Hölderlin and ‘the fatherland’ (Patmos as example)

(See, if necessary, the poem “Patmos” (around 1803) at the bottom of text. Both english translation and german original)

In his late poetry Hölderlin writes what he calls “Väterland Gesange” (songs of the fatherland). This requires us to ask: what is this fatherland that Hölderlin speaks of? Does he mean something similar as other thinkers and writers of the time when they spoke of fatherland? In the following I will argue that Hölderlin’s “fatherland” — paradoxically — means turning a way from the father (and national identity) and instead an embrace of universality. This universality is not that of a mute background, or of many symbolic identities coming together. it is not the overcoming of alienation, but rather the embrace of it. What is universal is therefore alienation itself. What everyone has in common is therefore the subject qua lacking, the void of subjectivity (of symbolic markers). To put it in a nutshell, my thesis is this: Hölderlin’s “fatherland” can be read not as rooted identity but as a poetic staging of alienation, and that this opens toward universality rather than nationalism. My reading thus differs from nationalist appropriations and also from Heidegger’s more elevated destinal reading.

A further problem is the historical distance, since to speak of fatherland (especially in German) after the the two world wars had become especially suspicious, so that Hölderlin’s use of it, who was also used by the national socialist, has become tainted by the later interpretations. But, in my reading: the fatherland is not reconciliation with origin, but a poetic name for non-coincidence, dislocation, and the subject’s constitutive outsideness.

The problem with a national identity, from a psychoanalytical perspective, is that it obscures the question of subjectivity and its constitutive alienation behind the assurance of an identity. An identity is supposed to be “self-same”. National identity is performed, it is a result of the symbolic order, but it disguises itself as though it is a response to an identity that exists prior to this social act.

Now, for many, this is especially precarious in Hölderlin’s late poetry. Hölderlin does not, all commentators agree on this, describe a current state of things. When he talks of the “germans” and the “fatherland” he is not talking about national identity already in place. On the contrary, he is talking about a national identity to come. The most famous reading of Hölderlin in this regard is no doubt Martin Heidegger’s. Heidegger turned to Hölderlin’s poetry especially in his later work, after the socalled ‘Kehre’. So, Heidegger does not embrace alienation, but uses alienation (the loss of listening to Being, that can be diagnosed through Hölderlin, as ultimately something to be gathered into a more originary belonging.

It is tempting to view this turn as his own dissappointment with the politics of the national socialist which did not provide the new beginning he was hoping for. For Heidegger, Hölderlin’s poetry does not simply speak of Being, but Being addresses itself to us through the medium of his language. In “Hölderlin and the Essence of poetry” (1936) he writes:

“Language is not just a tool which man possesses alongside many others; rather, language grants the possibility of standing in the midst of the openness of beings. Only where there is language, is there world…. Only where world holds sway is there history.…Language is not a tool at man’s disposal but rather the event [Ereignis] which disposes of the highest possibility of being-human”.

Hölderlin’s poetry becomes part of an originary saying. In this way, this language is also not alienated, it “standing in the midst of openness of beings”. It is only the It is not a saying that is adequate to “ontic” reality, since it opens up the ontological difference. After Heidegger’s disillusionment with politics and his early “decisionist” philosophy, he turns into a more “passive” understanding of Being as a sending. The human has to receive, to develop its capacity to receive this sending (so we do not continue the forgetting of Beying). Therefore a return to Hölderlin marks a potential end of nihilism, the “machenschaft” of modern subjectivity. But Heidegger’s point is therefore to overcome alienation. This takes on a particular “rootness” of German language (the Germans are especially equipped, in Heidegger’s view for this kind of listening, just as the Greeks were).

One of the ways Hölderlin is said to poetize this national identity to come is through a word play on “German” (Deutschen) and “interpretation” (Deuten). The national identity does not exist, it is something that must be interpreted, it comes from the future. Hölderlin describes these germans to come as ‘ciphers’, that also points. Another word play is therefore Zeichen (sign) and Zeigen (point). In a late poem Hölderlin writes, “wir sind ein Zeichen, deutunglos” (we are a sign, without intepretation), or perhaps about a impossibility of being interpreted? In this sense, Hölderlin’s poetry also suggest alienation (and the most alienated are those that do not even know it). Hölderlin’s first point is therefore to “awake” the Germans to their historical destiny. The use of patmos is then John of Revelation, so that there are some few, like the poet, who are particularly “exposed”, and can even if they seem mad, communicate in an exoteric way this revelation. But this revelation should not be understood as overcoming of alienation, but rather its “embrace”, in Lacanian language, from alienation (in the Other) to seperation (the lack is repeated in the Other, the Other is also barred, this means that alienation is not overcome in the sense of wholeness, rather the very need to overcome is cancelled, because it is based on the wrong premise).

