by Michael R. Burch How can I withhold my soul so that it doesn’t touch yours? How can I lift mine gently to higher things, alone? Oh, I would gladly find something lost in the dark in that inert space that fails to resonate until you vibrate. There everything that moves us, draws us together like a bow enticing two taut strings to sing together with a simultaneous voice. Whose instrument are we becoming together? Whose, the hands that excite us? Ah, sweet song! Das Lied des Bettlers ("The Beggar's Song") by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation by Michael R. Burch I live outside your gates, exposed to the rain, exposed to the sun; sometimes I’ll cradle my right ear in my right palm; then when I speak my voice sounds strange, alien... I'm unsure whose voice I’m hearing: mine or yours. I implore a trifle; the poets cry for more. Sometimes I cover both eyes and my face disappears; there it lies heavy in my hands looking peaceful, instead, so that no one would ever think I have no place to lay my head. Keywords/Tags: Rilke, translation, German, first elegy, Duino, elegies, angels, beauty, terror, terrifying, desire, vision, reality, heart, love, lovers, beloved, rose, saints, spirits, souls, ghosts, voices, torso, Apollo, Rodin, panther, autumn, beggar
0
Nov 2, 2020
Nov 2, 2020 at 2:33 AM UTC
michael-r-burch
Rainer Maria Rilke "First Elegy" translation
This is my translation of the first of Rilke’s Duino Elegies. Rilke began the first Duino Elegy in 1912, as a guest of Princess Marie von Thurn und Taxis, at Duino Castle, near Trieste on the Adriatic Sea. First Elegy by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Who, if I objected, would hear me among the angelic orders? For if the least One pressed me intimately against its breast, I would be lost in its infinite Immensity! Because beauty, which we mortals can barely endure, is the beginning of terror; we stand awed when it benignly declines to annihilate us. Every Angel is terrifying! And so I restrain myself, swallowing the sound of my pitiful sobbing. For whom may we turn to, in our desire? Not to Angels, nor to men, and already the sentient animals are aware that we are all aliens in this metaphorical existence. Perhaps some tree still stands on a hillside, which we can study with our ordinary vision. Perhaps the commonplace street still remains amid man’s fealty to materiality— the concrete items that never destabilize. Oh, and of course there is the night: her dark currents caress our faces ... But whom, then, do we live for? That longed-for but mildly disappointing presence the lonely heart so desperately desires? Is life any less difficult for lovers? They only use each other to avoid their appointed fates! How can you fail to comprehend? Fling your arms’ emptiness into this space we occupy and inhale: may birds fill the expanded air with more intimate flying! Yes, the springtime still requires you. Perpetually a star waits for you to recognize it. A wave recedes toward you from the distant past, or as you walk beneath an open window, a violin yields virginally to your ears. All this was preordained. But how can you incorporate it? ... Weren't you always distracted by expectations, as if every event presaged some new beloved? (Where can you harbor, when all these enormous strange thoughts surging within you keep you up all night, restlessly rising and falling?) When you are full of yearning, sing of loving women, because their passions are finite; sing of forsaken women (and how you almost envy them) because they could love you more purely than the ones you left gratified. Resume the unattainable exaltation; remember: the hero survives; even his demise was merely a stepping stone toward his latest rebirth. But spent and exhausted Nature withdraws lovers back into herself, as if lacking the energy to recreate them. Have you remembered Gaspara Stampa with sufficient focus— how any abandoned girl might be inspired by her fierce example and might ask herself, "How can I be like her?" Shouldn't these ancient sufferings become fruitful for us? Shouldn’t we free ourselves from the beloved, quivering, as the arrow endures the bowstring's tension, so that in the snap of release it soars beyond itself? For there is nowhere else where we can remain. Voices! Voices! Listen, heart, as levitating saints once listened, until the elevating call soared them heavenward; and yet they continued kneeling, unaware, so complete was their concentration. Not that you could endure God's voice—far from it! But heed the wind’s voice and the ceaseless formless message of silence: It murmurs now of the martyred young. Whenever you attended a church in Naples or Rome, didn't they come quietly to address you? And didn’t an exalted inscription impress its mission upon you recently, on the plaque in Santa Maria Formosa? What they require of me is that I gently remove any appearance of injustice— which at times slightly hinders their souls from advancing. Of course, it is endlessly strange to no longer inhabit the earth; to relinquish customs one barely had the time to acquire; not to see in roses and other tokens a hopeful human future; no longer to be oneself, cradled in infinitely caring hands; to set aside even one's own name, forgotten as easily as a child’s broken plaything. How strange to no longer desire one's desires! How strange to see meanings no longer cohere, drifting off into space. Dying is difficult and requires retrieval before one can gradually decipher eternity. The living all err in believing the too-sharp distinctions they create themselves. Angels (men say) don't know whether they move among the living or the dead. The eternal current merges all ages in its maelstrom until the voices of both realms are drowned out in its thunderous roar. In the end, the early-departed no longer need us: they are weaned gently from earth's agonies and ecstasies, as children outgrow their mothers’ ******* But we, who need such immense mysteries, and for whom grief is so often the source of our spirit's progress— how can we exist without them? Is the legend of the lament for Linos meaningless— the daring first notes of the song pierce our apathy; then, in the interlude, when the youth, lovely as a god, has suddenly departed forever, we experience the emptiness of the Void for the first time— that harmony which now enraptures and comforts and aids us? Second Elegy by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Every angel is terrifying. And yet, alas, I invoke you, one of the soul’s lethal raptors, well aware of your nature. As in the days of Tobias, when one of you, obscuring his radiance, stood at the simple threshold, appearing ordinary rather than appalling while the curious youth peered through the window. But if the Archangel emerged today, perilous, from beyond the stars and took even one step toward us, our hammering hearts would pound us to death. What are you? Who are you? Joyous from the beginning; God’s early successes; Creation’s favorites; creatures of the heights; pollen of the flowering godhead; cusps of pure light; stately corridors; rising stairways; exalted thrones; filling space with your pure essence; crests of rapture; shields of ecstasy; storms of tumultuous emotions whipped into whirlwinds ... until one, acting alone, recreates itself by mirroring the beauty of its own countenance. While we, when deeply moved, evaporate; we exhale ourselves and fade away, growing faint like smoldering embers; we drift away like the scent of smoke. And while someone might say: “You’re in my blood! You occupy this room! You fill this entire springtime!” ... Still, what becomes of us? We cannot be contained; we vanish whether inside or out. And even the loveliest, who can retain them? Resemblance ceaselessly rises, then is gone, like dew from dawn’s grasses. And what is ours drifts away, like warmth from a steaming dish. O smile, where are you bound? O heavenward glance: are you a receding heat wave, a ripple of the heart? Alas, but is this not what we are? Does the cosmos we dissolve into savor us? Do the angels reabsorb only the radiance they emitted themselves, or sometimes, perhaps by oversight, traces of our being as well? Are we included in their features, as obscure as the vague looks on the faces of pregnant women? Do they notice us at all (how could they) as they reform themselves? Lovers, if they only knew how, might mutter marvelous curses into the night air. For it seems everything eludes us. See: the trees really do exist; our houses stand solid and firm. And yet we drift away, like weightless sighs. And all creation conspires to remain silent about us: perhaps from shame, perhaps from inexpressible hope? Lovers, gratified by each other, I ask to you consider: You cling to each other, but where is your proof of a connection? Sometimes my hands become aware of each other and my time-worn, exhausted face takes shelter in them, creating a slight sensation. But because of that, can I still claim to be? You, the ones who writhe with each other’s passions until, overwhelmed, someone begs: “No more!...”; You who swell beneath each other’s hands like autumn grapes; You, the one who dwindles as the other increases: I ask you to consider ... I know you touch each other so ardently because each caress preserves pure continuance, like the promise of eternity, because the flesh touched does not disappear. And yet, when you have survived the terror of initial intimacy, the first lonely vigil at the window, the first walk together through the blossoming garden: lovers, do you not still remain who you were before? If you lift your lips to each other’s and unite, potion to potion, still how strangely each drinker eludes the magic. Weren’t you confounded by the cautious human gestures on Attic gravestones? Weren’t love and farewell laid so lightly on shoulders they seemed composed of some ethereal substance unknown to us today? Consider those hands, how weightlessly they rested, despite the powerful torsos. The ancient masters knew: “We can only go so far, in touching each other. The gods can exert more force. But that is their affair.” If only we, too, could discover such a pure, contained Eden for humanity, our own fruitful strip of soil between river and rock. For our hearts have always exceeded us, as our ancestors’ did. And we can no longer trust our own eyes, when gazing at godlike bodies, our hearts find a greater repose. Archaischer Torso Apollos ("Archaic Torso of Apollo") by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation by Michael R. Burch We cannot know the beheaded god nor his eyes' forfeited visions. But still the figure's trunk glows with the strange vitality of a lamp lit from within, while his composed will emanates dynamism. Otherwise the firmly muscled abdomen could not beguile us, nor the centering ***** make us smile at the thought of their generative animus. Otherwise the stone might seem deficient, unworthy of the broad shoulders, of the groin projecting procreation's triangular spearhead upwards, unworthy of the living impulse blazing wildly within like an inchoate star—demanding our belief. You must change your life. Herbsttag ("Autumn Day") by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation by Michael R. Burch Lord, it is time. Let the immense summer go. Lay your long shadows over the sundials and over the meadows, let the free winds blow. Command the late fruits to fatten and shine; O, grant them another Mediterranean hour! Urge them to completion, and with power convey final sweetness to the heavy wine. Who has no house now, never will build one. Who's alone now, shall continue alone; he'll wake, read, write long letters to friends, and pace the tree-lined pathways up and down, restlessly, as autumn leaves drift and descend. Der Panther ("The Panther") by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation by Michael R. Burch His weary vision's so overwhelmed by iron bars, his exhausted eyes see only blank Oblivion. His world is not our world. It has no stars. No light. Ten thousand bars. Nothing beyond. Lithe, swinging with a rhythmic easy stride, he circles, his small orbit tightening, an electron losing power. Paralyzed, soon regal Will stands stunned, an abject thing. Only at times the pupils' curtains rise silently, and then an image enters, descends through arrested shoulders, plunges, centers somewhere within his empty heart, and dies. Komm, Du ("Come, You") by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation by Michael R. Burch This was Rilke’s last poem, written ten days before his death. He died open-eyed in the arms of his doctor on December 29, 1926, in the Valmont Sanatorium, of leukemia and its complications. I had a friend who died of leukemia and he was burning up with fever in the end. I believe that is what Rilke was describing here: he was literally burning alive. Come, you—the last one I acknowledge; return— incurable pain searing this physical mesh. As I burned in the spirit once, so now I burn with you; meanwhile, you consume my flesh. This wood that long resisted your embrace now nourishes you; I surrender to your fury as my gentleness mutates to hellish rage— uncaged, wild, primal, mindless, outré. Completely free, no longer future’s pawn, I clambered up this crazy pyre of pain, certain I’d never return—my heart’s reserves gone— to become death’s nameless victim, purged by flame. Now all I ever was must be denied. I left my memories of my past elsewhere. That life—my former life—remains outside. Inside, I’m lost. Nobody knows me here. Liebes-Lied ("Love Song") by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation by Michael R. Burch How can I withhold my soul so that it doesn’t touch yours? How can I lift mine gently to higher things, alone? Oh, I would gladly find something lost in the dark in that inert space that fails to resonate until you vibrate. There everything that moves us, draws us together like a bow enticing two taut strings to sing together with a simultaneous voice. Whose instrument are we becoming together? Whose, the hands that excite us? Ah, sweet song! Das Lied des Bettlers ("The Beggar's Song") by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation by Michael R. Burch I live outside your gates, exposed to the rain, exposed to the sun; sometimes I’ll cradle my right ear in my right palm; then when I speak my voice sounds strange, alien... I'm unsure whose voice I’m hearing: mine or yours. I implore a trifle; the poets cry for more. Sometimes I cover both eyes and my face disappears; there it lies heavy in my hands looking peaceful, instead, so that no one would ever think I have no place to lay my head. Keywords/Tags: Rilke, translation, German, first elegy, Duino, elegies, angels, beauty, terror, terrifying, desire, vision, reality, heart, love, lovers, beloved, rose, saints, spirits, souls, ghosts, voices, torso, Apollo, Rodin, panther, autumn, beggar
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Archaischer Torso Apollos ("Archaic Torso of Apollo") by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation by Michael R. Burch We cannot know the beheaded god nor his eyes' forfeited visions. But still the figure's trunk glows with the strange vitality of a lamp lit from within, while his composed will emanates dynamism. Otherwise the firmly muscled abdomen could not beguile us, nor the centering ***** make us smile at the thought of their generative animus. Otherwise the stone might seem deficient, unworthy of the broad shoulders, of the groin projecting procreation's triangular spearhead upwards, unworthy of the living impulse blazing wildly within like an inchoate star—demanding our belief. You must change your life. Herbsttag ("Autumn Day") by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation by Michael R. Burch Lord, it is time. Let the immense summer go. Lay your long shadows over the sundials and over the meadows, let the free winds blow. Command the late fruits to fatten and shine; O, grant them another Mediterranean hour! Urge them to completion, and with power convey final sweetness to the heavy wine. Who has no house now, never will build one. Who's alone now, shall continue alone; he'll wake, read, write long letters to friends, and pace the tree-lined pathways up and down, restlessly, as autumn leaves drift and descend. Der Panther ("The Panther") by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation by Michael R. Burch His weary vision's so overwhelmed by iron bars, his exhausted eyes see only blank Oblivion. His world is not our world. It has no stars. No light. Ten thousand bars. Nothing beyond. Lithe, swinging with a rhythmic easy stride, he circles, his small orbit tightening, an electron losing power. Paralyzed, soon regal Will stands stunned, an abject thing. Only at times the pupils' curtains rise silently, and then an image enters, descends through arrested shoulders, plunges, centers somewhere within his empty heart, and dies. Komm, Du ("Come, You") by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation by Michael R. Burch This was Rilke’s last poem, written ten days before his death. He died open-eyed in the arms of his doctor on December 29, 1926, in the Valmont Sanatorium, of leukemia and its complications. I had a friend who died of leukemia and he was burning up with fever in the end. I believe that is what Rilke was describing here: he was literally burning alive. Come, you—the last one I acknowledge; return— incurable pain searing this physical mesh. As I burned in the spirit once, so now I burn with you; meanwhile, you consume my flesh. This wood that long resisted your embrace now nourishes you; I surrender to your fury as my gentleness mutates to hellish rage— uncaged, wild, primal, mindless, outré. Completely free, no longer future’s pawn, I clambered up this crazy pyre of pain, certain I’d never return—my heart’s reserves gone— to become death’s nameless victim, purged by flame. Now all I ever was must be denied. I left my memories of my past elsewhere. That life—my former life—remains outside. Inside, I’m lost. Nobody knows me here. Liebes-Lied ("Love Song") by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation by Michael R. Burch How can I withhold my soul so that it doesn’t touch yours? How can I lift mine gently to higher things, alone? Oh, I would gladly find something lost in the dark in that inert space that fails to resonate until you vibrate. There everything that moves us, draws us together like a bow enticing two taut strings to sing together with a simultaneous voice. Whose instrument are we becoming together? Whose, the hands that excite us? Ah, sweet song! Das Lied des Bettlers ("The Beggar's Song") by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation by Michael R. Burch I live outside your gates, exposed to the rain, exposed to the sun; sometimes I’ll cradle my right ear in my right palm; then when I speak my voice sounds strange, alien... I'm unsure whose voice I’m hearing: mine or yours. I implore a trifle; the poets cry for more. Sometimes I cover both eyes and my face disappears; there it lies heavy in my hands looking peaceful, instead, so that no one would ever think I have no place to lay my head. Excerpt from “Loneliness” by Rainer Maria Rilke translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Being alone and apart is like the rain ascending at evening from alien plains: from lonely plateaus, unseen and unsought, it climbs toward heaven, its sublime ancient home, and only, when fallen, pities the city. This is my translation of the first of Rilke’s Duino Elegies. Rilke began the first Duino Elegy in 1912, as a guest of Princess Marie von Thurn und Taxis, at Duino Castle, near Trieste on the Adriatic Sea. First Elegy by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Who, if I objected, would hear me among the angelic orders? For if the least One pressed me intimately against its breast, I would be lost in its infinite Immensity! Because beauty, which we mortals can barely endure, is the beginning of terror; we stand awed when it benignly declines to annihilate us. Every Angel is terrifying! And so I restrain myself, swallowing the sound of my pitiful sobbing. For whom may we turn to, in our desire? Not to Angels, nor to men, and already the sentient animals are aware that we are all aliens in this metaphorical existence. Perhaps some tree still stands on a hillside, which we can study with our ordinary vision. Perhaps the commonplace street still remains amid man’s fealty to materiality— the concrete items that never destabilize. Oh, and of course there is the night: her dark currents caress our faces ... But whom, then, do we live for? That longed-for but mildly disappointing presence the lonely heart so desperately desires? Is life any less difficult for lovers? They only use each other to avoid their appointed fates! How can you fail to comprehend? Fling your arms’ emptiness into this space we occupy and inhale: may birds fill the expanded air with more intimate flying! Yes, the springtime still requires you. Perpetually a star waits for you to recognize it. A wave recedes toward you from the distant past, or as you walk beneath an open window, a