Look! We Have Come Through! | Page 7

am alone.
From the balcony?I can hear the Isar moan,
Can see the white?Rift of the river eerily, between the pines, under
a sky of stone.
Some fireflies drift through the middle air
Tinily.?I wonder where?Ends this darkness that annihilates me.
_FIREFLIES IN THE CORN_
_She speaks._?Look at the little darlings in the corn!
The rye is taller than you, who think yourself?So high and mighty: look how the heads are
borne?Dark and proud on the sky, like a number of
knights?Passing with spears and pennants and manly scorn.
Knights indeed!--much knight I know will ride
With his head held high-serene against the sky!?Limping and following rather at my side
Moaning for me to love him!--Oh darling rye?How I adore you for your simple pride!
And the dear, dear fireflies wafting in between
And over the swaying corn-stalks, just above?All the dark-feathered helmets, like little green
Stars come low and wandering here for love?Of these dark knights, shedding their delicate
sheen!
I thank you I do, you happy creatures, you dears
Riding the air, and carrying all the time?Your little lanterns behind you! Ah, it cheers
My soul to see you settling and trying to?climb?The corn-stalks, tipping with fire the spears.
All over the dim corn's motion, against the blue
Dark sky of night, a wandering glitter, a?swarm?Of questing brilliant souls going out with their
true?Proud knights to battle! Sweet, how I warm?My poor, my perished soul with the sight of
you!
_A DOE AT EVENING_
As I went through the marshes?a doe sprang out of the corn?and flashed up the hill-side?leaving her fawn.
On the sky-line?she moved round to watch,?she pricked a fine black blotch?on the sky.
I looked at her?and felt her watching;?I became a strange being.?Still, I had my right to be there with her,
Her nimble shadow trotting?along the sky-line, she?put back her fine, level-balanced head.?And I knew her.
Ah yes, being male, is not my head hard-balanced,
antlered??Are not my haunches light??Has she not fled on the same wind with me??Does not my fear cover her fear?
IRSCHENHAUSEN
_SONG OF A MAN WHO IS?NOT LOVED_
THE space of the world is immense, before me and
around me;?If I turn quickly, I am terrified, feeling space
surround me;?Like a man in a boat on very clear, deep water,
space frightens and confounds me.
I see myself isolated in the universe, and wonder?What effect I can have. My hands wave under?The heavens like specks of dust that are floating
asunder.
I hold myself up, and feel a big wind blowing?Me like a gadfly into the dusk, without my knowing
Whither or why or even how I am going.
So much there is outside me, so infinitely?Small am I, what matter if minutely?I beat my way, to be lost immediately?
How shall I flatter myself that I can do?Anything in such immensity? I am too?Little to count in the wind that drifts me through.
GLASHüTTE
_SINNERS_
THE big mountains sit still in the afternoon light
Shadows in their lap;?The bees roll round in the wild-thyme with delight.
We sitting here among the cranberries
So still in the gap?Of rock, distilling our memories
Are sinners! Strange! The bee that blunders
Against me goes off with a laugh.?A squirrel cocks his head on the fence, and
wonders
What about sin?--For, it seems
The mountains have?No shadow of us on their snowy forehead of
dreams
As they ought to have. They rise above us
Dreaming?For ever. One even might think that they love us.
_Little red cranberries cheek to cheek,?Two great dragon-flies wrestling;?You, with your forehead nestling?Against me, and bright peak shining to peak--_
There's a love-song for you!--Ah, if only
There were no teeming?Swarms of mankind in the world, and we were
less lonely!
MAYRHOFEN
_MISERY_
OUT of this oubliette between the mountains?five valleys go, five passes like gates;?three of them black in shadow, two of them bright?with distant sunshine;?and sunshine fills one high valley bed,?green grass shining, and little white houses?like quartz crystals,?little, but distinct a way off.
Why don't I go??Why do I crawl about this pot, this oubliette,?stupidly??Why don't I go?
But where??If I come to a pine-wood, I can't say?Now I am arrived!?What are so many straight trees to me!
STERZING
_SUNDAY AFTERNOON IN?ITALY_
THE man and the maid go side by side?With an interval of space between;?And his hands are awkward and want to hide,?She braves it out since she must be seen.
When some one passes he drops his head?Shading his face in his black felt hat,?While the hard girl hardens; nothing is said,?There is nothing to wonder or cavil at.
Alone on the open road again?With the mountain snows across the lake?Flushing the afternoon, they are uncomfortable,?The loneliness daunts them, their stiff throats
ache.
And he sighs with relief when she parts from him;?Her proud head held in its black silk scarf?Gone under the archway, home, he can join?The men that lounge in a group on the wharf.
His evening is a flame of wine?Among the eager, cordial men.?And she with her women hot and hard?Moves at her ease again.
_She is marked, she is singled out
For the fire:?The brand is upon him, look--you,
Of desire.
They are chosen, ah, they are fated
For the fight!?Champion her, all you women! Men,