Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Translator's Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Neue Gedichte / New Poems
- Early Apollo
- Girl's Lament
- Love Song
- Eranna to Sappho
- Sappho to Eranna
- Sappho to Alcaeus
- Epitaph of a Young Girl
- Oblation
- Eastern Aubade
- Abishag
- David Sings before Saul
- Joshua's Gathering
- The Prodigal Son's Departure
- The Mount of Olives
- Pietà
- The Women's Song to the Poet
- The Death of the Poet
- Buddha
- L'Ange du Méridien
- The Cathedral
- The Portal
- The Rose Window
- The Capital
- God in the Middle Ages
- Morgue
- The Prisoner
- The Panther
- The Gazelle
- The Unicorn
- St. Sebastian
- The Donor
- The Angel
- Roman Sarcophagi
- The Swan
- Childhood
- The Poet
- The Lace
- A Woman's Fate
- The Convalescent
- The Grown-Up
- Tanagra
- The Woman Going Blind
- In a Strange Park
- Parting
- Death Experience
- Blue Hydrangea
- Before the Summer Rain
- In the Drawing Room
- Final Evening
- Youthful Portrait of My Father
- Self-Portrait from the Year 1906
- The King
- Resurrection
- The Standard-Bearer
- The Last Count of Brederode Evades Turkish Captivity
- The Courtesan
- The Stairs of the Orangerie
- The Marble Cart
- Buddha
- Roman Fountain
- The Carousel
- Spanish Dancer
- The Tower
- The Square
- Quai du Rosaire
- Béguinage
- The Procession of the Virgin Mary
- The Island
- Tombs of the Hetaerae
- Orpheus. Eurydice. Hermes
- Alcestis
- Birth of Venus
- The Bowl of Roses
- Part II Der neuen Gedichte anderer Teil / The New Poems: The Other Part
- Index of Titles and First Lines in German
- Index of Titles and First Lines in English
The Cathedral
from Part I - Neue Gedichte / New Poems
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 July 2016
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Translator's Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Neue Gedichte / New Poems
- Early Apollo
- Girl's Lament
- Love Song
- Eranna to Sappho
- Sappho to Eranna
- Sappho to Alcaeus
- Epitaph of a Young Girl
- Oblation
- Eastern Aubade
- Abishag
- David Sings before Saul
- Joshua's Gathering
- The Prodigal Son's Departure
- The Mount of Olives
- Pietà
- The Women's Song to the Poet
- The Death of the Poet
- Buddha
- L'Ange du Méridien
- The Cathedral
- The Portal
- The Rose Window
- The Capital
- God in the Middle Ages
- Morgue
- The Prisoner
- The Panther
- The Gazelle
- The Unicorn
- St. Sebastian
- The Donor
- The Angel
- Roman Sarcophagi
- The Swan
- Childhood
- The Poet
- The Lace
- A Woman's Fate
- The Convalescent
- The Grown-Up
- Tanagra
- The Woman Going Blind
- In a Strange Park
- Parting
- Death Experience
- Blue Hydrangea
- Before the Summer Rain
- In the Drawing Room
- Final Evening
- Youthful Portrait of My Father
- Self-Portrait from the Year 1906
- The King
- Resurrection
- The Standard-Bearer
- The Last Count of Brederode Evades Turkish Captivity
- The Courtesan
- The Stairs of the Orangerie
- The Marble Cart
- Buddha
- Roman Fountain
- The Carousel
- Spanish Dancer
- The Tower
- The Square
- Quai du Rosaire
- Béguinage
- The Procession of the Virgin Mary
- The Island
- Tombs of the Hetaerae
- Orpheus. Eurydice. Hermes
- Alcestis
- Birth of Venus
- The Bowl of Roses
- Part II Der neuen Gedichte anderer Teil / The New Poems: The Other Part
- Index of Titles and First Lines in German
- Index of Titles and First Lines in English
Summary
In little cities such as these — where all
the age-old houses crouch like some loud fair
just noting it and having quite a scare,
and falling dumb, and stilling every stall,
with hawkers hushed and drums no longer rolled,
(and pricking up its nervous ears), while it
stands stock-still in its cloaking manifold
of buttresses and doesn't know one bit
about these aged houses altogether —:
In little cities such as these, one sees
how far cathedrals had escaped their tether —
what once inspired them. In soaring, these
cathedrals left all other things behind,
the way our own life, over-near, will rise —
the one thing happening — past our human eyes,
as if it were pure Chance (and Chance is blind),
which builds up in it, more than we can say,
turning to stone and meant to last — and not
what down in darkened streets will take away
from Destiny whatever name it's got,
using it much like children taking red
or green or anything the merchant stocks.
And there was birth within these building blocks.
And in their soaring stirred a strength that shocks.
Love flooded every space, like wine and bread.
Stone portals filled with amor's plangent vox.
Life paused for bells that tolled the hours like clocks.
And in towers waiting to be heterodox
(one day they rose no more), all this fell dead.
Das Portal
I
Da blieben sie, als wäre jene Flut
zurückgetreten, deren großes Branden
an diesen Steinen wusch, bis sie entstanden;
sie nahm im Fallen manches Attribut
aus ihren Händen, welche viel zu gut
und gebend sind, um etwas festzuhalten.
Sie blieben, von den Formen in Basalten
durch einen Nimbus, einen Bischofshut,
bisweilen durch ein Lächeln unterschieden,
für das ein Antlitz seiner Stunden Frieden
bewahrt hat als ein stilles Zifferblatt;
jetzt fortgerückt ins Leere ihres Tores,
waren sie einst die Muschel eines Ohres
und fingen jedes Stöhnen dieser Stadt.
II
Sehr viele Weite ist gemeint damit:
so wie mit den Kulissen einer Szene
die Welt gemeint ist; und so wie durch jene
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- Chapter
- Information
- New Poems , pp. 43 - 44Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2015