violin yields virginally to your ears. All this was preordained. But how can you incorporate it? ... Weren't you always distracted by expectations, as if every event presaged some new beloved? (Where can you harbor, when all these enormous strange thoughts surging within you keep you up all night, restlessly rising and falling?) When you are full of yearning, sing of loving women, because their passions are finite; sing of forsaken women (and how you almost envy them) because they could love you more purely than the ones you left gratified. Resume the unattainable exaltation; remember: the hero survives; even his demise was merely a stepping stone toward his latest rebirth. But spent and exhausted Nature withdraws lovers back into herself, as if lacking the energy to recreate them. Have you remembered Gaspara Stampa with sufficient focus— how any abandoned girl might be inspired by her fierce example and might ask herself, "How can I be like her?" Shouldn't these ancient sufferings become fruitful for us? Shouldn’t we free ourselves from the beloved, quivering, as the arrow endures the bowstring's tension, so that in the snap of release it soars beyond itself? For there is nowhere else where we can remain. Voices! Voices! Listen, heart, as levitating saints once listened, until the elevating call soared them heavenward; and yet they continued kneeling, unaware, so complete was their concentration. Not that you could endure God's voice—far from it! But heed the wind’s voice and the ceaseless formless message of silence: It murmurs now of the martyred young. Whenever you attended a church in Naples or Rome, didn't they come quietly to address you? And didn’t an exalted inscription impress its mission upon you recently, on the plaque in Santa Maria Formosa? What they require of me is that I gently remove any appearance of injustice— which at times slightly hinders their souls from advancing. Of course, it is endlessly strange to no longer inhabit the earth; to relinquish customs one barely had the time to acquire; not to see in roses and other tokens a hopeful human future; no longer to be oneself, cradled in infinitely caring hands; to set aside even one's own name, forgotten as easily as a child’s broken plaything. How strange to no longer desire one's desires! How strange to see meanings no longer cohere, drifting off into space. Dying is difficult and requires retrieval before one can gradually decipher eternity. The living all err in believing the too-sharp distinctions they create themselves. Angels (men say) don't know whether they move among the living or the dead. The eternal current merges all ages in its maelstrom until the voices of both realms are drowned out in its thunderous roar. In the end, the early-departed no longer need us: they are weaned gently from earth's agonies and ecstasies, as children outgrow their mothers’ ******* But we, who need such immense mysteries, and for whom grief is so often the source of our spirit's progress— how can we exist without them? Is the legend of the lament for Linos meaningless— the daring first notes of the song pierce our apathy; then, in the interlude, when the youth, lovely as a god, has suddenly departed forever, we experience the emptiness of the Void for the first time— that harmony which now enraptures and comforts and aids us? Second Elegy by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Every angel is terrifying. And yet, alas, I invoke you, one of the soul’s lethal raptors, well aware of your nature. As in the days of Tobias, when one of you, obscuring his radiance, stood at the simple threshold, appearing ordinary rather than appalling while the curious youth peered through the window. But if the Archangel emerged today, perilous, from beyond the stars and took even one step toward us, our hammering hearts would pound us to death. What are you? Who are you? Joyous from the beginning; God’s early successes; Creation’s favorites; creatures of the heights; pollen of the flowering godhead; cusps of pure light; stately corridors; rising stairways; exalted thrones; filling space with your pure essence; crests of rapture; shields of ecstasy; storms of tumultuous emotions whipped into whirlwinds ... until one, acting alone, recreates itself by mirroring the beauty of its own countenance. While we, when deeply moved, evaporate; we exhale ourselves and fade away, growing faint like smoldering embers; we drift away like the scent of smoke. And while someone might say: “You’re in my blood! You occupy this room! You fill this entire springtime!” ... Still, what becomes of us? We cannot be contained; we vanish whether inside or out. And even the loveliest, who can retain them? Resemblance ceaselessly rises, then is gone, like dew from dawn’s grasses. And what is ours drifts away, like warmth from a steaming dish. O smile, where are you bound? O heavenward glance: are you a receding heat wave, a ripple of the heart? Alas, but is this not what we are? Does the cosmos we dissolve into savor us? Do the angels reabsorb only the radiance they emitted themselves, or sometimes, perhaps by oversight, traces of our being as well? Are we included in their features, as obscure as the vague looks on the faces of pregnant women? Do they notice us at all (how could they) as they reform themselves? Lovers, if they only knew how, might mutter marvelous curses into the night air. For it seems everything eludes us. See: the trees really do exist; our houses stand solid and firm. And yet we drift away, like weightless sighs. And all creation conspires to remain silent about us: perhaps from shame, perhaps from inexpressible hope? Lovers, gratified by each other, I ask to you consider: You cling to each other, but where is your proof of a connection? Sometimes my hands become aware of each other and my time-worn, exhausted face takes shelter in them, creating a slight sensation. But because of that, can I still claim to be? You, the ones who writhe with each other’s passions until, overwhelmed, someone begs: “No more!...”; You who swell beneath each other’s hands like autumn grapes; You, the one who dwindles as the other increases: I ask you to consider ... I know you touch each other so ardently because each caress preserves pure continuance, like the promise of eternity, because the flesh touched does not disappear. And yet, when you have survived the terror of initial intimacy, the first lonely vigil at the window, the first walk together through the blossoming garden: lovers, do you not still remain who you were before? If you lift your lips to each other’s and unite, potion to potion, still how strangely each drinker eludes the magic. Weren’t you confounded by the cautious human gestures on Attic gravestones? Weren’t love and farewell laid so lightly on shoulders they seemed composed of some ethereal substance unknown to us today? Consider those hands, how weightlessly they rested, despite the powerful torsos. The ancient masters knew: “We can only go so far, in touching each other. The gods can exert more force. But that is their affair.” If only we, too, could discover such a pure, contained Eden for humanity, our own fruitful strip of soil between river and rock. For our hearts have always exceeded us, as our ancestors’ did. And we can no longer trust our own eyes, when gazing at godlike bodies, our hearts find a greater repose. Keywords/Tags: Rilke, translation, German, elegy, elegies, angels, beauty, terror, terrifying, desire, vision, reality, heart, love, lovers, beloved, rose, saints, spirits, souls, ghosts, voices, torso, Apollo, Rodin, panther, autumn, beggar
0
Nov 2, 2020
Nov 2, 2020 at 2:30 AM UTC
michael-r-burch
Rilke translations
Archaischer Torso Apollos ("Archaic Torso of Apollo") by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation by Michael R. Burch We cannot know the beheaded god nor his eyes' forfeited visions. But still the figure's trunk glows with the strange vitality of a lamp lit from within, while his composed will emanates dynamism. Otherwise the firmly muscled abdomen could not beguile us, nor the centering ***** make us smile at the thought of their generative animus. Otherwise the stone might seem deficient, unworthy of the broad shoulders, of the groin projecting procreation's triangular spearhead upwards, unworthy of the living impulse blazing wildly within like an inchoate star—demanding our belief. You must change your life. Herbsttag ("Autumn Day") by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation by Michael R. Burch Lord, it is time. Let the immense summer go. Lay your long shadows over the sundials and over the meadows, let the free winds blow. Command the late fruits to fatten and shine; O, grant them another Mediterranean hour! Urge them to completion, and with power convey final sweetness to the heavy wine. Who has no house now, never will build one. Who's alone now, shall continue alone; he'll wake, read, write long letters to friends, and pace the tree-lined pathways up and down, restlessly, as autumn leaves drift and descend. Der Panther ("The Panther") by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation by Michael R. Burch His weary vision's so overwhelmed by iron bars, his exhausted eyes see only blank Oblivion. His world is not our world. It has no stars. No light. Ten thousand bars. Nothing beyond. Lithe, swinging with a rhythmic easy stride, he circles, his small orbit tightening, an electron losing power. Paralyzed, soon regal Will stands stunned, an abject thing. Only at times the pupils' curtains rise silently, and then an image enters, descends through arrested shoulders, plunges, centers somewhere within his empty heart, and dies. Komm, Du ("Come, You") by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation by Michael R. Burch This was Rilke’s last poem, written ten days before his death. He died open-eyed in the arms of his doctor on December 29, 1926, in the Valmont Sanatorium, of leukemia and its complications. I had a friend who died of leukemia and he was burning up with fever in the end. I believe that is what Rilke was describing here: he was literally burning alive. Come, you—the last one I acknowledge; return— incurable pain searing this physical mesh. As I burned in the spirit once, so now I burn with you; meanwhile, you consume my flesh. This wood that long resisted your embrace now nourishes you; I surrender to your fury as my gentleness mutates to hellish rage— uncaged, wild, primal, mindless, outré. Completely free, no longer future’s pawn, I clambered up this crazy pyre of pain, certain I’d never return—my heart’s reserves gone— to become death’s nameless victim, purged by flame. Now all I ever was must be denied. I left my memories of my past elsewhere. That life—my former life—remains outside. Inside, I’m lost. Nobody knows me here. Liebes-Lied ("Love Song") by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation by Michael R. Burch How can I withhold my soul so that it doesn’t touch yours? How can I lift mine gently to higher things, alone? Oh, I would gladly find something lost in the dark in that inert space that fails to resonate until you vibrate. There everything that moves us, draws us together like a bow enticing two taut strings to sing together with a simultaneous voice. Whose instrument are we becoming together? Whose, the hands that excite us? Ah, sweet song! Das Lied des Bettlers ("The Beggar's Song") by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation by Michael R. Burch I live outside your gates, exposed to the rain, exposed to the sun; sometimes I’ll cradle my right ear in my right palm; then when I speak my voice sounds strange, alien... I'm unsure whose voice I’m hearing: mine or yours. I implore a trifle; the poets cry for more. Sometimes I cover both eyes and my face disappears; there it lies heavy in my hands looking peaceful, instead, so that no one would ever think I have no place to lay my head. Excerpt from “Loneliness” by Rainer Maria Rilke translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Being alone and apart is like the rain ascending at evening from alien plains: from lonely plateaus, unseen and unsought, it climbs toward heaven, its sublime ancient home, and only, when fallen, pities the city. This is my translation of the first of Rilke’s Duino Elegies. Rilke began the first Duino Elegy in 1912, as a guest of Princess Marie von Thurn und Taxis, at Duino Castle, near Trieste on the Adriatic Sea. First Elegy by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Who, if I objected, would hear me among the angelic orders? For if the least One pressed me intimately against its breast, I would be lost in its infinite Immensity! Because beauty, which we mortals can barely endure, is the beginning of terror; we stand awed when it benignly declines to annihilate us. Every Angel is terrifying! And so I restrain myself, swallowing the sound of my pitiful sobbing. For whom may we turn to, in our desire? Not to Angels, nor to men, and already the sentient animals are aware that we are all aliens in this metaphorical existence. Perhaps some tree still stands on a hillside, which we can study with our ordinary vision. Perhaps the commonplace street still remains amid man’s fealty to materiality— the concrete items that never destabilize. Oh, and of course there is the night: her dark currents caress our faces ... But whom, then, do we live for? That longed-for but mildly disappointing presence the lonely heart so desperately desires? Is life any less difficult for lovers? They only use each other to avoid their appointed fates! How can you fail to comprehend? Fling your arms’ emptiness into this space we occupy and inhale: may birds fill the expanded air with more intimate flying! Yes, the springtime still requires you. Perpetually a star waits for you to recognize it. A wave recedes toward you from the distant past, or as you walk beneath an open window, a violin yields virginally to your ears. All this was preordained. But how can you incorporate it? ... Weren't you always distracted by expectations, as if every event presaged some new beloved? (Where can you harbor, when all these enormous strange thoughts surging within you keep you up all night, restlessly rising and falling?) When you are full of yearning, sing of loving women, because their passions are finite; sing of forsaken women (and how you almost envy them) because they could love you more purely than the ones you left gratified. Resume the unattainable exaltation; remember: the hero survives; even his demise was merely a stepping stone toward his latest rebirth. But spent and exhausted Nature withdraws lovers back into herself, as if lacking the energy to recreate them. Have you remembered Gaspara Stampa with sufficient focus— how any abandoned girl might be inspired by her fierce example and might ask herself, "How can I be like her?" Shouldn't these ancient sufferings become fruitful for us? Shouldn’t we free ourselves from the beloved, quivering, as the arrow endures the bowstring's tension, so that in the snap of release it soars beyond itself? For there is nowhere else where we can remain. Voices! Voices! Listen, heart, as levitating saints once listened, until the elevating call soared them heavenward; and yet they continued kneeling, unaware, so complete was their concentration. Not that you could endure God's voice—far from it! But heed the wind’s voice and the ceaseless formless message of silence: It murmurs now of the martyred young. Whenever you attended a church in Naples or Rome, didn't they come quietly to address you? And didn’t an exalted inscription impress its mission upon you recently, on the plaque in Santa Maria Formosa? What they require of me is that I gently remove any appearance of injustice— which at times slightly hinders their souls from advancing. Of course, it is endlessly strange to no longer inhabit the earth; to relinquish customs one barely had the time to acquire; not to see in roses and other tokens a hopeful human future; no longer to be oneself, cradled in infinitely caring hands; to set aside even one's own name, forgotten as easily as a child’s broken plaything. How strange to no longer desire one's desires! How strange to see meanings no longer cohere, drifting off into space. Dying is difficult and requires retrieval before one can gradually decipher eternity. The living all err in believing the too-sharp distinctions they create themselves. Angels (men say) don't know whether they move among the living or the dead. The eternal current merges all ages in its maelstrom until the voices of both realms are drowned out in its thunderous roar. In the end, the early-departed no longer need us: they are weaned gently from earth's agonies and ecstasies, as children outgrow their mothers’ ******* But we, who need such immense mysteries, and for whom grief is so often the source of our spirit's progress— how can we exist without them? Is the legend of the lament for Linos meaningless— the daring first notes of the song pierce our apathy; then, in the interlude, when the youth, lovely as a god, has suddenly departed forever, we experience the emptiness of the Void for the first time— that harmony which now enraptures and comforts and aids us? Second Elegy by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Every angel is terrifying. And yet, alas, I invoke you, one of the soul’s lethal raptors, well aware of your nature. As in the days of Tobias, when one of you, obscuring his radiance, stood at the simple threshold, appearing ordinary rather than appalling while the curious youth peered through the window. But if the Archangel emerged today, perilous, from beyond the stars and took even one step toward us, our hammering hearts would pound us to death. What are you? Who are you? Joyous from the beginning; God’s early successes; Creation’s favorites; creatures of the heights; pollen of the flowering godhead; cusps of pure light; stately corridors; rising stairways; exalted thrones; filling space with your pure essence; crests of rapture; shields of ecstasy; storms of tumultuous emotions whipped into whirlwinds ... until one, acting alone, recreates itself by mirroring the beauty of its own countenance. While we, when deeply moved, evaporate; we exhale ourselves and fade away, growing faint like smoldering embers; we drift away like the scent of smoke. And while someone might say: “You’re in my blood! You occupy this room! You fill this entire springtime!” ... Still, what becomes of us? We cannot be contained; we vanish whether inside or out. And even the loveliest, who can retain them? Resemblance ceaselessly rises, then is gone, like dew from dawn’s grasses. And what is ours drifts away, like warmth from a steaming dish. O smile, where are you bound? O heavenward glance: are you a receding heat wave, a ripple of the heart? Alas, but is this not what we are? Does the cosmos we dissolve into savor us? Do the angels reabsorb only the radiance they emitted themselves, or sometimes, perhaps by oversight, traces of our being as well? Are we included in their features, as obscure as the vague looks on the faces of pregnant women? Do they notice us at all (how could they) as they reform themselves? Lovers, if they only knew how, might mutter marvelous curses into the night air. For it seems everything eludes us. See: the trees really do exist; our houses stand solid and firm. And yet we drift away, like weightless sighs. And all creation conspires to remain silent about us: perhaps from shame, perhaps from inexpressible hope? Lovers, gratified by each other, I ask to you consider: You cling to each other, but where is your proof of a connection? Sometimes my hands become aware of each other and my time-worn, exhausted face takes shelter in them, creating a slight sensation. But because of that, can I still claim to be? You, the ones who writhe with each other’s passions until, overwhelmed, someone begs: “No more!...”; You who swell beneath each other’s hands like autumn grapes; You, the one who dwindles as the other increases: I ask you to consider ... I know you touch each other so ardently because each caress preserves pure continuance, like the promise of eternity, because the flesh touched does not disappear. And yet, when you have survived the terror of initial intimacy, the first lonely vigil at the window, the first walk together through the blossoming garden: lovers, do you not still remain who you were before? If you lift your lips to each other’s and unite, potion to potion, still how strangely each drinker eludes the magic. Weren’t you confounded by the cautious human gestures on Attic gravestones? Weren’t love and farewell laid so lightly on shoulders they seemed composed of some ethereal substance unknown to us today? Consider those hands, how weightlessly they rested, despite the powerful torsos. The ancient masters knew: “We can only go so far, in touching each other. The gods can exert more force. But that is their affair.” If only we, too, could discover such a pure, contained Eden for humanity, our own fruitful strip of soil between river and rock. For our hearts have always exceeded us, as our ancestors’ did. And we can no longer trust our own eyes, when gazing at godlike bodies, our hearts find a greater repose. Keywords/Tags: Rilke, translation, German, elegy, elegies, angels, beauty, terror, terrifying, desire, vision, reality, heart, love, lovers, beloved, rose, saints, spirits, souls, ghosts, voices, torso, Apollo, Rodin, panther, autumn, beggar
