In lieblicher Bläue
Against a delightful blue
Hölderlin
Against a delightful blue the church tower with its metallic roof is blooming.
All around it, gliding, the call of the swallows.
All-surrounding it, the most charming blue.
The sun rises high above it and gives colour to the metal,
But at the very top, in the wind, the weather-vane crows silently.
When one for whom the bell tolls goes down those steps,
It is a to a quiet life, for when the body is so disjoined,
Then is man’s potential to develop revealed.
The windows from which the bells sound
Are as gateways to beauty.
In fact, these gateways being part of nature still,
Are as the trees of the forest.
Purity, however, is also beauty.
Within, from disparate parts a serious soul is formed.
Simple as the images are, they are so holy
That one is often truly afraid to describe them.
However, the celestial beings who are always good
In all respects, like riches have these: virtue and joy.
A man is allowed to emulate that.
Is it allowed, when life is full of care,
To look up and say:
I, too, wish to be like that? Yes.
For as long as fellowship, in its purity, persists in the heart,
Man does not measure himself against the godhead unfavourably.
Is god an unknown quantity?
Is he as evident as is the sky?
This, I would sooner believe.
It is the measure of man.
Materialist, yet poetic, man lives upon this earth.
Yet the shade of the night with its stars is no purer,
May I say, than man;
He is named an image of the divine.
This page Copyright © 2024 Uri Liebrecht