Ode to Hölderlin

Johann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin was a major German lyric poet, commonly associated with the artistic movement known as Romanticism.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In life’s narrow confines of racing duties

I must haunt new shores, leaving my kin

Without friends or anything like real love

Unquiet, without seeking, warmed by lonely speech

 

I must to my poetic tongue unbury the future

Which came, like prophecy, after time was allotted

Time glimmers and space never fully grasps

The essence of love’s deep power underwhelemed

 

You’ve lived! Your crest in the shade of the distant sun

The radiance of age getting better, without care

You droop your head, though not for the same reasons

Audibly you crave the golden tongued innocence

 

Of melodies pure as the nights lost in youth

As touches from some divine place untouchable

Maybe the mystic in you yearns for invisible travels

But you foreknew the rhythm of and lustre of purity.