Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Translator's Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Neue Gedichte / New Poems
- Part II Der neuen Gedichte anderer Teil / The New Poems: The Other Part
- Archaic Torso of Apollo
- Cretan Artemis
- Leda
- Dolphins
- The Island of the Sirens
- Lament for Antinoüs
- The Death of the Beloved
- Lament for Jonathan
- The Consoling of Elijah
- Saul amongst the Prophets
- Samuel Appears before Saul
- A Prophet
- Jeremiah
- A Sibyl
- Absalom's Defection
- Esther
- The Leprous King
- The Legend of the Three Living and the Three Dead Men
- The King of Münster
- Death-Dance / Danse Macabre
- The Last Judgment
- The Temptation
- The Alchemist
- The Reliquary
- Gold
- The Stylite
- The Egyptian Mary
- Crucifixion
- The Resurrected One
- Magnificat
- Adam
- Eve
- Madmen in the Garden
- The Lunatics
- From the Life of a Saints
- The Beggars
- Foreign Family
- Corpse-Washing
- One of the Old Ones
- The Blind Man
- A Faded One
- Communions
- The Site of the Fire
- The Group
- Snake-Charming
- Black Cat
- Before Easter
- The Balcony
- Emigrant Ship
- Landscape
- Roman Campagna
- Song of the Sea
- Night Drive
- Parrot Park
- The Parks
- Portrait
- Venetian Morning
- Late Autumn in Venice
- San Marco
- A Doge
- The Lute
- The Adventurer
- Falconry
- Corrida
- Don Juan's Childhood
- Don Juan's Election
- St. George
- Lady on a Balcony
- Encounter in the Chestnut Allée
- The Sisters
- Piano Practice
- Woman in Love
- The Rose Interior
- A Portrait of a Lady of the Eighteen-Eighties
- Lady before the Mirror
- The Old Woman
- The Bed
- The Stranger
- The Arrival
- Sundial
- Opium Poppy
- The Flamingos
- Persian Heliotrope
- Lullaby
- The Pavilion
- The Abduction
- Pink Hydrangea
- The Coat of Arms
- The Bachelor
- The Solitary
- The Reader
- The Apple Orchard
- Mohammed's Summoning
- The Mountain
- The Ball
- The Child
- The Dog
- The Scarab
- Buddha in Glory
- Index of Titles and First Lines in German
- Index of Titles and First Lines in English
The Reader
from Part II - Der neuen Gedichte anderer Teil / The New Poems: The Other Part
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 July 2016
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Translator's Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Neue Gedichte / New Poems
- Part II Der neuen Gedichte anderer Teil / The New Poems: The Other Part
- Archaic Torso of Apollo
- Cretan Artemis
- Leda
- Dolphins
- The Island of the Sirens
- Lament for Antinoüs
- The Death of the Beloved
- Lament for Jonathan
- The Consoling of Elijah
- Saul amongst the Prophets
- Samuel Appears before Saul
- A Prophet
- Jeremiah
- A Sibyl
- Absalom's Defection
- Esther
- The Leprous King
- The Legend of the Three Living and the Three Dead Men
- The King of Münster
- Death-Dance / Danse Macabre
- The Last Judgment
- The Temptation
- The Alchemist
- The Reliquary
- Gold
- The Stylite
- The Egyptian Mary
- Crucifixion
- The Resurrected One
- Magnificat
- Adam
- Eve
- Madmen in the Garden
- The Lunatics
- From the Life of a Saints
- The Beggars
- Foreign Family
- Corpse-Washing
- One of the Old Ones
- The Blind Man
- A Faded One
- Communions
- The Site of the Fire
- The Group
- Snake-Charming
- Black Cat
- Before Easter
- The Balcony
- Emigrant Ship
- Landscape
- Roman Campagna
- Song of the Sea
- Night Drive
- Parrot Park
- The Parks
- Portrait
- Venetian Morning
- Late Autumn in Venice
- San Marco
- A Doge
- The Lute
- The Adventurer
- Falconry
- Corrida
- Don Juan's Childhood
- Don Juan's Election
- St. George
- Lady on a Balcony
- Encounter in the Chestnut Allée
- The Sisters
- Piano Practice
- Woman in Love
- The Rose Interior
- A Portrait of a Lady of the Eighteen-Eighties
- Lady before the Mirror
- The Old Woman
- The Bed
- The Stranger
- The Arrival
- Sundial
- Opium Poppy
- The Flamingos
- Persian Heliotrope
- Lullaby
- The Pavilion
- The Abduction
- Pink Hydrangea
- The Coat of Arms
- The Bachelor
- The Solitary
- The Reader
- The Apple Orchard
- Mohammed's Summoning
- The Mountain
- The Ball
- The Child
- The Dog
- The Scarab
- Buddha in Glory
- Index of Titles and First Lines in German
- Index of Titles and First Lines in English
Summary
Who can know him — this one, whose face has dropped
down from its being to some other one
the rapid turning pages can alone —
sometimes — abruptly interrupt?
Even his mother lacks all certainty:
is he the shadowed one who reads, soaked through?
And we who had the time to spare — what do
we know of how he fades away, till he
looks up, fatigued and lifting with his eyes
whatever's happened in that book down there?
His look, which does not take, instead supplies
a nudge against this world so fully-finished:
like children playing — quiet, solitaire —
who suddenly must meet that world once closed.
And yet his features, which have been composed,
remain the same and undiminished.
Der Apfelgarten
Borgeby-Gård
Komm gleich nach dem Sonnenuntergange,
sieh das Abendgrün des Rasengrunds;
ist es nicht, als hätten wir es lange
angesammelt und erspart in uns,
um es jetzt aus Fühlen und Erinnern,
neuer Hoffnung, halbvergeßnem Freun,
noch vermischt mit Dunkel aus dem Innern,
in Gedanken vor uns hinzustreun
unter Bäume wie von Dürer, die
das Gewicht von hundert Arbeitstagen
in den überfüllten Früchten tragen,
dienend, voll Geduld, versuchend, wie
das, was alle Maße übersteigt,
noch zu heben ist und hinzugeben,
wenn man willig, durch ein langes Leben
nur das Eine will und wächst und schweigt?
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- New Poems , pp. 363 - 364Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2015