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Sonnets I-IX For this collection I have used the original definition of "sonnet" as a "little song" rather than sticking to rigid formulas. Archaischer Torso Apollos (“Archaic Torso of Apollo”) by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch We cannot know the beheaded god nor his eyes' forfeited visions. But still the figure's trunk glows with the strange vitality of a lamp lit from within, while his composed will emanates dynamism. Otherwise the firmly muscled abdomen could not beguile us, nor the centering ***** make us smile at the thought of their generative animus. Otherwise the stone might seem deficient, unworthy of the broad shoulders, of the groin projecting procreation's triangular spearhead upwards, unworthy of the living impulse blazing wildly within like an inchoate star―demanding our belief. You must change your life. TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: This is a poem about a major resolution: changing the very nature of one's life. While it is only my personal interpretation of the poem above, I believe Rilke was saying to himself: "I must change my life." Why? Perhaps because he wanted to be a real artist, and when confronted with real, dynamic, living and breathing art of Rodin, he realized that he had to inject similar vitality, energy and muscularity into his poetry. Michelangelo said that he saw the angel in a block of marble, then freed it. Perhaps Rilke had to find the dynamic image of Apollo, the God of Poetry, in his materials, which were paper, ink and his imagination.―Michael R. Burch Komm, Du (“Come, You”) by Ranier Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch This was Rilke’s last poem, written ten days before his death. He died open-eyed in the arms of his doctor on December 29, 1926, in the Valmont Sanatorium, of leukemia and its complications. I had a friend who died of leukemia and he was burning up with fever in the end. I believe that is what Rilke was describing here: he was literally burning alive. Come, you―the last one I acknowledge; return― incurable pain searing this physical mesh. As I burned in the spirit once, so now I burn with you; meanwhile, you consume my flesh. This wood that long resisted your embrace now nourishes you; I surrender to your fury as my gentleness mutates to hellish rage― uncaged, wild, primal, mindless, outré. Completely free, no longer future’s pawn, I clambered up this crazy pyre of pain, certain I’d never return―my heart’s reserves gone― to become death’s nameless victim, purged by flame. Now all I ever was must be denied. I left my memories of my past elsewhere. That life―my former life―remains outside. Inside, I’m lost. Nobody knows me here. Der Panther ("The Panther") by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch His weary vision's so overwhelmed by iron bars, his exhausted eyes see only blank Oblivion. His world is not our world. It has no stars. No light. Ten thousand bars. Nothing beyond. Lithe, swinging with a rhythmic easy stride, he circles, his small orbit tightening, an electron losing power. Paralyzed, soon regal Will stands stunned, an abject thing. Only at times the pupils' curtains rise silently, and then an image enters, descends through arrested shoulders, plunges, centers somewhere within his empty heart, and dies. Liebes-Lied (“Love Song”) by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch How can I withhold my soul so that it doesn’t touch yours? How can I lift mine gently to higher things, alone? Oh, I would gladly find something lost in the dark in that inert space that fails to resonate until you vibrate. There everything that moves us, draws us together like a bow enticing two taut strings to sing together with a simultaneous voice. Whose instrument are we becoming together? Whose, the hands that excite us? Ah, sweet song! Herbsttag ("Autumn Day") by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation by Michael R. Burch Lord, it is time. Let the immense summer go. Lay your long shadows over the sundials and over the meadows, let the free winds blow. Command the late fruits to fatten and shine; O, grant them another Mediterranean hour! Urge them to completion, and with power convey final sweetness to the heavy wine. Who has no house now, never will build one. Who's alone now, shall continue alone; he'll wake, read, write long letters to friends, and pace the tree-lined pathways up and down, restlessly, as autumn leaves drift and descend. Das Lied des Bettlers ("The Beggar's Song") by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation by Michael R. Burch I live outside your gates, exposed to the rain, exposed to the sun; sometimes I’ll cradle my right ear in my right palm; then when I speak my voice sounds strange, alien... I'm unsure whose voice I’m hearing: mine or yours. I implore a trifle; the poets cry for more. Sometimes I cover both eyes and my face disappears; there it lies heavy in my hands looking peaceful, instead, so that no one would ever think I have no place to lay my head. A Vain Word by Michael R. Burch Oleanders at dawn preen extravagant whorls as I read in leaves’ Sanskrit brief moments remaining till sunset implodes, till the moon strands grey pearls under moss-stubbled oaks, full of whispers, complaining to the minions of autumn, how swiftly life goes as I fled before love ... Now, through leaves trodden black, shivering, I wander as winter’s first throes of cool listless snow drench my cheeks, back and neck. I discerned in one season all eternities of grief, the specter of death sprawled out under the rose, the last consequence of faith in the flight of one leaf, the incontinence of age, as life’s bright torrent slows. O, where are you now?―I was timid, absurd. I would find comfort again in a vain word. Published by Chrysanthemum and Tucumcari Literary Review Chloe by Michael R. Burch There were skies onyx at night ... moons by day ... lakes pale as her eyes ... breathless winds ********** tall elms; ... she would say that we loved, but I figured we’d sinned. Soon impatiens too fiery to stay sagged; the crocus bells drooped, golden-limned; things of brightness, rinsed out, ran to gray ... all the light of that world softly dimmed. Where our feet were inclined, we would stray; there were paths where dead weeds stood untrimmed, distant mountains that loomed in our way, thunder booming down valleys dark-hymned. What I found, I found lost in her face while yielding all my virtue to her grace. Originally published by Romantics Quarterly as “A Dying Fall” Oasis by Michael R. Burch I want tears to form again in the shriveled glands of these eyes dried all these long years by too much heated knowing. I want tears to course down these parched cheeks, to star these cracked lips like an improbable dew in the heart of a desert. I want words to burble up like happiness, like the thought of love, like the overwhelming, shimmering thought of you to a nomad who has only known drought. Melting by Michael R. Burch Entirely, as spring consumes the snow, the thought of you consumes me: I am found in rivulets, dissolved to what I know of former winters’ passions. Underground, perhaps one slender icicle remains of what I was before, in some dark cave― a stalactite, long calcified, now drains to sodden pools, whose milky liquid laves the colder rock, thus washing something clean that never saw the light, that never knew the crust could break above, that light could stream: so luminous, so bright, so beautiful ... I lie revealed, and so I stand transformed, and all because you smiled on me, and warmed. Afterglow by Michael R. Burch The night is full of stars. Which still exist? Before time ends, perhaps one day we’ll know. For now I hold your fingers to my lips and feel their pulse ... warm, palpable and slow ... once slow to match this reckless spark in me, this moon in ceaseless orbit I became, compelled by wilder gravity to flee night’s universe of suns, for one pale flame ... for one pale flame that seemed to signify the Zodiac of all, the meaning of love’s wandering flight past Neptune. Now to lie in dawning recognition is enough ... enough each night to bask in you, to know the face of love ... eyes closed ... its afterglow. All Afterglow by Michael R. Burch Something remarkable, perhaps ... the color of her eyes ... though I forget the color of her eyes ... perhaps her hair the way it blew about ... I do not know just what it was about her that has kept her thought lodged deep in mine ... unmelted snow that lasted till July would be less rare, clasped in some frozen cavern where the wind sculpts bright grotesqueries, ignoring springs’ and summers’ higher laws ... there thawing slow and strange by strange degrees, one tick beyond the freezing point which keeps all things the same ... till what remains is fragile and unlike the world above, where melted snows and rains form rivulets that, inundate with sun, evaporate, and in life’s cyclic stream remake the world again ... I do not know that we can be remade―all afterglow. how many Nights by michael r. burch how many Nights we laughed to see the sun go down because the Night was made for reckless fun. ...Your golden crown, Your skin so soft, so smooth, and lightly downed... how many nights i wept glad tears to hold You tight against the years. ...Your eyes so bold, Your hair spun gold, and all the pleasures Your soft flesh foretold... how many Nights i did not dare to dream You were so real... now all that i have left here is to feel in dreams surreal Time is the Nightmare God before whom men kneel. and how few Nights, i reckoned, in the end, we were allowed to gather, less to spend. These Hallowed Halls by Michael R. Burch a young Romantic Poet mourns the passing of an age . . . A final stereo fades into silence and now there is seldom a murmur to trouble the slumber of these ancient halls. I stand by a window where others have watched the passage of time alone, not untouched, and I am as they were―unsure, for the days stretch out ahead, a bewildering maze. Ah, faithless lover―that I had never touched your breast, nor felt the stirrings of my heart, which until that moment had peacefully slept. For now I have known the exhilaration of a heart that has leapt every pinnacle of Love, and the result of all such infatuations― the long freefall to earth, as the moon glides above. Come! by Michael R. Burch Will you come to visit my grave, I wonder, in the season of lightning, the season of thunder, when I have lain so long in the indifferent earth that I have no girth? When my womb has conformed to the chastity your anemic Messiah envisioned for me, will you finally be pleased that my *** was thus rendered unpalatable, disengendered? And when those strange loathsome organs that troubled you so have been eaten by worms, will the heavens still glow with the approval of God that I ended a maid― thanks to a ***** And will you come to visit my grave, I wonder, in the season of lightning, the season of thunder? To the Post-Modern Muse, Floundering by Michael R. Burch The anachronism in your poetry is that it lacks a future history. The line that rings, the forward-sounding bell, tolls death for you, for drowning victims tell of insignificance, of eerie shoals, of voices underwater. Lichen grows to mute the lips of those men paid no heed, and though you cling by fingertips, and bleed, there is no lifeline now, for what has slipped lies far beyond your grasp. Iron fittings, stripped, have left the hull unsound, bright cargo lost. The argosy of all your toil is rust. The anchor that you flung did not take hold in any harbor where repair is sold. Originally published by Ironwood Wonderland by Michael R. Burch We stood, kids of the Lamb, to put to test the beatific anthems of the blessed, the sentence of the martyr, and the pen’s sincere religion. Magnified, the lens shot back absurd reflections of each face― a carnival-like mirror. In the space between the silver backing and the glass, we caught a glimpse of Joan, a frumpy lass who never brushed her hair or teeth, and failed to pass on GO, and frequently was jailed for awe’s beliefs. Like Alice, she grew wee to fit the door, then couldn’t lift the key. We failed the test, and so the jury’s hung. In Oz, “The Witch is Dead” ranks number one. Keywords/Tags: sonnet, rhyme, meter, iambic pentameter, Rilke, life, death, belief, translation, spirit, fever, mrbson
0
Sep 11, 2020
Sep 11, 2020 at 4:32 AM UTC
michael-r-burch
Sonnets I-IX
Sonnets I-IX For this collection I have used the original definition of "sonnet" as a "little song" rather than sticking to rigid formulas. Archaischer Torso Apollos (“Archaic Torso of Apollo”) by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch We cannot know the beheaded god nor his eyes' forfeited visions. But still the figure's trunk glows with the strange vitality of a lamp lit from within, while his composed will emanates dynamism. Otherwise the firmly muscled abdomen could not beguile us, nor the centering ***** make us smile at the thought of their generative animus. Otherwise the stone might seem deficient, unworthy of the broad shoulders, of the groin projecting procreation's triangular spearhead upwards, unworthy of the living impulse blazing wildly within like an inchoate star―demanding our belief. You must change your life. TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: This is a poem about a major resolution: changing the very nature of one's life. While it is only my personal interpretation of the poem above, I believe Rilke was saying to himself: "I must change my life." Why? Perhaps because he wanted to be a real artist, and when confronted with real, dynamic, living and breathing art of Rodin, he realized that he had to inject similar vitality, energy and muscularity into his poetry. Michelangelo said that he saw the angel in a block of marble, then freed it. Perhaps Rilke had to find the dynamic image of Apollo, the God of Poetry, in his materials, which were paper, ink and his imagination.―Michael R. Burch Komm, Du (“Come, You”) by Ranier Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch This was Rilke’s last poem, written ten days before his death. He died open-eyed in the arms of his doctor on December 29, 1926, in the Valmont Sanatorium, of leukemia and its complications. I had a friend who died of leukemia and he was burning up with fever in the end. I believe that is what Rilke was describing here: he was literally burning alive. Come, you―the last one I acknowledge; return― incurable pain searing this physical mesh. As I burned in the spirit once, so now I burn with you; meanwhile, you consume my flesh. This wood that long resisted your embrace now nourishes you; I surrender to your fury as my gentleness mutates to hellish rage― uncaged, wild, primal, mindless, outré. Completely free, no longer future’s pawn, I clambered up this crazy pyre of pain, certain I’d never return―my heart’s reserves gone― to become death’s nameless victim, purged by flame. Now all I ever was must be denied. I left my memories of my past elsewhere. That life―my former life―remains outside. Inside, I’m lost. Nobody knows me here. Der Panther ("The Panther") by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch His weary vision's so overwhelmed by iron bars, his exhausted eyes see only blank Oblivion. His world is not our world. It has no stars. No light. Ten thousand bars. Nothing beyond. Lithe, swinging with a rhythmic easy stride, he circles, his small orbit tightening, an electron losing power. Paralyzed, soon regal Will stands stunned, an abject thing. Only at times the pupils' curtains rise silently, and then an image enters, descends through arrested shoulders, plunges, centers somewhere within his empty heart, and dies. Liebes-Lied (“Love Song”) by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch How can I withhold my soul so that it doesn’t touch yours? How can I lift mine gently to higher things, alone? Oh, I would gladly find something lost in the dark in that inert space that fails to resonate until you vibrate. There everything that moves us, draws us together like a bow enticing two taut strings to sing together with a simultaneous voice. Whose instrument are we becoming together? Whose, the hands that excite us? Ah, sweet song! Herbsttag ("Autumn Day") by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation by Michael R. Burch Lord, it is time. Let the immense summer go. Lay your long shadows over the sundials and over the meadows, let the free winds blow. Command the late fruits to fatten and shine; O, grant them another Mediterranean hour! Urge them to completion, and with power convey final sweetness to the heavy wine. Who has no house now, never will build one. Who's alone now, shall continue alone; he'll wake, read, write long letters to friends, and pace the tree-lined pathways up and down, restlessly, as autumn leaves drift and descend. Das Lied des Bettlers ("The Beggar's Song") by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation by Michael R. Burch I live outside your gates, exposed to the rain, exposed to the sun; sometimes I’ll cradle my right ear in my right palm; then when I speak my voice sounds strange, alien... I'm unsure whose voice I’m hearing: mine or yours. I implore a trifle; the poets cry for more. Sometimes I cover both eyes and my face disappears; there it lies heavy in my hands looking peaceful, instead, so that no one would ever think I have no place to lay my head. A Vain Word by Michael R. Burch Oleanders at dawn preen extravagant whorls as I read in leaves’ Sanskrit brief moments remaining till sunset implodes, till the moon strands grey pearls under moss-stubbled oaks, full of whispers, complaining to the minions of autumn, how swiftly life goes as I fled before love ... Now, through leaves trodden black, shivering, I wander as winter’s first throes of cool listless snow drench my cheeks, back and neck. I discerned in one season all eternities of grief, the specter of death sprawled out under the rose, the last consequence of faith in the flight of one leaf, the incontinence of age, as life’s bright torrent slows. O, where are you now?