Part 6 (1/2)
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 s.p.a.ce of the world is immense, before me and around me; If I turn quickly, I am terrified, feeling s.p.a.ce surround me; Like a man in a boat on very clear, deep water, s.p.a.ce 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 know- ing 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.
GLASHuTTE
_SINNERS_
THE big mountains sit still in the afternoon light Shadows in their lap; The bees roll round in the wild-thyme with de- light.
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 c.o.c.ks 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 s.h.i.+ning 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...o...b..iette between the mountains five valleys go, five pa.s.ses like gates; three of them black in shadow, two of them bright with distant suns.h.i.+ne; and suns.h.i.+ne fills one high valley bed, green gra.s.s s.h.i.+ning, and little white houses like quartz crystals, little, but distinct a way off.