There are two ways, at least, to misuse Hölderlin for nationalist purposes. One is the more vulgar national socialist one, as though the germans to come were the national socialist. The other one, partly against the first, is Heidegger’s, more subtle, where the germans to come are not the national socialist, but the ones that can overturn nihilism (national socialism is merely for Heidegger after his disappointement the most radical form of contemporary nihilism).

In Heidegger’s reading the nationalist identity is not racial, but cultural-geographical. It has to do with a special kind of address to the Germans from Being, something that is particularly located in the German language as the potential site of the “other beginning”, the first being that of Greece. This turning point is described by Heidegger in his posthumous work Ereignis, originally written in 1937.

A particular use in Heidegger’s reading is that the origin (Ursprung) is not a kind of home and safety, like an identity that one can be sure of, but on the contrary, a kind of violent uprooting. The origin is what is least safe, and the poet’s role is to mediate it, but also to keep and enable a distance from it.

Yet for all that Heidegger’s use is not the same as the psychoanalytical one that instead speaks of the subject. The subject is constitutively out of place. This is not something one must simply ‘resign’ oneself to, but a political possibility, something that is attractive and enabling. It enables the subject to be other than simply what its given social identity tells it is. The psychoanalytical reading of Hölderlin’s poetological reflections of subjectivity is therefore the opposite of Heidegger’s, although neither of them believe in a kind of immediate identity.

This also has relevance for the typical theme of place in Hölderlin. Maybe the most obvious poetic symbol for the subject in Hölderlin is the wanderer. The wanderer is someone who is not ‘in’ a place, but always under way, always going somewhere else.

Heidegger of course also emphasizes this point, but it still has the meaning of finding one’s “home”, coming into the “innermost” (even if this innermost is simultaneously the one that brings one most out of in the ‘open’). This has to do with Heidegger’s understanding of Being as a ‘Geschick’, as a ‘sending’. The human being receives its Being as a message. This means that Being always is something ‘more’ than what it sends. A human being interprets this message of being differently in each historical epoch. Heidegger himself refers to a play between Ereignis (event) and Enteignis. “Er-” as a prefix generally means something that is intensified or obtained. The event is does not simply happen, but must be obtained, worked on by the human being, it must make it into its own (Er-eigen). At the same time, it becomes something completely other to itself (Ent-eigen), since Being is not the property of the human being, but something ‘sent’. Heidegger also refers to the Geschick (a sending) as Geschichlich (something historical, each epoch of Being sends its message in a different way, so that the Being of the Greeks is radically different from contemporary nihilism, that reduces Being to something calculable and as a ressource to be exploited).

So, what about the Father (in the Fatherland?). This is much more than simply national interest. Hölderlin speaks of Vater Äther (Father of the sky). But a father is part of the identity, it becomes an oedipal struggle. The important point, also christian — is precisely a universality that breaks with this kind of identity-thinking.

The problem with Heidegger’s reading is that he still views the constitutive alienation of the human being, its subjectivity, as a problem to be overcome. Instead of the subject out of place, the point of Hölderlin is to prepare the place for us (or rather the Germans as a linguistic-cultural category). As said before, “German” (the way Heidegger reads Hölderlin) is is not a racial or national category for Heidegger, but a cultural-historical one, it seems almost that the proper Germans are those that can interpret themselves (Deutschen/deuten) therein. The Germans are a “Zeichen” (a sign) that points, bears testimony to (Zeigen), towards the new (wholly other) beginning. This other beginning would both repeat the beginning of the Greeks, but not simply as a repetition of an identity, but also be wholly other, it would be, to put it paradoxically, a beginning from the future, the second beginning.

However all this stands in stark contrast to the psychoanalytical reading and the distinction of subjectivity and identity. Heidegger does not give up identity, he only says that the current identity (of Germans) is not the right one. The promise is still that an identity will arrive that will provide a home and a place for the subject. It will provide a sense of meaning and disalienation, the subject will no longer be a subject, that is constitutively out of place, but a self-identitical entity.

All identities are symbolic. There is no identity that is not mediated by language. No one is simply born a German, for example. This identity can only be form as a result of language’s mediation. The point of psychoanalysis is that the subject can never coincide with its symbolic identities. It identifies with them. But it does not coincide with them. It remains alienated.

Modernity often is described as a process of alienation (see Todd Mcgowan, 2024, who I follow closely here). Before modernity identities were presumed to be intact. With modernity alienation sets in, and this accounts for many of horrors. It is true, that modernity unleases a new potential for more extreme horrors, but this is not the fault of modernity itself, but rather the attempt to escape it, to try and seek comfort in a symbolic identity and a place.

