the homeland! now with you
The heart’s love has plaint, what else does it want,
The holy mourning one? For full of expectation lies
The land, and as in sultry days
Bowed down, a heaven casts today
You longing ones! its shadows full of intimation round about us.
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Full of promises it is, and seems
Threatening to me also, yet I want to stay by it,
And backwards shall my soul not flee
To you, past ones! who are too dear to me.
For to see your beautiful countenance
As once it was, before, this I fear, deadly it is,
And scarcely allowed, to waken the dead.
| II | Gods who have fled! You too, you present ones, once |
More truthful, you had your times!
Nothing do I want to deny here, and ask nothing of you.
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For when it is out, and the day extinguished,
It affects first the priest, yet lovingly follow
Him temple and image too and his custom
To the land of darkness and none is able still to shine.
Only, as from flames of the grave, there passes
Then overhead a wisp of golden smoke, the legend thereof,
And now it dawns around the heads of us who doubt,
And no one knows what is happening to him. Each feels
The shadows of those who once have been,
Those of old, who visit thus the Earth anew.
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For those who are to come press upon us,
No longer does the holy host of humans divine
Tarry in the blue of the heavens.
| III | Already nurtured for them, the field indeed grows verdant, |
Prelude to a harsher time, the gift is readied
For the sacrificial meal and valley and rivers lie
Open wide around prophetic mountains,
So that into the Orient may look
The man and from there be moved by many transformations.
Yet from the Aether falls
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The faithful image, and divine edicts rain down
Innumerable from it, and the innermost grove resounds.
And the eagle that comes from the Indus,
And over Parnassus’
Snowy peaks, flies high above the sacrificial hills
Of Italy, and seeks willing prey
For the Father, not as before, more practiced in flight
Ancient one, jubilant he soars over
The Alps at last and sees the many different lands.
| IV | The priestess, quietest daughter of God, |
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She who too readily keeps silent in deep simplicity,
Her he seeks, who gazed with open eyes
As though unaware just now, when a storm
With deadly threat rang out above her head;
An intimation had the child of something better,
And eventually astonishment spread across the heavens
For there was One as great in faith, as they themselves,
The powers that bless from on high;
Wherefore they sent the messenger, who, quick to recognize her
Smilingly thinks to himself: You, unshatterable one,
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Another word must test, and youthfully
He calls it loud, looking at Germania:
“You it is, the chosen one,
“All-loving and a grave good fortune
“Have you become strong to bear.
| V | Since then, when hidden in the woods and flowering poppy |
Full of sweet slumber, drunken, long you took
No heed of me, until lesser ones too sensed
Your virgin’s pride and were astonished whose you were and whence you came,
Yet you knew it not yourself. I mistook you not,
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And in secret, while you dreamt, I left for you
Departing at midday, a sign of friendship,
The flower of the mouth, and solitary was your speaking.
Yet a fullness of golden words too you bestowed,
Blissful one! with the rivers, and they streamed inexhaustibly
Into the regions all. For almost like the holy one,
Who is Mother of all, and carries the abyss,
Otherwise named the Concealed One by humans,
So is of loves and sufferings
And full of intimations too
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And full of peace your breast.
VI