―I was timid, absurd. I would find comfort again in a vain word. Published by Chrysanthemum and Tucumcari Literary Review Chloe by Michael R. Burch There were skies onyx at night ... moons by day ... lakes pale as her eyes ... breathless winds ********** tall elms; ... she would say that we loved, but I figured we’d sinned. Soon impatiens too fiery to stay sagged; the crocus bells drooped, golden-limned; things of brightness, rinsed out, ran to gray ... all the light of that world softly dimmed. Where our feet were inclined, we would stray; there were paths where dead weeds stood untrimmed, distant mountains that loomed in our way, thunder booming down valleys dark-hymned. What I found, I found lost in her face while yielding all my virtue to her grace. Originally published by Romantics Quarterly as “A Dying Fall” Oasis by Michael R. Burch I want tears to form again in the shriveled glands of these eyes dried all these long years by too much heated knowing. I want tears to course down these parched cheeks, to star these cracked lips like an improbable dew in the heart of a desert. I want words to burble up like happiness, like the thought of love, like the overwhelming, shimmering thought of you to a nomad who has only known drought. Melting by Michael R. Burch Entirely, as spring consumes the snow, the thought of you consumes me: I am found in rivulets, dissolved to what I know of former winters’ passions. Underground, perhaps one slender icicle remains of what I was before, in some dark cave― a stalactite, long calcified, now drains to sodden pools, whose milky liquid laves the colder rock, thus washing something clean that never saw the light, that never knew the crust could break above, that light could stream: so luminous, so bright, so beautiful ... I lie revealed, and so I stand transformed, and all because you smiled on me, and warmed. Afterglow by Michael R. Burch The night is full of stars. Which still exist? Before time ends, perhaps one day we’ll know. For now I hold your fingers to my lips and feel their pulse ... warm, palpable and slow ... once slow to match this reckless spark in me, this moon in ceaseless orbit I became, compelled by wilder gravity to flee night’s universe of suns, for one pale flame ... for one pale flame that seemed to signify the Zodiac of all, the meaning of love’s wandering flight past Neptune. Now to lie in dawning recognition is enough ... enough each night to bask in you, to know the face of love ... eyes closed ... its afterglow. All Afterglow by Michael R. Burch Something remarkable, perhaps ... the color of her eyes ... though I forget the color of her eyes ... perhaps her hair the way it blew about ... I do not know just what it was about her that has kept her thought lodged deep in mine ... unmelted snow that lasted till July would be less rare, clasped in some frozen cavern where the wind sculpts bright grotesqueries, ignoring springs’ and summers’ higher laws ... there thawing slow and strange by strange degrees, one tick beyond the freezing point which keeps all things the same ... till what remains is fragile and unlike the world above, where melted snows and rains form rivulets that, inundate with sun, evaporate, and in life’s cyclic stream remake the world again ... I do not know that we can be remade―all afterglow. how many Nights by michael r. burch how many Nights we laughed to see the sun go down because the Night was made for reckless fun. ...Your golden crown, Your skin so soft, so smooth, and lightly downed... how many nights i wept glad tears to hold You tight against the years. ...Your eyes so bold, Your hair spun gold, and all the pleasures Your soft flesh foretold... how many Nights i did not dare to dream You were so real... now all that i have left here is to feel in dreams surreal Time is the Nightmare God before whom men kneel. and how few Nights, i reckoned, in the end, we were allowed to gather, less to spend. These Hallowed Halls by Michael R. Burch a young Romantic Poet mourns the passing of an age . . . A final stereo fades into silence and now there is seldom a murmur to trouble the slumber of these ancient halls. I stand by a window where others have watched the passage of time alone, not untouched, and I am as they were―unsure, for the days stretch out ahead, a bewildering maze. Ah, faithless lover―that I had never touched your breast, nor felt the stirrings of my heart, which until that moment had peacefully slept. For now I have known the exhilaration of a heart that has leapt every pinnacle of Love, and the result of all such infatuations― the long freefall to earth, as the moon glides above. Come! by Michael R. Burch Will you come to visit my grave, I wonder, in the season of lightning, the season of thunder, when I have lain so long in the indifferent earth that I have no girth? When my womb has conformed to the chastity your anemic Messiah envisioned for me, will you finally be pleased that my *** was thus rendered unpalatable, disengendered? And when those strange loathsome organs that troubled you so have been eaten by worms, will the heavens still glow with the approval of God that I ended a maid― thanks to a ***** And will you come to visit my grave, I wonder, in the season of lightning, the season of thunder? To the Post-Modern Muse, Floundering by Michael R. Burch The anachronism in your poetry is that it lacks a future history. The line that rings, the forward-sounding bell, tolls death for you, for drowning victims tell of insignificance, of eerie shoals, of voices underwater. Lichen grows to mute the lips of those men paid no heed, and though you cling by fingertips, and bleed, there is no lifeline now, for what has slipped lies far beyond your grasp. Iron fittings, stripped, have left the hull unsound, bright cargo lost. The argosy of all your toil is rust. The anchor that you flung did not take hold in any harbor where repair is sold. Originally published by Ironwood Wonderland by Michael R. Burch We stood, kids of the Lamb, to put to test the beatific anthems of the blessed, the sentence of the martyr, and the pen’s sincere religion. Magnified, the lens shot back absurd reflections of each face― a carnival-like mirror. In the space between the silver backing and the glass, we caught a glimpse of Joan, a frumpy lass who never brushed her hair or teeth, and failed to pass on GO, and frequently was jailed for awe’s beliefs. Like Alice, she grew wee to fit the door, then couldn’t lift the key. We failed the test, and so the jury’s hung. In Oz, “The Witch is Dead” ranks number one. Keywords/Tags: sonnet, rhyme, meter, iambic pentameter, Rilke, life, death, belief, translation, spirit, fever, mrbson
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Komm, Du (“Come, You”) by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch This was Rilke’s last poem, written ten days before his death. He died open-eyed in the arms of his doctor on December 29, 1926, in the Valmont Sanatorium, of leukemia and its complications. I had a friend who died of leukemia and he was burning up with fever in the end. I believe that is what Rilke was describing here: he was literally burning alive. Come, you—the last one I acknowledge; return— incurable pain searing this physical mesh. As I burned in the spirit once, so now I burn with you; meanwhile, you consume my flesh. This wood that long resisted your embrace now nourishes you; I surrender to your fury as my gentleness mutates to hellish rage— uncaged, wild, primal, mindless, outré. Completely free, no longer future’s pawn, I clambered up this crazy pyre of pain, certain I’d never return—my heart’s reserves gone— to become death’s nameless victim, purged by flame. Now all I ever was must be denied. I left my memories of my past elsewhere. That life—my former life—remains outside. Inside, I’m lost. Nobody knows me here. English translation originally published by Better Than Starbucks Original text: Komm du Komm du, du letzter, den ich anerkenne, heilloser Schmerz im leiblichen Geweb: wie ich im Geiste brannte, sieh, ich brenne in dir; das Holz hat lange widerstrebt, der Flamme, die du loderst, zuzustimmen, nun aber nähr’ ich dich und brenn in dir. Mein hiesig Mildsein wird in deinem Grimmen ein Grimm der Hölle nicht von hier. Ganz rein, ganz planlos frei von Zukunft stieg ich auf des Leidens wirren Scheiterhaufen, so sicher nirgend Künftiges zu kaufen um dieses Herz, darin der Vorrat schwieg. Bin ich es noch, der da unkenntlich brennt? Erinnerungen reiß ich nicht herein. O Leben, Leben: Draußensein. Und ich in Lohe. Niemand der mich kennt. Keywords/Tags: German, translation, Rilke, last poem, death, fever, burning, pyre, leukemia, pain, consumed, consummation, flesh, spirit, rage, pawn, free, purge, purged, inside, outside, lost, unknown, alienated, alienation This is my translation of the first of Rilke’s Duino Elegies. Rilke began the first Duino Elegy in 1912, as a guest of Princess Marie von Thurn und Taxis, at Duino Castle, near Trieste on the Adriatic Sea. First Elegy by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Who, if I objected, would hear me among the angelic orders? For if the least One pressed me intimately against its breast, I would be lost in its infinite Immensity! Because beauty, which we mortals can barely endure, is the beginning of terror; we stand awed when it benignly declines to annihilate us. Every Angel is terrifying! And so I restrain myself, swallowing the sound of my pitiful sobbing. For whom may we turn to, in our desire? Not to Angels, nor to men, and already the sentient animals are aware that we are all aliens in this metaphorical existence. Perhaps some tree still stands on a hillside, which we can study with our ordinary vision. Perhaps the commonplace street still remains amid man’s fealty to materiality— the concrete items that never destabilize. Oh, and of course there is the night: her dark currents caress our faces ... But whom, then, do we live for? That longed-for but mildly disappointing presence the lonely heart so desperately desires? Is life any less difficult for lovers? They only use each other to avoid their appointed fates! How can you fail to comprehend? Fling your arms’ emptiness into this space we occupy and inhale: may birds fill the expanded air with more intimate flying! Yes, the springtime still requires you. Perpetually a star waits for you to recognize it. A wave recedes toward you from the distant past, or as you walk beneath an open window, a violin yields virginally to your ears. All this was preordained. But how can you incorporate it? ... Weren't you always distracted by expectations, as if every event presaged some new beloved? (Where can you harbor, when all these enormous strange thoughts surging within you keep you up all night, restlessly rising and falling?) When you are full of yearning, sing of loving women, because their passions are finite; sing of forsaken women (and how you almost envy them) because they could love you more purely than the ones you left gratified. Resume the unattainable exaltation; remember: the hero survives; even his demise was merely a stepping stone toward his latest rebirth. But spent and exhausted Nature withdraws lovers back into herself, as if lacking the energy to recreate them. Have you remembered Gaspara Stampa with sufficient focus— how any abandoned girl might be inspired by her fierce example and might ask herself, "How can I be like her?" Shouldn't these ancient sufferings become fruitful for us? Shouldn’t we free ourselves from the beloved, quivering, as the arrow endures the bowstring's tension, so that in the snap of release it soars beyond itself? For there is nowhere else where we can remain. Voices! Voices! Listen, heart, as levitating saints once listened, until the elevating call soared them heavenward; and yet they continued kneeling, unaware, so complete was their concentration. Not that you could endure God's voice—far from it! But heed the wind’s voice and the ceaseless formless message of silence: It murmurs now of the martyred young. Whenever you attended a church in Naples or Rome, didn't they come quietly to address you? And didn’t an exalted inscription impress its mission upon you recently, on the plaque in Santa Maria Formosa? What they require of me is that I gently remove any appearance of injustice— which at times slightly hinders their souls from advancing. Of course, it is endlessly strange to no longer inhabit the earth; to relinquish customs one barely had the time to acquire; not to see in roses and other tokens a hopeful human future; no longer to be oneself, cradled in infinitely caring hands; to set aside even one's own name, forgotten as easily as a child’s broken plaything. How strange to no longer desire one's desires! How strange to see meanings no longer cohere, drifting off into space. Dying is difficult and requires retrieval before one can gradually decipher eternity. The living all err in believing the too-sharp distinctions they create themselves. Angels (men say) don't know whether they move among the living or the dead. The eternal current merges all ages in its maelstrom until the voices of both realms are drowned out in its thunderous roar. In the end, the early-departed no longer need us: they are weaned gently from earth's agonies and ecstasies, as children outgrow their mothers’ ******* But we, who need such immense mysteries, and for whom grief is so often the source of our spirit's progress— how can we exist without them? Is the legend of the lament for Linos meaningless— the daring first notes of the song pierce our apathy; then, in the interlude, when the youth, lovely as a god, has suddenly departed forever, we experience the emptiness of the Void for the first time— that harmony which now enraptures and comforts and aids us? Second Elegy by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Every angel is terrifying. And yet, alas, I invoke you, one of the soul’s lethal raptors, well aware of your nature. As in the days of Tobias, when one of you, obscuring his radiance, stood at the simple threshold, appearing ordinary rather than appalling while the curious youth peered through the window. But if the Archangel emerged today, perilous, from beyond the stars and took even one step toward us, our hammering hearts would pound us to death. What are you? Who are you? Joyous from the beginning; God’s early successes; Creation’s favorites; creatures of the heights; pollen of the flowering godhead; cusps of pure light; stately corridors; rising stairways; exalted thrones; filling space with your pure essence; crests of rapture; shields of ecstasy; storms of tumultuous emotions whipped into whirlwinds ... until one, acting alone, recreates itself by mirroring the beauty of its own countenance. While we, when deeply moved, evaporate; we exhale ourselves and fade away, growing faint like smoldering embers; we drift away like the scent of smoke. And while someone might say: “You’re in my blood! You occupy this room! You fill this entire springtime!” ... Still, what becomes of us? We cannot be contained; we vanish whether inside or out. And even the loveliest, who can retain them? Resemblance ceaselessly rises, then is gone, like dew from dawn’s grasses. And what is ours drifts away, like warmth from a steaming dish. O smile, where are you bound? O heavenward glance: are you a receding heat wave, a ripple of the heart? Alas, but is this not what we are? Does the cosmos we dissolve into savor us? Do the angels reabsorb only the radiance they emitted themselves, or sometimes, perhaps by oversight, traces of our being as well? Are we included in their features, as obscure as the vague looks on the faces of pregnant women? Do they notice us at all (how could they) as they reform themselves? Lovers, if they only knew how, might mutter marvelous curses into the night air. For it seems everything eludes us. See: the trees really do exist; our houses stand solid and firm. And yet we drift away, like weightless sighs. And all creation conspires to remain silent about us: perhaps from shame, perhaps from inexpressible hope? Lovers, gratified by each other, I ask to you consider: You cling to each other, but where is your proof of a connection? Sometimes my hands become aware of each other and my time-worn, exhausted face takes shelter in them, creating a slight sensation. But because of that, can I still claim to be? You, the ones who writhe with each other’s passions until, overwhelmed, someone begs: “No more!...”; You who swell beneath each other’s hands like autumn grapes; You, the one who dwindles as the other increases: I ask you to consider ... I know you touch each other so ardently because each caress preserves pure continuance, like the promise of eternity, because the flesh touched does not disappear. And yet, when you have survived the terror of initial intimacy, the first lonely vigil at the window, the first walk together through the blossoming garden: lovers, do you not still remain who you were before? If you lift your lips to each other’s and unite, potion to potion, still how strangely each drinker eludes the magic. Weren’t you confounded by the cautious human gestures on Attic gravestones? Weren’t love and farewell laid so lightly on shoulders they seemed composed of some ethereal substance unknown to us today? Consider those hands, how weightlessly they rested, despite the powerful torsos. The ancient masters knew: “We can only go so far, in touching each other. The gods can exert more force. But that is their affair.” If only we, too, could discover such a pure, contained Eden for humanity, our own fruitful strip of soil between river and rock. For our hearts have always exceeded us, as our ancestors’ did. And we can no longer trust our own eyes, when gazing at godlike bodies, our hearts find a greater repose. Keywords/Tags: Rilke, elegy, elegies, angels, beauty, terror, terrifying, desire, vision, reality, heart, love, lovers, beloved, rose, saints, spirits, souls, ghosts, voices, torso, Apollo, Rodin, panther, autumn, beggar
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Feb 25, 2020
Feb 25, 2020 at 8:42 PM UTC
michael-r-burch
Rainer Maria Rilke “Come, You” translation
Komm, Du (“Come, You”) by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch This was Rilke’s last poem, written ten days before his death. He died open-eyed in the arms of his doctor on December 29, 1926, in the Valmont Sanatorium, of leukemia and its complications. I had a friend who died of leukemia and he was burning up with fever in the end. I believe that is what Rilke was describing here: he was literally burning alive. Come, you—the last one I acknowledge; return— incurable pain searing this physical mesh. As I burned in the spirit once, so now I burn with you; meanwhile, you consume my flesh. This wood that long resisted your embrace now nourishes you; I surrender to your fury as my gentleness mutates to hellish rage— uncaged, wild, primal, mindless, outré. Completely free, no longer future’s pawn, I clambered up this crazy pyre of pain, certain I’d never return—my heart’s reserves gone— to become death’s nameless victim, purged by flame. Now all I ever was must be denied. I left my memories of my past elsewhere. That life—my former life—remains outside. Inside, I’m lost. Nobody knows me here. English translation originally published by Better Than Starbucks Original text: Komm du Komm du, du letzter, den ich anerkenne, heilloser Schmerz im leiblichen Geweb: wie ich im Geiste brannte, sieh, ich brenne in dir; das Holz hat lange widerstrebt, der Flamme, die du loderst, zuzustimmen, nun aber nähr’ ich dich und brenn in dir. Mein hiesig Mildsein wird in deinem Grimmen ein Grimm der Hölle nicht von hier. Ganz rein, ganz planlos frei von Zukunft stieg ich auf des Leidens wirren Scheiterhaufen, so sicher nirgend Künftiges zu kaufen um dieses Herz, darin der Vorrat schwieg. Bin ich es noch, der da unkenntlich brennt? Erinnerungen reiß ich nicht herein. O Leben, Leben: Draußensein. Und ich in Lohe. Niemand der mich kennt. Keywords/Tags: German, translation, Rilke, last poem, death, fever, burning, pyre, leukemia, pain, consumed, consummation, flesh, spirit, rage, pawn, free, purge, purged, inside, outside, lost, unknown, alienated, alienation This is my translation of the first of Rilke’s Duino Elegies. Rilke began the first Duino Elegy in 1912, as a guest of Princess Marie von Thurn und Taxis, at Duino Castle, near Trieste on the Adriatic Sea. First Elegy by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Who, if I objected, would hear me among the angelic orders? For if the least One pressed me intimately against its breast, I would be lost in its infinite Immensity! Because beauty, which we mortals can barely endure, is the beginning of terror; we stand awed when it benignly declines to annihilate us. Every Angel is terrifying! And so I restrain myself, swallowing the sound of my pitiful sobbing. For whom may we turn to, in our desire? Not to Angels, nor to men, and already the sentient animals are aware that we are all aliens in this metaphorical existence. Perhaps some tree still stands on a hillside, which we can study with our ordinary vision. Perhaps the commonplace street still remains amid man’s fealty to materiality— the concrete items that never destabilize. Oh, and of course there is the night: her dark currents caress our faces ... But whom, then, do we live for? That longed-for but mildly disappointing presence the lonely heart so desperately desires? Is life any less difficult for lovers? They only use each other to avoid their appointed fates! How can you fail to comprehend? Fling your arms’ emptiness into this space we occupy and inhale: may birds fill the expanded air with more intimate flying! Yes, the springtime still requires you. Perpetually a star waits for you to recognize it. A wave recedes toward you from the distant past, or as you walk beneath an open window, a violin yields virginally to your ears. All this was preordained. But how can you incorporate it? ... Weren't you always distracted by expectations, as if every event presaged some new beloved? (Where can you harbor, when all these enormous strange thoughts surging within you keep you up all night, restlessly rising and falling?) When you are full of yearning, sing of loving women, because their passions are finite; sing of forsaken women (and how you almost envy them) because they could love you more purely than the ones you left gratified. Resume the unattainable exaltation; remember: the hero survives; even his demise was merely a stepping stone toward his latest rebirth. But spent and exhausted Nature withdraws lovers back into herself, as if lacking the energy to recreate them. Have you remembered Gaspara Stampa with sufficient focus— how any abandoned girl might be inspired by her fierce example and might ask herself, "How can I be like her?" Shouldn't these ancient sufferings become fruitful for us? Shouldn’t we free ourselves from the beloved, quivering, as the arrow endures the bowstring's tension, so that in the snap of release it soars beyond itself? For there is nowhere else where we can remain. Voices! Voices! Listen, heart, as levitating saints once listened, until the elevating call soared them heavenward; and yet they continued kneeling, unaware, so complete was their concentration. Not that you could endure God's voice—far from it! But heed the wind’s voice and the ceaseless formless message of silence: It murmurs now of the martyred young. Whenever you attended a church in Naples or Rome, didn't they come quietly to address you? And didn’t an exalted inscription impress its mission upon you recently, on the plaque in Santa Maria Formosa? What they require of me is that I gently remove any appearance of injustice— which at times slightly hinders their souls from advancing. Of course, it is endlessly strange to no longer inhabit the earth; to relinquish