Modernity does not invent alienation. Before modernity people were also alienated. They just did not know it. Modernity is frightening because it confronts subjects more directly with their necessary alienation. Alienation is a result of language’s mediation. To be a subject is to be alienated. We cannot avoid it. The horrors of modernity is not this alienation itself. Rather it is the attempt to flee such alienation, by assigning subjects a symbolic identity, a place where they ‘fit’. In this sense the problem is not that we are alienated, but that we refuse to come to terms with it. Or even better, not simply “come to terms” (grudingly accept it), but to embrace it and see a potential in it. It is in fact dislocation, alienation, that provide freedom for the subject, although we usually do not see it. The alienation is a potential because it allows the subject to transcend its immediate identity (that is a biological or socially given). The alienation is not a problem, it is already its own solution — if we can change the way we relate to it. It is not a problem that should be overcome, it is not about finding one’s place or home, but of being at odds with it.

The subject can at the same time not exist as a pure subject. It is not that we can simply disidentify with a symbolic identity, such as German, and then live as we purely are. This is itself a mistaken view, that promises a different disalienation. Symbolic identities are necessary, even if the subject can never fit them. In terms of Hölderlin he can only articulate the dislocation of subjectivity through a reference to various symbolic identities at the time. The “fatherland songs” can be read as poetic acts of dislocation only because at the time there was such a symbolic identity believed to inhere in a “fatherland”.

It has often been noted that place in Hölderlin does not function as a geographical locations, but rather are poetical or spiritual locations. Hölderlin, in the late hymns for example, refers to Patmos and many greek places, (places he has himself never been), but it is clear that he is not simply describing a geographical place, but also something with poetical valence. J.F. Lefevbre calls it “geopoetics”. It is not that Hölderlin dislocates our sense of place (that would otherwise be immediate and natural), but that he shows openly the dislocation and internal distance, is already at work in our most ‘immediate’ relationship to a place. As a subject, we are by definition “without a place”, since whatever place we are, with our bodies, we only have an mediated relationship to it, through the signifier.

Let us take Hölderlins difficult poem “Patmos”, one of the most beautiful of the late hyms, the “Väterland-Gesange”. I will not go into the poem in any (sufficient) way, but simply mention a few points in relation to my general discussion.

Hölderlin gives a different sound to this, but which is similar in idea. He calls, in a letter to his mother from january, 1799, poetry the most “innocent” of all actions “die unschuldigste aller Geschäfte”. It is simply a sort of “play”. Whereas other uses of language refer to action, to a reality that has a grib on the subject, poetry is apparently without relevance and therefore “innocent”. It is so to say, language without effect, language simply ‘as’ language. Far from being without relevance, we can say that this play is what allows for a new sort of relevance to emerge. Within a given discourse poetry has no immediate relevance. It is only a sort of pause, a caesura, an innocent play. But as such it also questions the possibility and impossibilities within the horizon of the “possible” (the ‘reality principle), if you will. If we are loyal to its sounds, it also allows for a new reality to emerge (what Badiou calls poetry’s ‘disorientation’ of the ‘situation’).

Hölderlin mentions in the unpublished poem “Im Walde”, (here following Heidegger Hölderlin und das Wesen der Dichtung) however, not simply poetry as the most innocent. It is also the most dangerous of all human goods (“darum ist der Güter Gefährlichsten, die Sprache dem Menschen gegeben…”).

If we think of this as a dialectical, that poetry cannot complete absolve itself from its everyday use, its ‘referential mimesis’, then this would also account for the difficult position of the poet. Hölderlin writes later in a letter, that he has digested too much of the Gods (come to close to them) and therefore is now like Tantalus. “Sonst konnt ich jauchzen über eine neue Wahrheit, eine bessere Ansicht dessen, das über uns und um uns ist, jetzt fürcht ich, daß mir nicht geh am Ende, wie dem alten Tantalus, dem mehr von den Göttern ward, als er verdauern konnte.” (V, 321). The poet should function as a mediator between the pure force of the law, the purely non-referential constitutive force that does not refers to reality, but constitute it, and the usual referential mimesis. The same, as Heidegger points out, but in a different register, with Empedokles: “Es muß/Bei Zeiten weg, durch wen der Geist geredet” (III, 154). Empedokles is thrown out of the everyday experience, of the safety-net of the many, and exposed to the pure force of the gods (the constitutive power, a kind of pure psychosis).

Why is poetry both the most innocent and most dangerous? It does not merely use language in an everyday way, but also what opens up a different use, new possibilities, and this leaves the regular ways of being without a safety net. This is why it is both the most innocent, simply language without any ‘use’, a simple play AND simultaneously the most dangerous.

