| Is it not dust which from a hundred shelves
|
| imprisons me behind this towering wall?
|
| Is it not rubbish and a thousand trifles
|
| which stuff and choke my mothy world?
|
660
| What I lack, am I to find it here?
|
| Am I to fathom from a thousand books
|
| that mankind suffered everywhere,
|
| that here and there a lucky one turned up?—
|
| Why do you grin at me, you hollow skull,
|
| except to show that once your brain, perplexed like mine,
|
| sought the light of day and lusted for the truth,
|
| and lost its way in heavy twilight gloom?
|
| Those instruments—they jeer at me
|
| with all their flanges, wheels, and tackle.
|
670
| I stood at the gate, you were to be the keys;
|
| though deftly wrought you raised no latch for me.
|
| Mysterious even in the light of day
|
| Nature keeps her veil intact;
|
| whatever she refuses to reveal
|
| you cannot wrench from her with screws and levers.
|
| Ancient gear, you served my father;
|
| I cannot use you, yet you stand about.
|
| Faded scroll, you turned a sooty brown
|
| since this lamp began to smoulder at my desk.
|
680
| Far better, had I squandered all I own
|
| than now to sweat beneath my property!
|
| What you inherit from your father,
|
| earn it anew before you call it yours.
|
| What does not serve you is a heavy burden,
|
| what issues from the moment is alone of use.
|
690
| I greet you, rare and precious vial
|
| as I now devoutly reach for you.
|
| In you I honor human wit and skill.
|
| You summary of gentle slumber-juices,
|
| you distillate of all deadly powers,
|
| now show your favors to your master!
|
| I look at you; my pain is much assuaged,
|
| I grasp you; my restlessness abates,
|
| the flood tide of my spirit slowly ebbs away.
|
| The ocean draws me to its deeper regions,
|
700
| the glassy seas are gleaming at my feet,
|
| a new day beckons me to newer shores.
|
| A fiery chariot borne on nimble wings
|
| approaches me. I am prepared to change my course,
|
| to penetrate the ether’s high dominions
|
| toward novel spheres of pure activity.
|
| Do you, scarcely better than a worm, deserve
|
| this lofty life and heavenly delight?
|
| Now be resolute and turn your back
|
| on our earth’s endearing sun!
|
710
| Be bold and brash and force the gates
|
| from which men shrink and slink away!
|
| The time has come to prove by deeds
|
| that man will not give in to gods’ superior might
|
| and will not quake before the pit where fantasy
|
| condemns itself to tortures of its own creation
|
| when he advances to the narrow passageway
|
| about whose mouth infernal flames are blazing.
|
| Approach the brink serenely and accept the risk
|
| of melting into nothingness.
|
720
| And now come down, my goblet of pure crystal;
|
| let me pluck you from your dusty pouch.
|
| I have neglected you for many years.
|
| Once you glittered at ancestral banquets,
|
| cheering, as you passed from hand to hand,
|
| the sober guests about the table.
|
| The wealth of artful images engraved on you,
|
| the drinker’s duty to elucidate in rhymes
|
| and drain the chalice in a single draft,
|
| bring back some youthful nights of long ago;
|
730
| now I shall not pass you to a neighbor
|
| nor test my rhyming skill on you;
|
| here is a juice that quickly will intoxicate;
|
| the murky sap which I prepared
|
| is now contained within this hollow shell.
|
| With all my soul and festive salutation
|
| to this day’s beginning I consecrate this final drink.
|
| (
He puts the goblet to his mouth
.)
|
| (
Church bells and choir
.)
|
| Why do you seek me in the dust,
|
| Heaven’s tones, so mighty and so gentle?
|
| On softer souls you may reverberate.
|
| I hear your message, but I have no faith;
|
| the miracle is faith’s most treasured child,
|
| but I dare not reach for these high regions,
|
| the source and music of glad tidings.
|
| And yet, accustomed to these harmonies from childhood,
|
770
| I now can hear their summons to return to life.
|
| Once the embrace of Heaven’s love
|
| rushed down to me in solemn Sabbath stillness;
|
| the church bell’s pulsing tones were auguries
|
| and each prayer was a lustful pleasure.
|
| Ineffable sweet yearning
|
| prompted me to roam through woods and fields,
|
| and through a thousand burning tears
|
| I felt my world come into being.
|
| This song proclaimed the happy games of children,
|
780
| unbounded rapture of a festival of Spring;
|
| I remember—and a childlike feeling
|
| constrains me from the last and gravest step.
|
| O sounds of Heaven, do not fade away—
|
| the tears well up, the earth has me again!
|