customs one barely had the time to acquire; not to see in roses and other tokens a hopeful human future; no longer to be oneself, cradled in infinitely caring hands; to set aside even one's own name, forgotten as easily as a child’s broken plaything. How strange to no longer desire one's desires! How strange to see meanings no longer cohere, drifting off into space. Dying is difficult and requires retrieval before one can gradually decipher eternity. The living all err in believing the too-sharp distinctions they create themselves. Angels (men say) don't know whether they move among the living or the dead. The eternal current merges all ages in its maelstrom until the voices of both realms are drowned out in its thunderous roar. In the end, the early-departed no longer need us: they are weaned gently from earth's agonies and ecstasies, as children outgrow their mothers’ ******* But we, who need such immense mysteries, and for whom grief is so often the source of our spirit's progress— how can we exist without them? Is the legend of the lament for Linos meaningless— the daring first notes of the song pierce our apathy; then, in the interlude, when the youth, lovely as a god, has suddenly departed forever, we experience the emptiness of the Void for the first time— that harmony which now enraptures and comforts and aids us? Second Elegy by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Every angel is terrifying. And yet, alas, I invoke you, one of the soul’s lethal raptors, well aware of your nature. As in the days of Tobias, when one of you, obscuring his radiance, stood at the simple threshold, appearing ordinary rather than appalling while the curious youth peered through the window. But if the Archangel emerged today, perilous, from beyond the stars and took even one step toward us, our hammering hearts would pound us to death. What are you? Who are you? Joyous from the beginning; God’s early successes; Creation’s favorites; creatures of the heights; pollen of the flowering godhead; cusps of pure light; stately corridors; rising stairways; exalted thrones; filling space with your pure essence; crests of rapture; shields of ecstasy; storms of tumultuous emotions whipped into whirlwinds ... until one, acting alone, recreates itself by mirroring the beauty of its own countenance. While we, when deeply moved, evaporate; we exhale ourselves and fade away, growing faint like smoldering embers; we drift away like the scent of smoke. And while someone might say: “You’re in my blood! You occupy this room! You fill this entire springtime!” ... Still, what becomes of us? We cannot be contained; we vanish whether inside or out. And even the loveliest, who can retain them? Resemblance ceaselessly rises, then is gone, like dew from dawn’s grasses. And what is ours drifts away, like warmth from a steaming dish. O smile, where are you bound? O heavenward glance: are you a receding heat wave, a ripple of the heart? Alas, but is this not what we are? Does the cosmos we dissolve into savor us? Do the angels reabsorb only the radiance they emitted themselves, or sometimes, perhaps by oversight, traces of our being as well? Are we included in their features, as obscure as the vague looks on the faces of pregnant women? Do they notice us at all (how could they) as they reform themselves? Lovers, if they only knew how, might mutter marvelous curses into the night air. For it seems everything eludes us. See: the trees really do exist; our houses stand solid and firm. And yet we drift away, like weightless sighs. And all creation conspires to remain silent about us: perhaps from shame, perhaps from inexpressible hope? Lovers, gratified by each other, I ask to you consider: You cling to each other, but where is your proof of a connection? Sometimes my hands become aware of each other and my time-worn, exhausted face takes shelter in them, creating a slight sensation. But because of that, can I still claim to be? You, the ones who writhe with each other’s passions until, overwhelmed, someone begs: “No more!...”; You who swell beneath each other’s hands like autumn grapes; You, the one who dwindles as the other increases: I ask you to consider ... I know you touch each other so ardently because each caress preserves pure continuance, like the promise of eternity, because the flesh touched does not disappear. And yet, when you have survived the terror of initial intimacy, the first lonely vigil at the window, the first walk together through the blossoming garden: lovers, do you not still remain who you were before? If you lift your lips to each other’s and unite, potion to potion, still how strangely each drinker eludes the magic. Weren’t you confounded by the cautious human gestures on Attic gravestones? Weren’t love and farewell laid so lightly on shoulders they seemed composed of some ethereal substance unknown to us today? Consider those hands, how weightlessly they rested, despite the powerful torsos. The ancient masters knew: “We can only go so far, in touching each other. The gods can exert more force. But that is their affair.” If only we, too, could discover such a pure, contained Eden for humanity, our own fruitful strip of soil between river and rock. For our hearts have always exceeded us, as our ancestors’ did. And we can no longer trust our own eyes, when gazing at godlike bodies, our hearts find a greater repose. Keywords/Tags: Rilke, elegy, elegies, angels, beauty, terror, terrifying, desire, vision, reality, heart, love, lovers, beloved, rose, saints, spirits, souls, ghosts, voices, torso, Apollo, Rodin, panther, autumn, beggar
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Das Lied des Bettlers (“The Beggar’s Song”) by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I live outside your gates, exposed to the rain, exposed to the sun; sometimes I’ll cradle my right ear in my right palm; then when I speak my voice sounds strange, alien ... I'm unsure whose voice I’m hearing: mine or yours. I implore a trifle; the poets cry for more. Sometimes I cover both eyes and my face disappears; there it lies heavy in my hands looking peaceful, unafraid, so that no one would ever think I have no place to lay my head. Originally published by Better Than Starbucks (where it was a featured poem, appeared on the first page of the online version, and earned a small honorarium) Original text: Das Lied des Bettlers Ich gehe immer von Tor zu Tor, verregnet und verbrannt; auf einmal leg ich mein rechtes Ohr in meine rechte Hand. Dann kommt mir meine Stimme vor, als hätt ich sie nie gekannt. Dann weiß ich nicht sicher, wer da schreit, ich oder irgendwer. Ich schreie um eine Kleinigkeit. Die Dichter schrein um mehr. Und endlich mach ich noch mein Gesicht mit beiden Augen zu; wie's dann in der Hand liegt mit seinem Gewicht sieht es fast aus wie Ruh. Damit sie nicht meinen ich hätte nicht, wohin ich mein Haupt tu. Keywords/Tags: German, Rainer Maria Rilke, translation, beggar, song, rain, sun, ear, palm, voice, gate, gates, door, doors, outside, exposure, poets, trifle, pittance, eyes, face, cradle, head, loneliness, alienation, solitude, no place to lay one's head (like Jesus Christ) Archaischer Torso Apollos ("Archaic Torso of Apollo") by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation by Michael R. Burch We cannot know the beheaded god nor his eyes' forfeited visions. But still the figure's trunk glows with the strange vitality of a lamp lit from within, while his composed will emanates dynamism. Otherwise the firmly muscled abdomen could not beguile us, nor the centering ***** make us smile at the thought of their generative animus. Otherwise the stone might seem deficient, unworthy of the broad shoulders, of the groin projecting procreation's triangular spearhead upwards, unworthy of the living impulse blazing wildly within like an inchoate star—demanding our belief. You must change your life. Herbsttag ("Autumn Day") by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation by Michael R. Burch Lord, it is time. Let the immense summer go. Lay your long shadows over the sundials and over the meadows, let the free winds blow. Command the late fruits to fatten and shine; O, grant them another Mediterranean hour! Urge them to completion, and with power convey final sweetness to the heavy wine. Who has no house now, never will build one. Who's alone now, shall continue alone; he'll wake, read, write long letters to friends, and pace the tree-lined pathways up and down, restlessly, as autumn leaves drift and descend. Der Panther ("The Panther") by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation by Michael R. Burch His weary vision's so overwhelmed by iron bars, his exhausted eyes see only blank Oblivion. His world is not our world. It has no stars. No light. Ten thousand bars. Nothing beyond. Lithe, swinging with a rhythmic easy stride, he circles, his small orbit tightening, an electron losing power. Paralyzed, soon regal Will stands stunned, an abject thing. Only at times the pupils' curtains rise silently, and then an image enters, descends through arrested shoulders, plunges, centers somewhere within his empty heart, and dies. Komm, Du ("Come, You") by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation by Michael R. Burch This was Rilke’s last poem, written ten days before his death. He died open-eyed in the arms of his doctor on December 29, 1926, in the Valmont Sanatorium, of leukemia and its complications. I had a friend who died of leukemia and he was burning up with fever in the end. I believe that is what Rilke was describing here: he was literally burning alive. Come, you—the last one I acknowledge; return— incurable pain searing this physical mesh. As I burned in the spirit once, so now I burn with you; meanwhile, you consume my flesh. This wood that long resisted your embrace now nourishes you; I surrender to your fury as my gentleness mutates to hellish rage— uncaged, wild, primal, mindless, outré. Completely free, no longer future’s pawn, I clambered up this crazy pyre of pain, certain I’d never return—my heart’s reserves gone— to become death’s nameless victim, purged by flame. Now all I ever was must be denied. I left my memories of my past elsewhere. That life—my former life—remains outside. Inside, I’m lost. Nobody knows me here. Liebes-Lied ("Love Song") by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation by Michael R. Burch How can I withhold my soul so that it doesn’t touch yours? How can I lift mine gently to higher things, alone? Oh, I would gladly find something lost in the dark in that inert space that fails to resonate until you vibrate. There everything that moves us, draws us together like a bow enticing two taut strings to sing together with a simultaneous voice. Whose instrument are we becoming together? Whose, the hands that excite us? Ah, sweet song! This is my translation of the first of Rilke’s Duino Elegies. Rilke began the first Duino Elegy in 1912, as a guest of Princess Marie von Thurn und Taxis, at Duino Castle, near Trieste on the Adriatic Sea. First Elegy by Ranier Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Who, if I objected, would hear me among the angelic orders? For if the least One pressed me intimately against its breast, I would be lost in its infinite Immensity! Because beauty, which we mortals can barely endure, is the beginning of terror; we stand awed when it benignly declines to annihilate us. Every Angel is terrifying! And so I restrain myself, swallowing the sound of my pitiful sobbing. For whom may we turn to, in our desire? Not to Angels, nor to men, and already the sentient animals are aware that we are all aliens in this metaphorical existence. Perhaps some tree still stands on a hillside, which we can study with our ordinary vision. Perhaps the commonplace street still remains amid man’s fealty to materiality— the concrete items that never destabilize. Oh, and of course there is the night: her dark currents caress our faces ... But whom, then, do we live for? That longed-for but mildly disappointing presence the lonely heart so desperately desires? Is life any less difficult for lovers? They only use each other to avoid their appointed fates! How can you fail to comprehend? Fling your arms’ emptiness into this space we occupy and inhale: may birds fill the expanded air with more intimate flying! Yes, the springtime still requires you. Perpetually a star waits for you to recognize it. A wave recedes toward you from the distant past, or as you walk beneath an open window, a violin yields virginally to your ears. All this was preordained. But how can you incorporate it? ... Weren't you always distracted by expectations, as if every event presaged some new beloved? (Where can you harbor, when all these enormous strange thoughts surging within you keep you up all night, restlessly rising and falling?) When you are full of yearning, sing of loving women, because their passions are finite; sing of forsaken women (and how you almost envy them) because they could love you more purely than the ones you left gratified. Resume the unattainable exaltation; remember: the hero survives; even his demise was merely a stepping stone toward his latest rebirth. But spent and exhausted Nature withdraws lovers back into herself, as if lacking the energy to recreate them. Have you remembered Gaspara Stampa with sufficient focus— how any abandoned girl might be inspired by her fierce example and might ask herself, "How can I be like her?" Shouldn't these ancient sufferings become fruitful for us? Shouldn’t we free ourselves from the beloved, quivering, as the arrow endures the bowstring's tension, so that in the snap of release it soars beyond itself? For there is nowhere else where we can remain. Voices! Voices! Listen, heart, as levitating saints once listened, until the elevating call soared them heavenward; and yet they continued kneeling, unaware, so complete was their concentration. Not that you could endure God's voice—far from it! But heed the wind’s voice and the ceaseless formless message of silence: It murmurs now of the martyred young. Whenever you attended a church in Naples or Rome, didn't they come quietly to address you? And didn’t an exalted inscription impress its mission upon you recently, on the plaque in Santa Maria Formosa? What they require of me is that I gently remove any appearance of injustice— which at times slightly hinders their souls from advancing. Of course, it is endlessly strange to no longer inhabit the earth; to relinquish customs one barely had the time to acquire; not to see in roses and other tokens a hopeful human future; no longer to be oneself, cradled in infinitely caring hands; to set aside even one's own name, forgotten as easily as a child’s broken plaything. How strange to no longer desire one's desires! How strange to see meanings no longer cohere, drifting off into space. Dying is difficult and requires retrieval before one can gradually decipher eternity. The living all err in believing the too-sharp distinctions they create themselves. Angels (men say) don't know whether they move among the living or the dead. The eternal current merges all ages in its maelstrom until the voices of both realms are drowned out in its thunderous roar. In the end, the early-departed no longer need us: they are weaned gently from earth's agonies and ecstasies, as children outgrow their mothers’ ******* But we, who need such immense mysteries, and for whom grief is so often the source of our spirit's progress— how can we exist without them? Is the legend of the lament for Linos meaningless— the daring first notes of the song pierce our apathy; then, in the interlude, when the youth, lovely as a god, has suddenly departed forever, we experience the emptiness of the Void for the first time— that harmony which now enraptures and comforts and aids us? Second Elegy by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Every angel is terrifying. And yet, alas, I invoke you, one of the soul’s lethal raptors, well aware of your nature. As in the days of Tobias, when one of you, obscuring his radiance, stood at the simple threshold, appearing ordinary rather than appalling while the curious youth peered through the window. But if the Archangel emerged today, perilous, from beyond the stars and took even one step toward us, our hammering hearts would pound us to death. What are you? Who are you? Joyous from the beginning; God’s early successes; Creation’s favorites; creatures of the heights; pollen of the flowering godhead; cusps of pure light; stately corridors; rising stairways; exalted thrones; filling space with your pure essence; crests of rapture; shields of ecstasy; storms of tumultuous emotions whipped into whirlwinds ... until one, acting alone, recreates itself by mirroring the beauty of its own countenance. While we, when deeply moved, evaporate; we exhale ourselves and fade away, growing faint like smoldering embers; we drift away like the scent of smoke. And while someone might say: “You’re in my blood! You occupy this room! You fill this entire springtime!” ... Still, what becomes of us? We cannot be contained; we vanish whether inside or out. And even the loveliest, who can retain them? Resemblance ceaselessly rises, then is gone, like dew from dawn’s grasses. And what is ours drifts away, like warmth from a steaming dish. O smile, where are you bound? O heavenward glance: are you a receding heat wave, a ripple of the heart? Alas, but is this not what we are? Does the cosmos we dissolve into savor us? Do the angels reabsorb only the radiance they emitted themselves, or sometimes, perhaps by oversight, traces of our being as well? Are we included in their features, as obscure as the vague looks on the faces of pregnant women? Do they notice us at all (how could they) as they reform themselves? Lovers, if they only knew how, might mutter marvelous curses into the night air. For it seems everything eludes us. See: the trees really do exist; our houses stand solid and firm. And yet we drift away, like weightless sighs. And all creation conspires to remain silent about us: perhaps from shame, perhaps from inexpressible hope? Lovers, gratified by each other, I ask to you consider: You cling to each other, but where is your proof of a connection? Sometimes my hands become aware of each other and my time-worn, exhausted face takes shelter in them, creating a slight sensation. But because of that, can I still claim to "be"? You, the ones who writhe with each other’s passions until, overwhelmed, someone begs: “No more!...”; You who swell beneath each other’s hands like autumn grapes; You, the one who dwindles as the other increases: I ask you to consider ... I know you touch each other so ardently because each caress preserves pure continuance, like the promise of eternity, because the flesh touched does not disappear. And yet, when you have survived the terror of initial intimacy, the first lonely vigil at the window, the first walk together through the blossoming garden: lovers, do you not still remain who you were before? If you lift your lips to each other’s and unite, potion to potion, still how strangely each drinker eludes the magic. Weren’t you confounded by the cautious human gestures on Attic gravestones? Weren’t love and farewell laid so lightly on shoulders they seemed composed of some ethereal substance unknown to us today? Consider those hands, how weightlessly they rested, despite the powerful torsos. The ancient masters knew: “We can only go so far, in touching each other. The gods can exert more force. But that is their affair.” If only we, too, could discover such a pure, contained Eden for humanity, our own fruitful strip of soil between river and rock. For our hearts have always exceeded us, as our ancestors’ did. And we can no longer trust our own eyes, when gazing at godlike bodies, our hearts find a greater repose. Keywords/Tags: Rilke, elegy, elegies, angels, beauty, terror, terrifying, desire, vision, reality, heart, love, lovers, beloved, rose, saints, spirits, souls, ghosts, voices, torso, Apollo, Rodin, panther, autumn, beggar
0
Feb 25, 2020
Feb 25, 2020 at 8:14 PM UTC
michael-r-burch
Rainer Maria Rilke “The Beggar’s Song” translation