If we look at Patmos how is this Spiel, this play, this innocence of poetry enacted? Contrary to the landgrave’s request, to make us see how revelation still has a place in the modern world, against the opinions of the ‘enlightenment thinkers’ (die Aufklärer), Hölderlin’s poem rather displaces the questions, puts brackets around it, and open up a different poetological reflection of revelation, that belong to neither previous camp. What is of special importance is of course, that the notion of Spiel is far from irrelevant. It is the very concept that dominates Schiller’s conception of the beautiful (taken from Kant) as the way imagination can bridge the gap to the absolute. So when Hölderlin uses this term it is also against the hegemonic use that Schiller and his followers make.

Patmos of course makes use of the reference to revelation (“Offenbarung”) that had come under heavy attack from enlightenment thinkers in the 18th century. Patmos is an aegan island off the Roman province of Asia, a desolate island, where John, (the author of book of Revelations) fled after anti-christian persecution in the 1st century. Here, in a cave, John, had revelations about the end of the world. Hölderlin himself refers to the desolate islands in comparison to Cyprus who is rich and fertile, the poet, on his imaginary journey back to Greece and Asia (western Asia minor) desires to go the desolate island, a home for shipwrecked and refugees:

For unlike Cyprus, rich with springs, Or any of the others, Patmos Isn’t splendidly situated,

But it’s nevertheless hospitable In a more modest home. And if A stranger should come to her, Shipwrecked or homesick Or grieving for a departed friend, She’ll gladly listen, and her Offspring as well,

In this way, we have also the central opposition of the poem. On the one hand the fertile lands, and the, in Hölderlin’s view (shared with other german thinkers of his time) of Greece as the harmonious, ‘plastic’ (as Hegel calls it) country, where soul and senses are in harmony. The divine can be seen and is personified. So is for Hölderlin, singularly, Jesus the last of the Gods of antiquity when he is alive. His death marks a rupture, where the divine can no longer be seen, it has become “spirit”. As such it leads to a stronger crisis, a break of mediation, but also of a possible step forward (although this is not visible to mortals that are confined to the senses). John’s visions in the cave in Patmos, are such an example of an inspired vision not confined to the mortal senses (like the Greek Gods were). This is why the initial verse is also: “where danger grows, also that which can save us, is growing” (wo aber Gefahr ist, wächst das rettende auch).

The first drafts of Patmos are from the time of Hölderlin’s stay in Regenburg, so it seems to follow immediately from the discussion with the Landgrave. The first complete version was done in 1803 and was gifted to the landgrave through Hölderlin’s friend Sinclair for the landgrave’s 55th birthday, that received it with “Danke und Freude” (thanks and joy).

The hymn is written in style of the greek poet Pindar (only Homer is more famous), free rhythms, triadic structure, and it is unclear if the landgrave might have understood the range of Hölderlin’s effort (a poetic effort that seems to wildly exceed the the discussion with the landgrave). To bring it back to my initial point, Hölderlin’s poem already dislocates, transcends the given situation that gave birth to it. Hölderlin’s mother wrote to Sinclair, that her son was not happy enough with it and that he kept rewriting versions of it, trying to complete it. The version given to the landgrave was the first one and three others were completed after. None of them published.

As in many other of Hölderlin’s poems the christian religion is combined with his singular vision of the greek gods of antiquity. Patmos refer to the greek island, where John the Evangelist wrote the Book of Revelations (1.9). Hölderlin takes up the image and melancholia and diaspora of early Christians and compares it to the modern Germans. The initial famous verse are “The god/Is near, and hard to grasp./But where there is danger,/ A rescuing element grows as well.”. Contrary to an original state, where the Gods could be “sung” and kept at a distance (ancient Greece as the typical Hölderlinean image of a harmonious society), the germans are left without a way to relate to the gods, and this makes their proximity strangely frigthening. The state of the speaker is therefore one of alienation (compared to the Greeks), and he is even more alone, in that it is only he that can see the diaspora (the contemporaries are blind to what they have lost).

Hölderlin references two biblical parabels in Patmos. In stanza 11 there is a reference to the good sower.

It is the action of the winnower, When he shovels the wheat And casts it up into the clear air And swings it across the threshing floor. The chaff falls to his feet, but The grain emerges finally. It’s not bad if some of it gets lost, Or if the sounds of his living speech Fade away. For the work Of the gods resembles our own: The Highest doesn’t want it Accomplished all at once. As mineshafts yield iron, And Etna its glowing resins, Then I’d have sufficient resources To shape a picture of him and see What the Christ was like.

One is the parable of the sower (Matthew 13) and the other (already in old testament of the wheat and the chaf) (Matthew, 3.12). Both have to do with the eschatological plan, not visible for human eyes or human ways of measurment and progress. The current diaspora of the germans, alienation, will eventually be overcome, but when that happens cannot be seen by mortal human beings. But at the same time the parabel, like Jesus emphasize about the good sower is also about understanding and not understanding. The word of God can only be understood by those that already believe, if human beings could understand it, its very divine character that establishes transcendence would be lost.

