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
Gold
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
Think back to when there was no gold; no mining
had yet given birth up in the hills.
Then, it was flushed down through the streams, the shining
ore of three obsessive wills:
the streams’; the mines’; its own. Its fixed idée:
to be the sovereign of all the ores.
And from their hearts, men flung to distant shores,
always, some new Meröe —
flung it to far frontiers and to the skies
above strange foreign lands. Their sons would come
back sometimes, carrying the prophecies
their fathers made, now hardened lies.
Sons bore these ruined promises back home,
where they would prosper for awhile, until …
gold turned away from those it blasts and blights.
It never loved them, never will,
but (so men say) fills up their final nights
for all it's worth, and haunts them still.
Der Stylit
Völker schlugen über ihm zusammen,
die er küren durfte und verdammen;
und erratend, daß er sich verlor,
klomm er aus dem Volksgeruch mit klammen
Händen einen Säulenschaft empor,
der noch immer stieg und nichts mehr hob,
und begann, allein auf seiner Fläche,
ganz von vorne seine eigne Schwäche
zu vergleichen mit des Herren Lob;
und da war kein Ende: er verglich;
und der Andre wurde immer größer.
Und die Hirten, Ackerbauer, Flößer
sahn ihn klein und außer sich
immer mit dem ganzen Himmel reden,
eingeregnet manchmal, manchmal licht;
und sein Heulen stürzte sich auf jeden,
so als heulte er ihm ins Gesicht.
Doch er sah seit Jahren nicht,
wie der Menge Drängen und Verlauf
unten unaufhörlich sich ergänzte,
und das Blanke an den Fürsten glänzte
lange nicht so hoch hinauf.
Aber wenn er oben, fast verdammt
und von ihrem Widerstand zerschunden,
einsam mit verzweifeltem Geschreie
schüttelte die täglichen Dämonen:
fielen langsam auf die erste Reihe
schwer und ungeschickt aus seinen Wunden
große Würmer in die offnen Kronen
und vermehrten sich im Samt.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- New Poems , pp. 223 - 224Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2015