Das Lied des Bettlers (“The Beggar’s Song”) by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I live outside your gates, exposed to the rain, exposed to the sun; sometimes I’ll cradle my right ear in my right palm; then when I speak my voice sounds strange, alien ... I'm unsure whose voice I’m hearing: mine or yours. I implore a trifle; the poets cry for more. Sometimes I cover both eyes and my face disappears; there it lies heavy in my hands looking peaceful, unafraid, so that no one would ever think I have no place to lay my head. Originally published by Better Than Starbucks (where it was a featured poem, appeared on the first page of the online version, and earned a small honorarium) Original text: Das Lied des Bettlers Ich gehe immer von Tor zu Tor, verregnet und verbrannt; auf einmal leg ich mein rechtes Ohr in meine rechte Hand. Dann kommt mir meine Stimme vor, als hätt ich sie nie gekannt. Dann weiß ich nicht sicher, wer da schreit, ich oder irgendwer. Ich schreie um eine Kleinigkeit. Die Dichter schrein um mehr. Und endlich mach ich noch mein Gesicht mit beiden Augen zu; wie's dann in der Hand liegt mit seinem Gewicht sieht es fast aus wie Ruh. Damit sie nicht meinen ich hätte nicht, wohin ich mein Haupt tu. Keywords/Tags: German, Rainer Maria Rilke, translation, beggar, song, rain, sun, ear, palm, voice, gate, gates, door, doors, outside, exposure, poets, trifle, pittance, eyes, face, cradle, head, loneliness, alienation, solitude, no place to lay one's head (like Jesus Christ) Archaischer Torso Apollos ("Archaic Torso of Apollo") by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation by Michael R. Burch We cannot know the beheaded god nor his eyes' forfeited visions. But still the figure's trunk glows with the strange vitality of a lamp lit from within, while his composed will emanates dynamism. Otherwise the firmly muscled abdomen could not beguile us, nor the centering ***** make us smile at the thought of their generative animus. Otherwise the stone might seem deficient, unworthy of the broad shoulders, of the groin projecting procreation's triangular spearhead upwards, unworthy of the living impulse blazing wildly within like an inchoate star—demanding our belief. You must change your life. Herbsttag ("Autumn Day") by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation by Michael R. Burch Lord, it is time. Let the immense summer go. Lay your long shadows over the sundials and over the meadows, let the free winds blow. Command the late fruits to fatten and shine; O, grant them another Mediterranean hour! Urge them to completion, and with power convey final sweetness to the heavy wine. Who has no house now, never will build one. Who's alone now, shall continue alone; he'll wake, read, write long letters to friends, and pace the tree-lined pathways up and down, restlessly, as autumn leaves drift and descend. Der Panther ("The Panther") by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation by Michael R. Burch His weary vision's so overwhelmed by iron bars, his exhausted eyes see only blank Oblivion. His world is not our world. It has no stars. No light. Ten thousand bars. Nothing beyond. Lithe, swinging with a rhythmic easy stride, he circles, his small orbit tightening, an electron losing power. Paralyzed, soon regal Will stands stunned, an abject thing. Only at times the pupils' curtains rise silently, and then an image enters, descends through arrested shoulders, plunges, centers somewhere within his empty heart, and dies. Komm, Du ("Come, You") by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation by Michael R. Burch This was Rilke’s last poem, written ten days before his death. He died open-eyed in the arms of his doctor on December 29, 1926, in the Valmont Sanatorium, of leukemia and its complications. I had a friend who died of leukemia and he was burning up with fever in the end. I believe that is what Rilke was describing here: he was literally burning alive. Come, you—the last one I acknowledge; return— incurable pain searing this physical mesh. As I burned in the spirit once, so now I burn with you; meanwhile, you consume my flesh. This wood that long resisted your embrace now nourishes you; I surrender to your fury as my gentleness mutates to hellish rage— uncaged, wild, primal, mindless, outré. Completely free, no longer future’s pawn, I clambered up this crazy pyre of pain, certain I’d never return—my heart’s reserves gone— to become death’s nameless victim, purged by flame. Now all I ever was must be denied. I left my memories of my past elsewhere. That life—my former life—remains outside. Inside, I’m lost. Nobody knows me here. Liebes-Lied ("Love Song") by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation by Michael R. Burch How can I withhold my soul so that it doesn’t touch yours? How can I lift mine gently to higher things, alone? Oh, I would gladly find something lost in the dark in that inert space that fails to resonate until you vibrate. There everything that moves us, draws us together like a bow enticing two taut strings to sing together with a simultaneous voice. Whose instrument are we becoming together? Whose, the hands that excite us? Ah, sweet song! This is my translation of the first of Rilke’s Duino Elegies. Rilke began the first Duino Elegy in 1912, as a guest of Princess Marie von Thurn und Taxis, at Duino Castle, near Trieste on the Adriatic Sea. First Elegy by Ranier Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Who, if I objected, would hear me among the angelic orders? For if the least One pressed me intimately against its breast, I would be lost in its infinite Immensity! Because beauty, which we mortals can barely endure, is the beginning of terror; we stand awed when it benignly declines to annihilate us. Every Angel is terrifying! And so I restrain myself, swallowing the sound of my pitiful sobbing. For whom may we turn to, in our desire? Not to Angels, nor to men, and already the sentient animals are aware that we are all aliens in this metaphorical existence. Perhaps some tree still stands on a hillside, which we can study with our ordinary vision. Perhaps the commonplace street still remains amid man’s fealty to materiality— the concrete items that never destabilize. Oh, and of course there is the night: her dark currents caress our faces ... But whom, then, do we live for? That longed-for but mildly disappointing presence the lonely heart so desperately desires? Is life any less difficult for lovers? They only use each other to avoid their appointed fates! How can you fail to comprehend? Fling your arms’ emptiness into this space we occupy and inhale: may birds fill the expanded air with more intimate flying! Yes, the springtime still requires you. Perpetually a star waits for you to recognize it. A wave recedes toward you from the distant past, or as you walk beneath an open window, a violin yields virginally to your ears. All this was preordained. But how can you incorporate it? ... Weren't you always distracted by expectations, as if every event presaged some new beloved? (Where can you harbor, when all these enormous strange thoughts surging within you keep you up all night, restlessly rising and falling?) When you are full of yearning, sing of loving women, because their passions are finite; sing of forsaken women (and how you almost envy them) because they could love you more purely than the ones you left gratified. Resume the unattainable exaltation; remember: the hero survives; even his demise was merely a stepping stone toward his latest rebirth. But spent and exhausted Nature withdraws lovers back into herself, as if lacking the energy to recreate them. Have you remembered Gaspara Stampa with sufficient focus— how any abandoned girl might be inspired by her fierce example and might ask herself, "How can I be like her?" Shouldn't these ancient sufferings become fruitful for us? Shouldn’t we free ourselves from the beloved, quivering, as the arrow endures the bowstring's tension, so that in the snap of release it soars beyond itself? For there is nowhere else where we can remain. Voices! Voices! Listen, heart, as levitating saints once listened, until the elevating call soared them heavenward; and yet they continued kneeling, unaware, so complete was their concentration. Not that you could endure God's voice—far from it! But heed the wind’s voice and the ceaseless formless message of silence: It murmurs now of the martyred young. Whenever you attended a church in Naples or Rome, didn't they come quietly to address you? And didn’t an exalted inscription impress its mission upon you recently, on the plaque in Santa Maria Formosa? What they require of me is that I gently remove any appearance of injustice— which at times slightly hinders their souls from advancing. Of course, it is endlessly strange to no longer inhabit the earth; to relinquish customs one barely had the time to acquire; not to see in roses and other tokens a hopeful human future; no longer to be oneself, cradled in infinitely caring hands; to set aside even one's own name, forgotten as easily as a child’s broken plaything. How strange to no longer desire one's desires! How strange to see meanings no longer cohere, drifting off into space. Dying is difficult and requires retrieval before one can gradually decipher eternity. The living all err in believing the too-sharp distinctions they create themselves. Angels (men say) don't know whether they move among the living or the dead. The eternal current merges all ages in its maelstrom until the voices of both realms are drowned out in its thunderous roar. In the end, the early-departed no longer need us: they are weaned gently from earth's agonies and ecstasies, as children outgrow their mothers’ ******* But we, who need such immense mysteries, and for whom grief is so often the source of our spirit's progress— how can we exist without them? Is the legend of the lament for Linos meaningless— the daring first notes of the song pierce our apathy; then, in the interlude, when the youth, lovely as a god, has suddenly departed forever, we experience the emptiness of the Void for the first time— that harmony which now enraptures and comforts and aids us? Second Elegy by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Every angel is terrifying. And yet, alas, I invoke you, one of the soul’s lethal raptors, well aware of your nature. As in the days of Tobias, when one of you, obscuring his radiance, stood at the simple threshold, appearing ordinary rather than appalling while the curious youth peered through the window. But if the Archangel emerged today, perilous, from beyond the stars and took even one step toward us, our hammering hearts would pound us to death. What are you? Who are you? Joyous from the beginning; God’s early successes; Creation’s favorites; creatures of the heights; pollen of the flowering godhead; cusps of pure light; stately corridors; rising stairways; exalted thrones; filling space with your pure essence; crests of rapture; shields of ecstasy; storms of tumultuous emotions whipped into whirlwinds ... until one, acting alone, recreates itself by mirroring the beauty of its own countenance. While we, when deeply moved, evaporate; we exhale ourselves and fade away, growing faint like smoldering embers; we drift away like the scent of smoke. And while someone might say: “You’re in my blood! You occupy this room! You fill this entire springtime!” ... Still, what becomes of us? We cannot be contained; we vanish whether inside or out. And even the loveliest, who can retain them? Resemblance ceaselessly rises, then is gone, like dew from dawn’s grasses. And what is ours drifts away, like warmth from a steaming dish. O smile, where are you bound? O heavenward glance: are you a receding heat wave, a ripple of the heart? Alas, but is this not what we are? Does the cosmos we dissolve into savor us? Do the angels reabsorb only the radiance they emitted themselves, or sometimes, perhaps by oversight, traces of our being as well? Are we included in their features, as obscure as the vague looks on the faces of pregnant women? Do they notice us at all (how could they) as they reform themselves? Lovers, if they only knew how, might mutter marvelous curses into the night air. For it seems everything eludes us. See: the trees really do exist; our houses stand solid and firm. And yet we drift away, like weightless sighs. And all creation conspires to remain silent about us: perhaps from shame, perhaps from inexpressible hope? Lovers, gratified by each other, I ask to you consider: You cling to each other, but where is your proof of a connection? Sometimes my hands become aware of each other and my time-worn, exhausted face takes shelter in them, creating a slight sensation. But because of that, can I still claim to "be"? You, the ones who writhe with each other’s passions until, overwhelmed, someone begs: “No more!...”; You who swell beneath each other’s hands like autumn grapes; You, the one who dwindles as the other increases: I ask you to consider ... I know you touch each other so ardently because each caress preserves pure continuance, like the promise of eternity, because the flesh touched does not disappear. And yet, when you have survived the terror of initial intimacy, the first lonely vigil at the window, the first walk together through the blossoming garden: lovers, do you not still remain who you were before? If you lift your lips to each other’s and unite, potion to potion, still how strangely each drinker eludes the magic. Weren’t you confounded by the cautious human gestures on Attic gravestones? Weren’t love and farewell laid so lightly on shoulders they seemed composed of some ethereal substance unknown to us today? Consider those hands, how weightlessly they rested, despite the powerful torsos. The ancient masters knew: “We can only go so far, in touching each other. The gods can exert more force. But that is their affair.” If only we, too, could discover such a pure, contained Eden for humanity, our own fruitful strip of soil between river and rock. For our hearts have always exceeded us, as our ancestors’ did. And we can no longer trust our own eyes, when gazing at godlike bodies, our hearts find a greater repose. Keywords/Tags: Rilke, elegy, elegies, angels, beauty, terror, terrifying, desire, vision, reality, heart, love, lovers, beloved, rose, saints, spirits, souls, ghosts, voices, torso, Apollo, Rodin, panther, autumn, beggar
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Liebes-Lied (“Love Song”) by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch How can I withhold my soul so that it doesn’t touch yours? How can I lift mine gently to higher things, alone? Oh, I would gladly find something lost in the dark in that inert space that fails to resonate until you vibrate. There everything that moves us, draws us together like a bow enticing two taut strings to sing together with a simultaneous voice. Whose instrument are we becoming together? Whose, the hands that excite us? Ah, sweet song! Original text: Liebes-Lied Wie soll ich meine Seele halten, daß sie nicht an deine rührt? Wie soll ich sie hinheben über dich zu andern Dingen? Ach gerne möcht ich sie bei irgendwas Verlorenem im Dunkel unterbringen an einer fremden stillen Stelle, die nicht weiterschwingt, wenn deine Tiefen schwingen. Doch alles, was uns anrührt, dich und mich, nimmt uns zusammen wie ein Bogenstrich, der aus zwei Saiten eine Stimme zieht. Auf welches Instrument sind wir gespannt? Und welcher Geiger hat uns in der Hand? O süßes Lied. Keywords/Tags: German, translation, Rainer Maria Rilke, love, song, music, soul, vibrate, vibration, dark, space, darkness, instrument, bow, strings, hands, voice
0
Feb 25, 2020
Feb 25, 2020 at 6:26 PM UTC
michael-r-burch
Rainer Maria Rilke "Love Song" translation
Liebes-Lied (“Love Song”) by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch How can I withhold my soul so that it doesn’t touch yours? How can I lift mine gently to higher things, alone? Oh, I would gladly find something lost in the dark in that inert space that fails to resonate until you vibrate. There everything that moves us, draws us together like a bow enticing two taut strings to sing together with a simultaneous voice. Whose instrument are we becoming together? Whose, the hands that excite us? Ah, sweet song! Original text: Liebes-Lied Wie soll ich meine Seele halten, daß sie nicht an deine rührt? Wie soll ich sie hinheben über dich zu andern Dingen? Ach gerne möcht ich sie bei irgendwas Verlorenem im Dunkel unterbringen an einer fremden stillen Stelle, die nicht weiterschwingt, wenn deine Tiefen schwingen. Doch alles, was uns anrührt, dich und mich, nimmt uns zusammen wie ein Bogenstrich, der aus zwei Saiten eine Stimme zieht. Auf welches Instrument sind wir gespannt? Und welcher Geiger hat uns in der Hand? O süßes Lied. Keywords/Tags: German, translation, Rainer Maria Rilke, love, song, music, soul, vibrate, vibration, dark, space, darkness, instrument, bow, strings, hands, voice
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28
Archaischer Torso Apollos (“Archaic Torso of Apollo”) by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch We cannot know the beheaded god nor his eyes’ forfeited visions. But still the figure’s trunk glows with the strange vitality of a lamp lit from within, while his composed will emanates dynamism. Otherwise the firmly muscled abdomen could not beguile us, nor the centering ***** make us smile at the thought of their generative animus. Otherwise the stone might seem deficient, unworthy of the broad shoulders, of the groin projecting procreation’s triangular spearhead upwards, unworthy of the living impulse blazing wildly within like an inchoate star—demanding our belief. You must change your life. Keywords/Tags: German, translation, sonnet, Rainer Maria Rilke, god, Apollo, vision, visions, trunk, abdomen, body, torso, muscle, muscles, muscular, eyes, vision, visions, vitality, will, lamp, light, dynamic, dynamism, ***** groin, stone, phallus, **** ***** animus, star, change, life This is my translation of the first of Rilke’s Duino Elegies. Rilke began the first Duino Elegy in 1912, as a guest of Princess Marie von Thurn und Taxis, at Duino Castle, near Trieste on the Adriatic Sea. First Elegy by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Who, if I objected, would hear me among the angelic orders? For if the least One pressed me intimately against its breast, I would be lost in its infinite Immensity! Because beauty, which we mortals can barely endure, is the beginning of terror; we stand awed when it benignly declines to annihilate us. Every Angel is terrifying! And so I restrain myself, swallowing the sound of my pitiful sobbing. For whom may we turn to, in our desire? Not to Angels, nor to men, and already the sentient animals are aware that we are all aliens in this metaphorical existence. Perhaps some tree still stands on a hillside, which we can study with our ordinary vision. Perhaps the commonplace street still remains amid man’s fealty to materiality— the concrete items that never destabilize. Oh, and of course there is the night: her dark currents caress our faces ... But whom, then, do we live for? That longed-for but mildly disappointing presence the lonely heart so desperately desires? Is life any less difficult for lovers? They only use each other to avoid their appointed fates! How can you fail to comprehend? Fling your arms’ emptiness into this space we occupy and inhale: may birds fill the expanded air with more intimate flying! Yes, the springtime still requires you. Perpetually a star waits for you to recognize it. A wave recedes toward you from the distant past, or as you walk beneath an open window, a violin yields virginally to your ears. All this was preordained. But how can you incorporate it? ... Weren't you always distracted by expectations, as if every event presaged some new beloved? (Where can you harbor, when all these enormous strange thoughts surging within you keep you up all night, restlessly rising and falling?) When you are full of yearning, sing of loving women, because their passions are finite; sing of forsaken women (and how you almost envy them) because they could love you more purely than the ones you left gratified. Resume the unattainable exaltation; remember: the hero survives; even his demise was merely a stepping stone toward his latest rebirth. But spent and exhausted Nature withdraws lovers back into herself, as if lacking the energy to recreate them. Have you remembered Gaspara Stampa with sufficient focus— how any abandoned girl might be inspired by her fierce example and might ask herself, "How can I be like her?" Shouldn't these ancient sufferings become fruitful for us? Shouldn’t we free ourselves from the beloved, quivering, as the arrow endures the bowstring's tension, so that in the snap of release it soars beyond itself? For there is nowhere else where we can remain. Voices! Voices! Listen, heart, as levitating saints once listened, until the elevating call soared them heavenward; and yet they continued kneeling, unaware, so complete was their concentration. Not that you could endure God's voice—far from it! But heed the wind’s voice and the ceaseless formless message of silence: It murmurs now of the martyred young. Whenever you attended a church in Naples or Rome, didn't they come quietly to address you? And didn’t an exalted inscription impress its mission upon you recently, on the plaque in Santa Maria Formosa? What they require of me is that I gently remove any appearance of injustice— which at times slightly hinders their souls from advancing. Of course, it is endlessly strange to no longer inhabit the earth; to relinquish customs one barely had the time to acquire; not to see in roses and other tokens a hopeful human future; no longer to be oneself, cradled in infinitely caring hands; to set aside even one's own name, forgotten as easily as a child’s broken plaything. How strange to no longer desire one's desires! How strange to see meanings no longer cohere, drifting off into space. Dying is difficult and requires retrieval before one can gradually decipher eternity. The living all err in believing the too-sharp distinctions they create themselves. Angels (men say) don't know whether they move among the living or the dead. The eternal current merges all ages in its maelstrom until the voices of both realms are drowned out in its thunderous roar. In the end, the early-departed no longer need us: they are weaned gently from earth's agonies and ecstasies, as children outgrow their mothers’ ******* But we, who need such immense mysteries, and for whom grief is so often the source of our spirit's progress— how can we exist without them? Is the legend of the lament for Linos meaningless— the daring first notes of the song pierce our apathy; then, in the interlude, when the youth, lovely as a god, has suddenly departed forever, we experience the emptiness of the Void for the first time— that harmony which now enraptures and comforts and aids us? Keywords/Tags: Rilke, elegy, elegies, angels, beauty, terror, terrifying, desire, vision, reality, heart, love, lovers, beloved, rose, saints, spirits, souls, ghosts, voices, torso, Apollo, Rodin, panther, autumn, beggar