“That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the lake. Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat in it, while all the people stood on the shore. Then he told them many things in parables, saying: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop — a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. Whoever has ears, let them hear.”

“His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” (Matthew 3.12).

In this context, reflected by Hölderlin is the situation comparable to the present state Germans, who are also not able to see the God (“Nah ist und schwer zu fassend/Der Gott). In both cases the human projection of time is broken, there is no end in sight, only God knows.

The same opposition is carried over into the opposition of the letter and spirit. In the present state, there is no meaning of words, but words stand meaningless there, waiting for the signified, their meaning. They are oppressive in their materiality, only in time will their meaning be revealed. But again, far from seeing this as a problem is the very meaninglessness a new opening to other meanings, if the signifier and the signified were ‘bound’ for ever, no new meanings would be possible. While Hölderlin’s Patmos is therefore interpreted as preparing the way for overcoming, we should rather see the overcoming already there in the preparation (we do not need the disalienating meaning to come).

The work of God, that cannot be known, is in the poem transferred to poetic activity itself: “Denn göttliches Werk auch gleichet dem unsern”,(For the work/Of the gods resembles our own). Like Christ’s parabels, the poetic “Werk” (work, product) in the poem is yet to be interpreted, to be given a meaning. The living sounds have faded, and what are left are the letters in their silent materiality.

At the same time it is emphasized that the poetic work, as products of human beings, cannot be like the gods, (this would break down the necessary distance, for transcendence). It can only come up short, its productivity is necessarily different and lesser.

But again what is the point, is precisely to see less is more, in this way Hölderlin indirectly creates “the higher”, the boundary precedes what it is the boundary of. We should see this “lesser work” of poetry as constitutive actually of the “higher”. If we continue to think of it simply as lesser we fall victim to a kind of perspectival illusion. This does not make the poetry perfect (whole), but rather we overcome the very need for the whole. It is not that we have to resign ourselves to our place of mortality, but that we should also see this as more attractive (alienation as a potential for transcencence of the immediate symbolic identity).

The poem critizies a kind of self-identical entity, that sees no transcendence (no otherness). But it is not about finding one’s rightful place in the cosmic order. Because of language we will always be constitutively uncosmic (despite what eco-criticism tells us about finding our way back to a symbiotic relationship). In ecocriticism it is modern alienation that lead to horror. But in this way they miss that the horrors occur as a result of trying to flee alienation. This is perhaps the point of the reference to Paul in the poem and his epiphany on the road to Damascus: Paulus learned of his own out-of-placeness, not that of a symbolic identity that overcome alienation. The poem warns about symbolic identities and self-enclosure, including that of a predetermined meaning of the letters.

We see this in an way with the hymn’s structure itself. On the one hand it is very ‘different’, ‘violent’ compared to every day speech, but this violence is itself constitutive of a transcendence of socalled immediate experience. The structure dislocates a clear-cut meaning, dislocating the us with it, pointing to the original lack of a secure place (like symbolic identities).

This is seen by the names themselves of geographical places, who are ‘transubstantiated’ in the poem into something different than its immediate geographical location (Patmos as the place for homelessness and prophetic visions, for example, a ‘house’ of modesty).

For far too long The honor of the gods Has been invisible. They practically have to Guide our fingers as we write, And with embarrassment the energy Is torn from our hearts. For every heavenly being Expects a sacrifice, And when this is neglected, Nothing good can come of it. Without awareness we’ve worshipped Our Mother the Earth, and the Light Of the Sun as well, but what our Father Who reigns over everything wants most Is that the established word be Carefully attended, and that Which endures be interpreted well. German song must accord with this.

Patmos: English and German

The god Is near, and hard to grasp. But where there is danger, A rescuing element grows as well. Eagles live in the darkness, And the sons of the Alps Cross over the abyss without fear On lightly-built bridges. Therefore, since the summits Of Time are heaped about, And dear friends live near, Growing weak on the separate mountains — Then give us calm waters; Give us wings, and loyal minds To cross over and return.

Thus I spoke, when faster Than I could imagine a spirit Led me forth from my own home To a place I thought I’d never go. The shaded forests and yearning Brooks of my native country Were glowing in the twilight. I couldn’t recognize the lands I passed through, but then suddenly In fresh splendor, mysterious In the golden haze, quickly emerging In the steps of the sun, Fragrant with a thousand peaks, Asia rose before me.

Dazzled I searched for something Familiar, since the broad streets Were unknown to me: where the gold-bejeweled Patoklos comes rushing down from Tmolus, Where Taurus and Messogis stand, And the gardens are full of flowers, Like a quiet fire. Up above In the light the silver snow Thrives, and ivy grows from ancient Times on the inaccessible walls, Like a witness to immortal life, While the solemn god-built palaces Are borne by living columns Of cypress and laurel.

