Translations
From
the German and Russian
Sam
Gershman
2001-03
*
Stuttgart/Berlin/Vienna/Chicago
Rainer Maria Rilke
1875-1926
Fall Evening
Wind from the moon,
Suddenly shaken trees,
And a fallen leaf.
Between the intervals
Of faint lanterns
Moves the distant black landscape
In the irresolute city.
All flags were raised higher.
Hugo von Hofmannsthal
1874-1929
Do You See the City?
Do you see the city as it rests there,
Quietly snuggling in the clothes of the night?
From the moon pours down upon it
A silversilk flood in magical splendor.
The mild night wind blows her breath here,
So ghostly, issuing a faint sound:
She cries in the dream, she breathes deep and
hard,
She lisps, mysteriously, temptingly anxious.
The dark cry, it sleeps in my heart
With brilliance and fire, with painfully colorful
magnificence:
Yet its reflection hovers flatteringly around
you,
Subdued to a whisper, gliding through the night.
Paul Celan
1920-1970
Evenings, in
Evenings, in
Unending shoe strap – on
Which
The ghosts chew –
Binds two bloody toes together
In an oath of companionship.
In the Path through the Crack in the Shadows…
In the path through the crack in the shadows
Your hand.
Out of the four-finger-furrow
I rummage through the
Petrified blessings.
Herman Hesse
1877-1962
Love Song (1892)
Betty, pretty waitress,
Do not laugh so mean!
You ought to be a demon less
And come and be my queen.
Ah, you don’t know how I regret it,
When with gestures and words,
You refuse to extend my credit
In front of the customers!
If today you don’t respond,
But act even stricter and still less sunny,
Know that you must carry on
Without your friend and without your money!
I Had Asked You Why
I had asked you why your eyes
Like to rest in mine,
Like a star refined
In a dark-flooded sky.
For a long time you had
Looked at me as one gazes at a child,
And then said with a smile:
I am good to you because you are so sad.
How the Days are…
How the days are filled with misery!
No fires to warm me have been left,
No sun to smile at me,
Everything is empty,
Everything is cold and merciless,
Even the lovely clear stars
Are as desolate as I,
Since I discovered that in the heart
Love can die.
I Love Women…
I love women who for a thousand years
Were beloved of poets and praised to all ears.
I love cities whose empty walled rings
Are entrusted to the ancient lineages of kings.
I love cities that will one day be bought
When those living today fill their graveyard
plots.
I love women – slender, without peer,
Those unborn who rest in the lap of years.
They will some day with their pale starry gleam
Compare to the beauty of my dreams.
Please
When you give me your little hand
That conveys so much you never say,
Have I ever asked in any way
If you love me, if you can?
I don’t desire love from thee,
Only that I know you’re near
And that once in a while dear
You softly and silently give your hand to me.
Softly as the Gondolas…
Down the clear canals, shining in the morning
light,
The gondolas glide in delicate flight,
As our love in perfect balance sways
Upon the blue sea of day,
As the hours flow through our hands
Easily and without end:
One that sparkles from the delight of laughter,
One that darkens in the dusk thereafter,
One that overflows with song,
One that bleeds in sweetened calm.
We fall silent and behold the horizon,
Its beautiful setting and rising,
Drops from the oar wiped off our hands,
Our fingers entwined in a sisterly band,
Rarely can just one kiss repeat
This hushed bestowal and receipt…
And so the hours through our hands
Flow easily past us without end.
One Discontented
Look, I understand your swearing;
But the world will remain as you see it there,
Your hatred will not change a hair.
Man is a spoiled brute,
But are you yourself good – are you such ripe
fruit?
I would attempt it through love and caring.
New Love
Often I felt tired and in decline,
Now my full youth again blazes strong
And foams upward like younger, sweeter wine
And laughs and pursues and sings love songs.
In yearning I go about my daily chores
And greet every passing cloud in the blue
And in the evenings climb alone up the mountain
towards
That distant house to look upon you.
How can you sleep when outside your window
The spring wind blows so heavy and calm
And my love songs below
And my trembling love asking for alms.
The Pilgrim
Always was I on my feet,
Always a pilgrim,
Little did I save to eat,
Fortune and pain together grew slim.
Unknown was the logic and aim
Of my travels,
A thousand times I fell down lame
And raised myself from the gravel.