0
Feb 25, 2020
Feb 25, 2020 at 7:10 AM UTC
michael-r-burch
Rainer Maria Rilke "Archaic Torso of Apollo" translation
Archaischer Torso Apollos (“Archaic Torso of Apollo”) by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch We cannot know the beheaded god nor his eyes’ forfeited visions. But still the figure’s trunk glows with the strange vitality of a lamp lit from within, while his composed will emanates dynamism. Otherwise the firmly muscled abdomen could not beguile us, nor the centering ***** make us smile at the thought of their generative animus. Otherwise the stone might seem deficient, unworthy of the broad shoulders, of the groin projecting procreation’s triangular spearhead upwards, unworthy of the living impulse blazing wildly within like an inchoate star—demanding our belief. You must change your life. Keywords/Tags: German, translation, sonnet, Rainer Maria Rilke, god, Apollo, vision, visions, trunk, abdomen, body, torso, muscle, muscles, muscular, eyes, vision, visions, vitality, will, lamp, light, dynamic, dynamism, ***** groin, stone, phallus, **** ***** animus, star, change, life This is my translation of the first of Rilke’s Duino Elegies. Rilke began the first Duino Elegy in 1912, as a guest of Princess Marie von Thurn und Taxis, at Duino Castle, near Trieste on the Adriatic Sea. First Elegy by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Who, if I objected, would hear me among the angelic orders? For if the least One pressed me intimately against its breast, I would be lost in its infinite Immensity! Because beauty, which we mortals can barely endure, is the beginning of terror; we stand awed when it benignly declines to annihilate us. Every Angel is terrifying! And so I restrain myself, swallowing the sound of my pitiful sobbing. For whom may we turn to, in our desire? Not to Angels, nor to men, and already the sentient animals are aware that we are all aliens in this metaphorical existence. Perhaps some tree still stands on a hillside, which we can study with our ordinary vision. Perhaps the commonplace street still remains amid man’s fealty to materiality— the concrete items that never destabilize. Oh, and of course there is the night: her dark currents caress our faces ... But whom, then, do we live for? That longed-for but mildly disappointing presence the lonely heart so desperately desires? Is life any less difficult for lovers? They only use each other to avoid their appointed fates! How can you fail to comprehend? Fling your arms’ emptiness into this space we occupy and inhale: may birds fill the expanded air with more intimate flying! Yes, the springtime still requires you. Perpetually a star waits for you to recognize it. A wave recedes toward you from the distant past, or as you walk beneath an open window, a violin yields virginally to your ears. All this was preordained. But how can you incorporate it? ... Weren't you always distracted by expectations, as if every event presaged some new beloved? (Where can you harbor, when all these enormous strange thoughts surging within you keep you up all night, restlessly rising and falling?) When you are full of yearning, sing of loving women, because their passions are finite; sing of forsaken women (and how you almost envy them) because they could love you more purely than the ones you left gratified. Resume the unattainable exaltation; remember: the hero survives; even his demise was merely a stepping stone toward his latest rebirth. But spent and exhausted Nature withdraws lovers back into herself, as if lacking the energy to recreate them. Have you remembered Gaspara Stampa with sufficient focus— how any abandoned girl might be inspired by her fierce example and might ask herself, "How can I be like her?" Shouldn't these ancient sufferings become fruitful for us? Shouldn’t we free ourselves from the beloved, quivering, as the arrow endures the bowstring's tension, so that in the snap of release it soars beyond itself? For there is nowhere else where we can remain. Voices! Voices! Listen, heart, as levitating saints once listened, until the elevating call soared them heavenward; and yet they continued kneeling, unaware, so complete was their concentration. Not that you could endure God's voice—far from it! But heed the wind’s voice and the ceaseless formless message of silence: It murmurs now of the martyred young. Whenever you attended a church in Naples or Rome, didn't they come quietly to address you? And didn’t an exalted inscription impress its mission upon you recently, on the plaque in Santa Maria Formosa? What they require of me is that I gently remove any appearance of injustice— which at times slightly hinders their souls from advancing. Of course, it is endlessly strange to no longer inhabit the earth; to relinquish customs one barely had the time to acquire; not to see in roses and other tokens a hopeful human future; no longer to be oneself, cradled in infinitely caring hands; to set aside even one's own name, forgotten as easily as a child’s broken plaything. How strange to no longer desire one's desires! How strange to see meanings no longer cohere, drifting off into space. Dying is difficult and requires retrieval before one can gradually decipher eternity. The living all err in believing the too-sharp distinctions they create themselves. Angels (men say) don't know whether they move among the living or the dead. The eternal current merges all ages in its maelstrom until the voices of both realms are drowned out in its thunderous roar. In the end, the early-departed no longer need us: they are weaned gently from earth's agonies and ecstasies, as children outgrow their mothers’ ******* But we, who need such immense mysteries, and for whom grief is so often the source of our spirit's progress— how can we exist without them? Is the legend of the lament for Linos meaningless— the daring first notes of the song pierce our apathy; then, in the interlude, when the youth, lovely as a god, has suddenly departed forever, we experience the emptiness of the Void for the first time— that harmony which now enraptures and comforts and aids us? Keywords/Tags: Rilke, elegy, elegies, angels, beauty, terror, terrifying, desire, vision, reality, heart, love, lovers, beloved, rose, saints, spirits, souls, ghosts, voices, torso, Apollo, Rodin, panther, autumn, beggar
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These are English translations of poems by Rainer Maria Rilke... Herbsttag ("Autumn Day") by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Lord, it is time. Let the immense summer go. Lay your long shadows over the sundials and over the meadows, let the free winds blow. Command the late fruits to fatten and shine; O, grant them another Mediterranean hour! Urge them to completion, and with power convey final sweetness to the heavy wine. Who has no house now, never will build one. Who's alone now, shall continue alone; he'll wake, read, write long letters to friends, and pace the tree-lined pathways up and down, restlessly, as autumn leaves drift and descend. Original text: Herr: es ist Zeit. Der Sommer war sehr groß. Leg deinen Schatten auf die Sonnenuhren, und auf den Fluren laß die Winde los. Befiel den letzten Früchten voll zu sein; gib ihnen noch zwei südlichere Tage, dränge sie zur Vollendung hin und jage die letzte Süße in den schweren Wein. Wer jetzt kein Haus hat, baut sich keines mehr. Wer jetzt allein ist, wird es lange bleiben, wird wachen, lesen, lange Briefe schreiben und wird in den Alleen hin und her unruhig wandern, wenn die Blätter treiben. Originally published by Measure Keywords/Tags: German, translation, sonnet, Rainer Marie Rilke, autumn, day, summer, sundial, sundials, meadow, meadows, wind, winds, fruit, fruits, sweetness, wine, house, alone, loneliness, alienation, letters, friends, pathways, roads, lanes, leaves Du im Voraus (“You who never arrived”) by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch You who never arrived in my arms, my Belovéd, lost before love began... How can I possibly know which songs might please you? I have given up trying to envision you in portentous moments before the next wave impacts... when all the vastness and immenseness within me, all the far-off undiscovered lands and landscapes, all the cities, towers and bridges, all the unanticipated twists and turns in the road, and all those terrible terrains once traversed by strange gods— engender new meaning in me: your meaning, my enigmatic darling... You, who continually elude me. You, my Belovéd, who are every garden I ever gazed upon, longingly, through some country manor’s open window, so that you almost stepped out, pensively, to meet me; who are every sidestreet I ever chanced upon, even though you’d just traipsed tantalizingly away, and vanished, while the disconcerted shopkeepers’ mirrors still dizzily reflected your image, flashing you back at me, startled by my unwarranted image! Who knows, but perhaps the same songbird’s cry echoed through us both, yesterday, separate as we were, that evening? Excerpt from “Loneliness” by Rainer Maria Rilke translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Being alone and apart is like the rain ascending at evening from alien plains: from lonely plateaus, unseen and unsought, it climbs toward heaven, its sublime ancient home, and only, when fallen, pities the city. The next two poems are my modern English translations of Rainer Maria Rilke’s First and Second Elegies. These are the opening elegies in a collection commonly called the “Duino Elegies” because Rilke began composing them at Duino Castle, near Trieste, Italy, in 1912. Rilke’s First Elegy by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Who, if I objected, would hear me among the angelic orders? For if the least One pressed me intimately against its breast, I would be lost in its infinite Immensity! Because beauty, which we mortals can barely endure, is the beginning of terror; we stand awed when it benignly declines to annihilate us. Every Angel is terrifying! And so I restrain myself, swallowing the sound of my pitiful sobbing. For whom may we turn to, in our desire? Not to Angels, nor to men, and already the sentient animals are aware that we are all aliens in this metaphorical existence. Perhaps some tree still stands on a hillside, which we can study with our ordinary vision. Perhaps the commonplace street still remains amid man’s fealty to materiality— the concrete items that never destabilize. Oh, and of course there is the night: her dark currents caress our faces ... But whom, then, do we live for? That longed-for but mildly disappointing presence the lonely heart so desperately desires? Is life any less difficult for lovers? They only use each other to avoid their appointed fates! How can you fail to comprehend? Fling your arms’ emptiness into this space we occupy and inhale: may birds fill the expanded air with more intimate flying! Yes, the springtime still requires you. Perpetually a star waits for you to recognize it. A wave recedes toward you from the distant past, or as you walk beneath an open window, a violin yields virginally to your ears. All this was preordained. But how can you incorporate it? ... Weren't you always distracted by expectations, as if every event presaged some new beloved? (Where can you harbor, when all these enormous strange thoughts surging within you keep you up all night, restlessly rising and falling?) When you are full of yearning, sing of loving women, because their passions are finite; sing of forsaken women (and how you almost envy them) because they could love you more purely than the ones you left gratified. Resume the unattainable exaltation; remember: the hero survives; even his demise was merely a stepping stone toward his latest rebirth. But spent and exhausted Nature withdraws lovers back into herself, as if lacking the energy to recreate them. Have you remembered Gaspara Stampa with sufficient focus— how any abandoned girl might be inspired by her fierce example and might ask herself, "How can I be like her?" Shouldn't these ancient sufferings become fruitful for us? Shouldn’t we free ourselves from the beloved, quivering, as the arrow endures the bowstring's tension, so that in the snap of release it soars beyond itself? For there is nowhere else where we can remain. Voices! Voices! Listen, heart, as levitating saints once listened, until the elevating call soared them heavenward; and yet they continued kneeling, unaware, so complete was their concentration. Not that you could endure God's voice—far from it! But heed the wind’s voice and the ceaseless formless message of silence: It murmurs now of the martyred young. Whenever you attended a church in Naples or Rome, didn't they come quietly to address you? And didn’t an exalted inscription impress its mission upon you recently, on the plaque in Santa Maria Formosa? What they require of me is that I gently remove any appearance of injustice— which at times slightly hinders their souls from advancing. Of course, it is endlessly strange to no longer inhabit the earth; to relinquish customs one barely had the time to acquire; not to see in roses and other tokens a hopeful human future; no longer to be oneself, cradled in infinitely caring hands; to set aside even one's own name, forgotten as easily as a child’s broken plaything. How strange to no longer desire one's desires! How strange to see meanings no longer cohere, drifting off into space. Dying is difficult and requires retrieval before one can gradually decipher eternity. The living all err in believing the too-sharp distinctions they create themselves. Angels (men say) don't know whether they move among the living or the dead. The eternal current merges all ages in its maelstrom until the voices of both realms are drowned out in its thunderous roar. In the end, the early-departed no longer need us: they are weaned gently from earth's agonies and ecstasies, as children outgrow their mothers’ ******* But we, who need such immense mysteries, and for whom grief is so often the source of our spirit's progress— how can we exist without them? Is the legend of the lament for Linos meaningless— the daring first notes of the song pierce our apathy; then, in the interlude, when the youth, lovely as a god, has suddenly departed forever, we experience the emptiness of the Void for the first time— that harmony which now enraptures and comforts and aids us? Rilke’s Second Elegy by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Every angel is terrifying. And yet, alas, I invoke you, one of the soul’s lethal raptors, well aware of your nature. As in the days of Tobias, when one of you, obscuring his radiance, stood at the simple threshold, appearing ordinary rather than appalling while the curious youth peered through the window. But if the Archangel emerged today, perilous, from beyond the stars and took even one step toward us, our hammering hearts would pound us to death. What are you? Who are you? Joyous from the beginning; God’s early successes; Creation’s favorites; creatures of the heights; pollen of the flowering godhead; cusps of pure light; stately corridors; rising stairways; exalted thrones; filling space with your pure essence; crests of rapture; shields of ecstasy; storms of tumultuous emotions whipped into whirlwinds ... until one, acting alone, recreates itself by mirroring the beauty of its own countenance. While we, when deeply moved, evaporate; we exhale ourselves and fade away, growing faint like smoldering embers; we drift away like the scent of smoke. And while someone might say: “You’re in my blood! You occupy this room! You fill this entire springtime!” ... Still, what becomes of us? We cannot be contained; we vanish whether inside or out. And even the loveliest, who can retain them? Resemblance ceaselessly rises, then is gone, like dew from dawn’s grasses. And what is ours drifts away, like warmth from a steaming dish. O smile, where are you bound? O heavenward glance: are you a receding heat wave, a ripple of the heart? Alas, but is this not what we are? Does the cosmos we dissolve into savor us? Do the angels reabsorb only the radiance they emitted themselves, or sometimes, perhaps by oversight, traces of our being as well? Are we included in their features, as obscure as the vague looks on the faces of pregnant women? Do they notice us at all (how could they) as they reform themselves? Lovers, if they only knew how, might mutter marvelous curses into the night air. For it seems everything eludes us. See: the trees really do exist; our houses stand solid and firm. And yet we drift away, like weightless sighs. And all creation conspires to remain silent about us: perhaps from shame, perhaps from inexpressible hope? Lovers, gratified by each other, I ask to you consider: You cling to each other, but where is your proof of a connection? Sometimes my hands become aware of each other and my time-worn, exhausted face takes shelter in them, creating a slight sensation. But because of that, can I still claim to be? You, the ones who writhe with each other’s passions until, overwhelmed, someone begs: “No more!...”; You who swell beneath each other’s hands like autumn grapes; You, the one who dwindles as the other increases: I ask you to consider ... I know you touch each other so ardently because each caress preserves pure continuance, like the promise of eternity, because the flesh touched does not disappear. And yet, when you have survived the terror of initial intimacy, the first lonely vigil at the window, the first walk together through the blossoming garden: lovers, do you not still remain who you were before? If you lift your lips to each other’s and unite, potion to potion, still how strangely each drinker eludes the magic. Weren’t you confounded by the cautious human gestures on Attic gravestones? Weren’t love and farewell laid so lightly on shoulders they seemed composed of some ethereal substance unknown to us today? Consider those hands, how weightlessly they rested, despite the powerful torsos. The ancient masters knew: “We can only go so far, in touching each other. The gods can exert more force. But that is their affair.” If only we, too, could discover such a pure, contained Eden for humanity, our own fruitful strip of soil between river and rock. For our hearts have always exceeded us, as our ancestors’ did. And we can no longer trust our own eyes, when gazing at godlike bodies, our hearts find a greater repose. HERMANN HESSE This is my modern English translation of the poem "Stages" by the great German poet Hermann Hesse from his novel "The Glass Bead Game." Stages by Hermann Hesse from his novel "The Glass Bead Game" loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch As every flower wilts and every youth must wilt and exit life from a curtained stage, so every virtue—even our truest truth— blooms some brief time and cannot last forever. Since life may summons death at any age we must prepare for death’s obscene endeavor, meet our end with courage and without remorse, forego regret and hopes of some reprieve, embrace death’s end, as life’s required divorce, some new beginning, calling us to live. Thus let us move, serene, beyond our fear, and let no sentiments detain us here. The Universal Spirit would not chain us, but elevates us slowly, stage by stage. If we demand a halt, our fears restrain us, caught in the webs of creaturely defense. We must prepare for imminent departure or else be bound by foolish “permanence.” Death’s hour may be our swift deliverance, from which we speed to fresher, newer spaces, and Life may summons us to bolder races. So be it, heart! Farewell, and adieu, then! Keywords/Tags: Hermann Hesse, translation, German, English, life, death, stage, stages, truth, flower, wilt, youth, flower, blooms, time, age, courage, hope, hopes, fear, spirit, god, space, spaces, heart, farewell
0
Feb 25, 2020
Feb 25, 2020 at 7:01 AM UTC
michael-r-burch
Rainer Maria Rilke "Autumn Day" translation