But around Asia’s gates Unshaded sea-paths rush About the unpredictable sea, Though sailors know where The islands are. When I heard that one of these close by Was Patmos, I wanted very much To put in there, to enter The dark sea-cave. For unlike Cyprus, rich with springs, Or any of the others, Patmos Isn’t splendidly situated,

But it’s nevertheless hospitable In a more modest home. And if A stranger should come to her, Shipwrecked or homesick Or grieving for a departed friend, She’ll gladly listen, and her Offspring as well, the voices In the hot grove, so that where sands blow and heat cracks the tops of the fields, They hear him, these voices, And echo the man’s grief. Thus she once looked after The prophet that was loved by God, Who in his holy youth

Had walked together inseparably With the Son of the Highest, Because the Storm-Bearer loved The simplicity of his disciple. Thus that attentive man observed The countenance of the god directly, There at the mystery of the wine, Where they sat together at the hour Of the banquet, when the Lord with His great spirit quietly foresaw his Own death, and forespoke it and also His final act of love, for he always Had words of kindness to speak, Even then in his prescience, To soften the raging of the world. For all is good. Then he died. Much Could be said about it. At the end His friends recognized how joyous He appeared, and how victorious.

And yet the men grieved, now that evening Had come, and were taken by surprise, Since they were full of great intentions, And loved living in the light, And didn’t want to leave the countenance Of the Lord, which had become their home. It penetrated them like fire into hot iron, And the one they love walked beside them Like a shadow. Therefore he sent The Spirit upon them, and the house Shook and God’s thunder rolled Over their expectant heads, while They were gathered with heavy hearts, Like heroes under sentence of death,

When he again appeared to them At his departure. For now The majestic day of the sun Was extinguished, as he cast The shining scepter from himself, Suffering like a god, but knowing He would come again at the right time. It would have been wrong To cut off disloyally his work With humans, since now it pleased Him to live on in loving night, And keep his innocent eyes Fixed upon depths of wisdom. Living images flourish deep In the mountains as well,

Yet it is fearful how God randomly Scatters the living, and how very far. And how fearsome it was to leave The sight of dear friends and walk off Alone far over the mountains, where The divine spirit was twice Recognized, in unity. It hadn’t been prophesied to them: In fact it seized them right by the hair Just at the moment when the fugitive God looked back, and they called out to him To stop, and they reached their hands to One another as if bound by a golden rope, And called it bad —

But when he dies — he whom beauty Loved most of all, so that a miracle Surrounded him, and he became Chosen by the gods — And when those who lived together Thereafter in his memory, became Perplexed and no longer understood One another; and when floods carry off The sand and willows and temples, And when the fame of the demi-god And his disciples is blown away And even the Highest turns aside his Countenance, so that nothing Immortal can be seen either In heaven or upon the green earth — What does all this mean?

It is the action of the winnower, When he shovels the wheat And casts it up into the clear air And swings it across the threshing floor. The chaff falls to his feet, but The grain emerges finally. It’s not bad if some of it gets lost, Or if the sounds of his living speech Fade away. For the work Of the gods resembles our own: The Highest doesn’t want it Accomplished all at once. As mineshafts yield iron, And Etna its glowing resins, Then I’d have sufficient resources To shape a picture of him and see What the Christ was like.

But if somebody spurred himself on Along the road and, speaking sadly, Fell upon me and surprised me, so that Like a servant I’d make an image of the god — Once I saw the lords Of heaven visibly angered, not That I wanted to become something different, But that I wanted to learn something more. The lords are kind, but while they reign They hate falsehood most, when humans become Inhuman. For not they, but undying Fate It is that rules, and their activity Spins itself out and quickly reaches an end. When the heavenly procession proceeds higher Then the joyful Son of the Highest Is called like the sun by the strong,

As a watchword, like a staff of song That points downwards, For nothing is ordinary. It awakens The dead, who aren’t yet corrupted. And many are waiting whose eyes are Still too shy to see the light directly. They wouldn’t do well in the sharp Radiance: a golden bridle Holds back their courage. But when quiet radiance falls From the holy scripture, with The world forgotten and their eyes Wide open, then they may enjoy that grace, And study the light in stillness.

And if the gods love me, As I now believe, Then how much more Do they love yourself. For I know that the will Of the eternal Father Concerns you greatly. Under a thundering sky His sign is silent. And there is one who stands Beneath it all his life. For Christ still lives. But the heroes, all his sons Have come, and the holy scriptures Concerning him, While earth’s deeds clarify The lightning, like a footrace That can’t be stopped. And he is there too, Aware of his own works From the very beginning.