Ah, it was the star of love
That I left to seek,
That hung in the heavens above,
A divine and distant streak.
As long as I kept that goal in sight,
I traveled with ease,
I lusted after great heights,
I was easy to please.
Now I
hardly know the star,
It has
reached too late an hour
It has
since migrated far
Away,
blown by with the morning showers.
The
colorful world now bids farewell
That I
loved with all my soul.
If I
missed the point, then tell
Them
the journey was nonetheless bold.
Love Song
(1920)
I am
the stag and you are the doe,
You
the bird and I the tree,
You
the sun and I the snow,
You
are the day and I am the dream.
At
night, out of my sleeping mouth
Flies a
golden bird to you, true south.
Colorful
are his wings, his voice strong,
He
sings to you the song of love,
He
sings to you my song.
Portrait
Arrogant,
sublime and mysterious,
Mouth
full of scorn, forehead full of pride,
Glance
scintillatingly serious –
And
your heavy golden locks
Hanging
at your side.
I’ve
seen you happy and without a care,
I’ve
seen you rise in the nighttime
From
your humid bed with your tousled hair,
I’ve
seen you a hundred times before, but this time
Arrogant,
mysterious and sublime.
On a Chinese
Singer
Down
the quiet river in the evening we sailed,
Rosily
glistened the acacia tree,
Rosily
beamed the clouds. But you did I hardly see,
I saw
only the plum blossoms in your hair.
You
sat smiling in the fore of the dirty boat,
Holding
the sound in your practiced hand,
You
sang the song of the holy Fatherland,
While
in your eyes youth shimmered afloat.
I
stood at the mast and made a silent demand
For
these glowing eyes to be condemned
To
listen in blessed torment, in eternity hemmed,
In the
happy play of your blooming, tender hands.
Butterfly in
the Wine
A
butterfly has flown into my cup of wine,
Drunkenly
he surrenders to his sweet demise,
Rowing
weakly and willing to die;
Finally
my finger pulls him from the brine.
Such
is my heart, your eyes blind to its dire straits,
Fatally
sunk in the scented cup of love,
Willing
to die, drunk with the wine of your magic grove,
When a
mere movement of your hand could decide my fate.
Love Song
(1921/22)
Where
would my home like to be?
My
home is tiny,
Moves
constantly,
Takes
along my heart in captivity,
Makes
me joyful, makes me blue;
My
home is you.
Like the Wind
Moaning
Like
the wind moaning through the night
My
desire storms for thee,
Every
yearning wakes in fright—
O you who
is my blight,
What
you know of me!
I
extinguish my late light without a trace
And
stay feverishly awake for hours after,
And
the night has your face,
And
the wind, which speaks of love in its howling bass,
Has
your unforgettable laughter!
The Lovers
Another
leaf falls from my tree,
Another
petal withers from my flowers,
Oddly,
at uncertain hours
My
life’s confused dream is revealed to me.
All
around the void gazes at me darkly,
But in
the center of the vault, all through the night,
A
constellation laughs with consoling delight,
Drawing
its path more and more starkly.
My
good star, that sweetens the night along,
That
pulls my destiny nearer and nearer,
Do you
feel how my heart waits wearier
And
greets you with muted song?
You see,
my glance is still filled with solitude,
Only
slowly am I allowed to wake to you,
Allowed
to cry again, laugh again too
And
put my faith in your certitude.
Alexander
Blok
1880-1921
from Dances of Death
Night.
Avenue. Street lamp. Drugstore.
The
light dim and deranged.
Even
if you live 25 years more
All
will be the same, nothing changed.
If
I die today – I’ll begin once more
And
repeat everything, like before:
Night,
icy ripples on the canal floor,
Street
lamp. Avenue. Drugstore.
Sergei
Yesenin
1895-1925
Birch
White
birch
By
my window
Covered
itself
With
silver snow
On
the downy branch
Tassels
unfurl
A
snowy border
With
fringes of pearl
And
the birch stands
In
silent repose
As
the snowflakes burn
In
a flame of gold
And
the afterglow lazily
Turns
around,
Sprinkling
the twigs
With
new silver gowns.
Osip
Mandelstam
1891-1931
Untitled
(Oh heavens…)
Oh
heavens, heavens, I will dream about you later
It
can’t be that you’ve gone blind as a bat,
Who once
burned in the day like a white sheet of paper
A
little smoke and a little ash!