These are English translations of poems by Rainer Maria Rilke... Herbsttag ("Autumn Day") by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Lord, it is time. Let the immense summer go. Lay your long shadows over the sundials and over the meadows, let the free winds blow. Command the late fruits to fatten and shine; O, grant them another Mediterranean hour! Urge them to completion, and with power convey final sweetness to the heavy wine. Who has no house now, never will build one. Who's alone now, shall continue alone; he'll wake, read, write long letters to friends, and pace the tree-lined pathways up and down, restlessly, as autumn leaves drift and descend. Original text: Herr: es ist Zeit. Der Sommer war sehr groß. Leg deinen Schatten auf die Sonnenuhren, und auf den Fluren laß die Winde los. Befiel den letzten Früchten voll zu sein; gib ihnen noch zwei südlichere Tage, dränge sie zur Vollendung hin und jage die letzte Süße in den schweren Wein. Wer jetzt kein Haus hat, baut sich keines mehr. Wer jetzt allein ist, wird es lange bleiben, wird wachen, lesen, lange Briefe schreiben und wird in den Alleen hin und her unruhig wandern, wenn die Blätter treiben. Originally published by Measure Keywords/Tags: German, translation, sonnet, Rainer Marie Rilke, autumn, day, summer, sundial, sundials, meadow, meadows, wind, winds, fruit, fruits, sweetness, wine, house, alone, loneliness, alienation, letters, friends, pathways, roads, lanes, leaves Du im Voraus (“You who never arrived”) by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch You who never arrived in my arms, my Belovéd, lost before love began... How can I possibly know which songs might please you? I have given up trying to envision you in portentous moments before the next wave impacts... when all the vastness and immenseness within me, all the far-off undiscovered lands and landscapes, all the cities, towers and bridges, all the unanticipated twists and turns in the road, and all those terrible terrains once traversed by strange gods— engender new meaning in me: your meaning, my enigmatic darling... You, who continually elude me. You, my Belovéd, who are every garden I ever gazed upon, longingly, through some country manor’s open window, so that you almost stepped out, pensively, to meet me; who are every sidestreet I ever chanced upon, even though you’d just traipsed tantalizingly away, and vanished, while the disconcerted shopkeepers’ mirrors still dizzily reflected your image, flashing you back at me, startled by my unwarranted image! Who knows, but perhaps the same songbird’s cry echoed through us both, yesterday, separate as we were, that evening? Excerpt from “Loneliness” by Rainer Maria Rilke translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Being alone and apart is like the rain ascending at evening from alien plains: from lonely plateaus, unseen and unsought, it climbs toward heaven, its sublime ancient home, and only, when fallen, pities the city. The next two poems are my modern English translations of Rainer Maria Rilke’s First and Second Elegies. These are the opening elegies in a collection commonly called the “Duino Elegies” because Rilke began composing them at Duino Castle, near Trieste, Italy, in 1912. Rilke’s First Elegy by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Who, if I objected, would hear me among the angelic orders? For if the least One pressed me intimately against its breast, I would be lost in its infinite Immensity! Because beauty, which we mortals can barely endure, is the beginning of terror; we stand awed when it benignly declines to annihilate us. Every Angel is terrifying! And so I restrain myself, swallowing the sound of my pitiful sobbing. For whom may we turn to, in our desire? Not to Angels, nor to men, and already the sentient animals are aware that we are all aliens in this metaphorical existence. Perhaps some tree still stands on a hillside, which we can study with our ordinary vision. Perhaps the commonplace street still remains amid man’s fealty to materiality— the concrete items that never destabilize. Oh, and of course there is the night: her dark currents caress our faces ... But whom, then, do we live for? That longed-for but mildly disappointing presence the lonely heart so desperately desires? Is life any less difficult for lovers? They only use each other to avoid their appointed fates! How can you fail to comprehend? Fling your arms’ emptiness into this space we occupy and inhale: may birds fill the expanded air with more intimate flying! Yes, the springtime still requires you. Perpetually a star waits for you to recognize it. A wave recedes toward you from the distant past, or as you walk beneath an open window, a violin yields virginally to your ears. All this was preordained. But how can you incorporate it? ... Weren't you always distracted by expectations, as if every event presaged some new beloved? (Where can you harbor, when all these enormous strange thoughts surging within you keep you up all night, restlessly rising and falling?) When you are full of yearning, sing of loving women, because their passions are finite; sing of forsaken women (and how you almost envy them) because they could love you more purely than the ones you left gratified. Resume the unattainable exaltation; remember: the hero survives; even his demise was merely a stepping stone toward his latest rebirth. But spent and exhausted Nature withdraws lovers back into herself, as if lacking the energy to recreate them. Have you remembered Gaspara Stampa with sufficient focus— how any abandoned girl might be inspired by her fierce example and might ask herself, "How can I be like her?" Shouldn't these ancient sufferings become fruitful for us? Shouldn’t we free ourselves from the beloved, quivering, as the arrow endures the bowstring's tension, so that in the snap of release it soars beyond itself? For there is nowhere else where we can remain. Voices! Voices! Listen, heart, as levitating saints once listened, until the elevating call soared them heavenward; and yet they continued kneeling, unaware, so complete was their concentration. Not that you could endure God's voice—far from it! But heed the wind’s voice and the ceaseless formless message of silence: It murmurs now of the martyred young. Whenever you attended a church in Naples or Rome, didn't they come quietly to address you? And didn’t an exalted inscription impress its mission upon you recently, on the plaque in Santa Maria Formosa? What they require of me is that I gently remove any appearance of injustice— which at times slightly hinders their souls from advancing. Of course, it is endlessly strange to no longer inhabit the earth; to relinquish customs one barely had the time to acquire; not to see in roses and other tokens a hopeful human future; no longer to be oneself, cradled in infinitely caring hands; to set aside even one's own name, forgotten as easily as a child’s broken plaything. How strange to no longer desire one's desires! How strange to see meanings no longer cohere, drifting off into space. Dying is difficult and requires retrieval before one can gradually decipher eternity. The living all err in believing the too-sharp distinctions they create themselves. Angels (men say) don't know whether they move among the living or the dead. The eternal current merges all ages in its maelstrom until the voices of both realms are drowned out in its thunderous roar. In the end, the early-departed no longer need us: they are weaned gently from earth's agonies and ecstasies, as children outgrow their mothers’ ******* But we, who need such immense mysteries, and for whom grief is so often the source of our spirit's progress— how can we exist without them? Is the legend of the lament for Linos meaningless— the daring first notes of the song pierce our apathy; then, in the interlude, when the youth, lovely as a god, has suddenly departed forever, we experience the emptiness of the Void for the first time— that harmony which now enraptures and comforts and aids us? Rilke’s Second Elegy by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Every angel is terrifying. And yet, alas, I invoke you, one of the soul’s lethal raptors, well aware of your nature. As in the days of Tobias, when one of you, obscuring his radiance, stood at the simple threshold, appearing ordinary rather than appalling while the curious youth peered through the window. But if the Archangel emerged today, perilous, from beyond the stars and took even one step toward us, our hammering hearts would pound us to death. What are you? Who are you? Joyous from the beginning; God’s early successes; Creation’s favorites; creatures of the heights; pollen of the flowering godhead; cusps of pure light; stately corridors; rising stairways; exalted thrones; filling space with your pure essence; crests of rapture; shields of ecstasy; storms of tumultuous emotions whipped into whirlwinds ... until one, acting alone, recreates itself by mirroring the beauty of its own countenance. While we, when deeply moved, evaporate; we exhale ourselves and fade away, growing faint like smoldering embers; we drift away like the scent of smoke. And while someone might say: “You’re in my blood! You occupy this room! You fill this entire springtime!” ... Still, what becomes of us? We cannot be contained; we vanish whether inside or out. And even the loveliest, who can retain them? Resemblance ceaselessly rises, then is gone, like dew from dawn’s grasses. And what is ours drifts away, like warmth from a steaming dish. O smile, where are you bound? O heavenward glance: are you a receding heat wave, a ripple of the heart? Alas, but is this not what we are? Does the cosmos we dissolve into savor us? Do the angels reabsorb only the radiance they emitted themselves, or sometimes, perhaps by oversight, traces of our being as well? Are we included in their features, as obscure as the vague looks on the faces of pregnant women? Do they notice us at all (how could they) as they reform themselves? Lovers, if they only knew how, might mutter marvelous curses into the night air. For it seems everything eludes us. See: the trees really do exist; our houses stand solid and firm. And yet we drift away, like weightless sighs. And all creation conspires to remain silent about us: perhaps from shame, perhaps from inexpressible hope? Lovers, gratified by each other, I ask to you consider: You cling to each other, but where is your proof of a connection? Sometimes my hands become aware of each other and my time-worn, exhausted face takes shelter in them, creating a slight sensation. But because of that, can I still claim to be? You, the ones who writhe with each other’s passions until, overwhelmed, someone begs: “No more!...”; You who swell beneath each other’s hands like autumn grapes; You, the one who dwindles as the other increases: I ask you to consider ... I know you touch each other so ardently because each caress preserves pure continuance, like the promise of eternity, because the flesh touched does not disappear. And yet, when you have survived the terror of initial intimacy, the first lonely vigil at the window, the first walk together through the blossoming garden: lovers, do you not still remain who you were before? If you lift your lips to each other’s and unite, potion to potion, still how strangely each drinker eludes the magic. Weren’t you confounded by the cautious human gestures on Attic gravestones? Weren’t love and farewell laid so lightly on shoulders they seemed composed of some ethereal substance unknown to us today? Consider those hands, how weightlessly they rested, despite the powerful torsos. The ancient masters knew: “We can only go so far, in touching each other. The gods can exert more force. But that is their affair.” If only we, too, could discover such a pure, contained Eden for humanity, our own fruitful strip of soil between river and rock. For our hearts have always exceeded us, as our ancestors’ did. And we can no longer trust our own eyes, when gazing at godlike bodies, our hearts find a greater repose. HERMANN HESSE This is my modern English translation of the poem "Stages" by the great German poet Hermann Hesse from his novel "The Glass Bead Game." Stages by Hermann Hesse from his novel "The Glass Bead Game" loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch As every flower wilts and every youth must wilt and exit life from a curtained stage, so every virtue—even our truest truth— blooms some brief time and cannot last forever. Since life may summons death at any age we must prepare for death’s obscene endeavor, meet our end with courage and without remorse, forego regret and hopes of some reprieve, embrace death’s end, as life’s required divorce, some new beginning, calling us to live. Thus let us move, serene, beyond our fear, and let no sentiments detain us here. The Universal Spirit would not chain us, but elevates us slowly, stage by stage. If we demand a halt, our fears restrain us, caught in the webs of creaturely defense. We must prepare for imminent departure or else be bound by foolish “permanence.” Death’s hour may be our swift deliverance, from which we speed to fresher, newer spaces, and Life may summons us to bolder races. So be it, heart! Farewell, and adieu, then! Keywords/Tags: Hermann Hesse, translation, German, English, life, death, stage, stages, truth, flower, wilt, youth, flower, blooms, time, age, courage, hope, hopes, fear, spirit, god, space, spaces, heart, farewell
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Der Panther ("The Panther") by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch His weary vision's so overwhelmed by iron bars, his exhausted eyes see only blank Oblivion. His world is not our world. It has no stars. No light. Ten thousand bars. Nothing beyond. Lithe, swinging with a rhythmic easy stride, he circles, his small orbit tightening, an electron losing power. Paralyzed, soon regal Will stands stunned, an abject thing. Only at times the pupils' curtains rise silently, and then an image enters, descends through arrested shoulders, plunges, centers somewhere within his empty heart, and dies. Keywords/Tags: Rainer Maria Rilke, German, translation, sonnet, panther, cat, animal, nature, extended metaphor, analogy, allegory, freedom, eyes, vision, iron, bar, bars, cage, prison, world, star, light, starlight, stride, orbit, electron, atom, particle, power, will, paralyzed, impotent, abject, pupils, curtain, curtains, image, shoulder, shoulders, heart, emptiness, loneliness, alienation, death, void
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Feb 25, 2020
Feb 25, 2020 at 6:55 AM UTC
michael-r-burch
Rainer Maria Rilke "The Panther" translation
Der Panther ("The Panther") by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch His weary vision's so overwhelmed by iron bars, his exhausted eyes see only blank Oblivion. His world is not our world. It has no stars. No light. Ten thousand bars. Nothing beyond. Lithe, swinging with a rhythmic easy stride, he circles, his small orbit tightening, an electron losing power. Paralyzed, soon regal Will stands stunned, an abject thing. Only at times the pupils' curtains rise silently, and then an image enters, descends through arrested shoulders, plunges, centers somewhere within his empty heart, and dies. Keywords/Tags: Rainer Maria Rilke, German, translation, sonnet, panther, cat, animal, nature, extended metaphor, analogy, allegory, freedom, eyes, vision, iron, bar, bars, cage, prison, world, star, light, starlight, stride, orbit, electron, atom, particle, power, will, paralyzed, impotent, abject, pupils, curtain, curtains, image, shoulder, shoulders, heart, emptiness, loneliness, alienation, death, void
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God speaks to each of us as he makes us, Then walks with us silently out of the night. These are the words we dimly hear. You, send out beyond your recall. Go the limits of your longing. Embody me. Flare up like a flame And make big shadows I can move in. Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final. Don’t let yourself lose me. Nearby is the country they call life. You will know it by its seriousness. Give me your hand. -A poem by Rainer Maria Rilke   1875 - 1926 Translation by Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows
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Aug 17, 2017
Aug 17, 2017 at 10:08 PM UTC
leonardo-j
Go to the Limits of Your Longing
God speaks to each of us as he makes us, Then walks with us silently out of the night. These are the words we dimly hear. You, send out beyond your recall. Go the limits of your longing. Embody me. Flare up like a flame And make big shadows I can move in. Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final. Don’t let yourself lose me. Nearby is the country they call life. You will know it by its seriousness. Give me your hand. -A poem by Rainer Maria Rilke   1875 - 1926 Translation by Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows
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*Fate doesn't merely want happiness, but pain back as well as outscreamed distress, and buys ruin at a second-hand rate.* {this quote comes from "The Voices}
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Jul 8, 2015
Jul 8, 2015 at 1:04 AM UTC
rachel-katerina
a quote from Rainer Marie Rilke (early 20th century German poet)
*Fate doesn't merely want happiness, but pain back as well as outscreamed distress, and buys ruin at a second-hand rate.* {this quote comes from "The Voices}
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There is no courage in questions We know someone will answer Answers that take us nowhere Informational fodder, answers that do not heal There is no courage in questions We know will leave our world intact Answers that take us nowhere Details that make a case, but do not heal But what is the question we fear? Do you love her? Yes. Do you still love me? Yes.
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May 21, 2015
May 21, 2015 at 6:54 PM UTC
christopher-dante
Interrogation
There is no courage in questions We know someone will answer Answers that take us nowhere Informational fodder, answers that do not heal There is no courage in questions We know will leave our world intact Answers that take us nowhere Details that make a case, but do not heal But what is the question we fear? Do you love her? Yes. Do you still love me? Yes.
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Over and Over Over and over, no matter how vividly we know love's landscape and the lost cemetery with its sad names and the chasm into which the others have fallen, once again we walk together beneath ancient trees and lie down entwined among the blossoms facing the sky.   - trans. mce Autumn Day God, the time is now. Summer was vast. Drop your shadow across the sundials and loose your breath upon the fields. Command the last fruits to fullness, allow them a few warm days to discover ripeness and press their sweetness into heavy wine. No time remains to seek refuge. If you are now alone you will remain so for a long, long time. You will stay up late, writing letters to no one, restlessly wandering the hollow streets while the leaves tumble aimlessly.   - trans. mce
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Apr 10, 2015
Apr 10, 2015 at 7:50 PM UTC
mike-essig
Rainer Maria Rilke - Two Translations from the German
Over and Over Over and over, no matter how vividly we know love's landscape and the lost cemetery with its sad names and the chasm into which the others have fallen, once again we walk together beneath ancient trees and lie down entwined among the blossoms facing the sky.   - trans. mce Autumn Day God, the time is now. Summer was vast. Drop your shadow across the sundials and loose your breath upon the fields. Command the last fruits to fullness, allow them a few warm days to discover ripeness and press their sweetness into heavy wine. No time remains to seek refuge. If you are now alone you will remain so for a long, long time. You will stay up late, writing letters to no one, restlessly wandering the hollow streets while the leaves tumble aimlessly.   - trans. mce
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O, kadiliman na aking pinagmulan Higit kitang sinasamba kaisa sa apoy na bumabalot sa mundo, sapagkat ang apoy ay bumubuo ng isang malaking bola ng ilaw para sa lahat at wala nang sinuman ang makakakilala sa iyo. Ngunit ang kadiliman, pinagsasanib nito ang lahat: mga hugis, mga apoy, mga hayop, ako, o, kay husay nitong pagsamahin ang lahat!— kapangyarihan at mga tao— at maaaring may matinding enerhiya na papalapit na sa akin. Sinasamba ko ang gabi.
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Dec 3, 2014
Dec 3, 2014 at 6:23 AM UTC
bettinaxesguerra
A translation of Rilke's "You, Darkness"
O, kadiliman na aking pinagmulan Higit kitang sinasamba kaisa sa apoy na bumabalot sa mundo, sapagkat ang apoy ay bumubuo ng isang malaking bola ng ilaw para sa lahat at wala nang sinuman ang makakakilala sa iyo. Ngunit ang kadiliman, pinagsasanib nito ang lahat: mga hugis, mga apoy, mga hayop, ako, o, kay husay nitong pagsamahin ang lahat!— kapangyarihan at mga tao— at maaaring may matinding enerhiya na papalapit na sa akin. Sinasamba ko ang gabi.
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