For far too long The honor of the gods Has been invisible. They practically have to Guide our fingers as we write, And with embarrassment the energy Is torn from our hearts. For every heavenly being Expects a sacrifice, And when this is neglected, Nothing good can come of it. Without awareness we’ve worshipped Our Mother the Earth, and the Light Of the Sun as well, but what our Father Who reigns over everything wants most Is that the established word be Carefully attended, and that Which endures be interpreted well. German song must accord with this.

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Nah ist Und schwer zu fassen der Gott. Wo aber Gefahr ist, wächst Das Rettende auch. Im Finstern wohnen Die Adler und furchtlos gehn Die Söhne der Alpen über den Abgrund weg Auf leicht gebauten Brücken. Drum, da gehäuft sind rings Die Gipfel der Zeit, und die Liebsten Nah wohnen, ermattend auf getrenntesten Bergen, So gib unschuldig Wasser, O Fittige gib uns, treuesten Sinns Hinüber zugehn und wieder zukehren.

So sprach ich, da entführte Mich schneller, denn ich vermutet Und weit, wohin ich nimmer Zu kommen gedacht, ein Genius mich Vom eigenen Haus′ . Es dämmerten Im Zwielicht, da ich ging Der schattige Wald Und die sehnsüchtigen Bäche Der Heimat; nimmer kannt′ ich die Länder; Doch bald, in frischem Glanze, Geheimnisvoll Im goldenen Rauche, blühte Schnell aufgewachsen, Mit Schritten der Sonne, Mit tausend Gipfeln duftend,

Mir Asia auf, und geblendet sucht′ Ich eines, das ich kennete, denn ungewohnt War ich der breiten Gassen, wo herab Vom Tmolus fährt Der gold geschmückte Paktol Und Taurus stehet und Messogis, Und voll von Blumen der Garten, Ein stilles Feuer; aber im Lichte Blüht hoch der silberne Schnee; Und Zeug unsterblichen Lebens An unzugangbaren Wänden Uralt der Efeu wächst und getragen sind Von lebenden Säulen, Zedern und Lorbeern Die feierlichen, Die göttlich gebauten Paläste.

Es rauschen aber um Asias Tore Hinziehend da und dort In ungewisser Meeresebene Der schattenlosen Straßen genug, Doch kennt die Inseln der Schiffer. Und da ich hörte Der nahegelegenen eine Sei Patmos, Verlangte mich sehr, Dort einzukehren und dort Der dunkeln Grotte zu nahn. Denn nicht, wie Cypros, Die quellenreiche, oder Der anderen eine Wohnt herrlich Patmos,

Gastfreundlich aber ist Im ärmeren Hause Sie dennoch Und wenn vom Schiffbruch oder klagend Um die Heimat oder Den abgeschiedenen Freund Ihr nahet einer Der Fremden, hört sie es gern, und ihre Kinder Die Stimmen des heißen Hains, Und wo der Sand fällt, und sich spaltet Des Feldes Fläche, die Laute Sie hören ihn und liebend tönt Es wieder von den Klagen des Manns. So pflegte Sie einst des gottgeliebten, Des Sehers, der in seliger Jugend war

Gegangen mit Dem Sohne des Höchsten, unzertrennlich, denn Es liebte der Gewittertragende die Einfalt Des Jüngers und es sahe der achtsame Mann Das Angesicht des Gottes genau, Da, beim Geheimnisse des Weinstocks, sie Zusammensaßen, zu der Stunde des Gastmals, Und in der großen Seele, ruhigahnend den Tod Aussprach der Herr und die letzte Liebe, denn nie genug Hatt′ er von Güte zu sagen Der Worte, damals, und zu erheitern, da Ers sahe, das Zürnen der Welt. Denn alles ist gut. Drauf starb er. Vieles wäre Zu sagen davon. Und es sahn ihn, wie er siegend blickte Den Freudigsten die Freunde noch zuletzt,

Doch trauerten sie, da nun Es Abend worden, erstaunt, Denn Großentschiedenes hatten in der Seele Die Männer, aber sie liebten unter der Sonne Das Leben und lassen wollten sie nicht Vom Angesichte des Herrn Und der Heimat. Eingetrieben war, Wie Feuer im Eisen, das, und ihnen ging Zur Seite der Schatte des Lieben. Drum sandt′ er ihnen Den Geist, und freilich bebte Das Haus und die Wetter Gottes rollten Ferndonnernd über Die ahnenden Häupter, da, schwersinnend Versammelt waren die Todeshelden,

Izt, da er scheidend Noch einmal ihnen erschien. Denn jetzt erlosch der Sonne Tag Der Königliche und zerbrach Den geradestrahlenden, Den Zepter, göttlich leidend, von selbst, Denn wiederkommen sollt es Zu rechter Zeit. Nicht wär es gut Gewesen, später, und schroff abbrechend, untreu, Der Menschen Werk, und Freude war es Von nun an, Zu wohnen in liebender Nacht, und bewahren In einfältigen Augen, unverwandt Abgründe der Weisheit. Und es grünen Tief an den Bergen auch lebendige Bilder,

Doch furchtbar ist, wie da und dort Unendlich hin zerstreut das Lebende Gott. Denn schon das Angesicht Der teuern Freunde zu lassen Und fernhin über die Berge zu gehn Allein, wo zweifach Erkannt, einstimmig War himmlischer Geist; und nicht geweissagt war es, sondern Die Locken ergriff es, gegenwärtig, Wenn ihnen plötzlich Ferneilend zurück blickte Der Gott und schwörend, Damit er halte, wie an Seilen golden Gebunden hinfort Das Böse nennend, sie die Hände sich reichten -

Wenn aber stirbt als denn An dem am meisten Die Schönheit hing, dass an der Gestalt Ein Wunder war und die Himmlischen gedeutet Auf ihn, und wenn, ein Rätsel ewig füreinander Sie sich nicht fassen können Einander, die zusammenlebten Im Gedächtnis, und nicht den Sand nur oder Die Weiden es hinwegnimmt und die Tempel Ergreift, wenn die Ehre Des Halbgotts und der Seinen Verweht und selber sein Angesicht Der Höchste wendet Darob, daß nirgend ein Unsterbliches mehr am Himmel zu sehn ist oder Auf grüner Erde, was ist dies?

Es ist der Wurf des Säemanns, wenn er faßt Mit der Schaufel den Weizen, Und wirft, dem Klaren zu, ihn schwingend über die Tenne. Ihm fällt die Schale vor den Füßen, aber Ans Ende kommet das Korn, Und nicht ein Übel ists, wenn einiges Verloren gehet und von der Rede Verhallet der lebendige Laut, Denn göttliches Werk auch gleichet dem unsern, Nicht alles will der Höchste zumal. Zwar Eisen träget der Schacht, Und glühende Harze der Ätna, So hätt′ ich Reichtum, Ein Bild zu bilden, und ähnlich Zu schaun, wie er gewesen, den Christ,

Wenn aber einer spornte sich selbst, Und traurig redend, unterweges, da ich wehrlos wäre Mich überfiele, daß ich staunt′ und von dem Gotte Das Bild nachahmen möcht′ ein Knecht - Im Zorne sichtbar sah′ ich einmal Des Himmels Herrn, nicht, daß ich sein sollt etwas, sondern Zu lernen. Gütig sind sie, ihr Verhaßtestes aber ist, So lange sie herrschen, das Falsche, und es gilt Dann Menschliches unter Menschen nicht mehr. Denn sie nicht walten, es waltet aber Unsterblicher Schicksal und es wandelt ihr Werk Von selbst, und eilend geht es zu Ende. Wenn nämlich höher gehet himmlischer Triumphgang, wird genennet, der Sonne gleich Von Starken der frohlockende Sohn des Höchsten,

Ein Losungszeichen, und hier ist der Stab Des Gesanges, niederwinkend, Denn nichts ist gemein. Die Toten wecket Er auf, die noch gefangen nicht Vom Rohen sind. Es warten aber Der scheuen Augen viele Zu schauen das Licht. Nicht wollen Am scharfen Strahle sie blühn, Wiewohl den Mut der goldene Zaum hält. Wenn aber, als Von schwellenden Augenbraunen Der Welt vergessen Stillleuchtende Kraft aus heiliger Schrift fällt, mögen Der Gnade sich freuend, sie Am stillen Blicke sich üben.

Und wenn die Himmlischen jetzt So, wie ich glaube, mich lieben Wie viel mehr Dich, Denn Eines weiß ich, Daß nämlich der Wille Des ewigen Vaters viel Dir gilt. Still ist sein Zeichen Am donnernden Himmel. Und Einer stehet darunter Sein Leben lang. Denn noch lebt Christus. Es sind aber die Helden, seine Söhne Gekommen all und heilige Schriften Von ihm und den Blitz erklären Die Taten der Erde bis jetzt, Ein Wettlauf unaufhaltsam. Er ist aber dabei. Denn seine Werke sind Ihm alle bewusst von jeher.

Zu lang, zu lang schon ist Die Ehre der Himmlischen unsichtbar. Denn fast die Finger müssen sie Uns führen und schmählich Entreißt das Herz uns eine Gewalt. Denn Opfer will der Himmlischen jedes, Wenn aber eines versäumt ward, Nie hat es Gutes gebracht. Wir haben gedienet der Mutter Erd′ Und haben jüngst dem Sonnenlichte gedient, Unwissend, der Vater aber liebt, Der über allen waltet, Am meisten, daß gepfleget werde Der feste Buchstab, und bestehendes gut Gedeutet. Dem folgt deutscher Gesang.