THE UTTERING OF
SYLLABLES ANDTHE
SPEAKING OF WORDS
THE SYLLABLE:
QUANTITY, METRE AND
WEIGHT
(Stuttgart, 29 March 1923)
I hope you will permit me to insert into
today’s proceedings at this Pedagogical and Artistic Congress
an example taken from the art of recitation and declamation, and to
make some observations of an interpolated nature.
Art is always a particularly difficult theme on
which to speak, in that art is conveyed through immediate sensation
– through immediate perception. It must be received as a
direct impression. We are thus in a quite special position in
speaking about art at a Congress where our aim is a clarification
that is reached both through knowledge and through a whole style of
education and teaching-practice. Certainly all the lectures that
have been held here have stressed the necessity, in the case of
Waldorf education, of introducing an artistic quality into the art
of education and teaching in general. But when confronting art
itself, one would prefer, as I hinted in a former lecture, to
preserve a chaste silence. Now every argument, every show of
feeling, every human volition ultimately passes over to form the
ongoing stream of human civilisation. They are contained in the
three greatest impulses behind all human evolution and all
historical events: the ideals of religion, art and knowledge. And
in our day an attempt is quite justifiably made to make art the
bearer of our ideal of knowledge, so that some possibility may once
more be found of our rising upward with our understanding from the
realm of substance, of matter, into the spiritual. I have tried to
show how art is the way to gain a true knowledge of man, in that
artistic creativity and sensitivity are the organs for a genuine
knowledge of man. Nature herself becomes a true artist the moment she ascends from
the multiplicity of facts and beings of the universe to bring about
man. This is not said merely as a metaphor, but as a deeper
knowledge of the universe and of man. And again, confronted with
art, it may be said that it is an intrusion when we want to speak
artistically about art. To speak about art is to lead what is
spoken back to a sort of religious perception. Thereby religion is
grasped in its widest sense, in which it does not only embrace what
we today rightly regard as explicitly religious – the quality
of reverence in man – but also includes humour, as understood
in the highest sense.
[Note 29]
A sort of religious feeling must always prepare the mood for art. For
when we speak about art we must speak out of the spirit. How can we
find words for works of art of the sublimest kind, such as Dante's
Commedia, if our language does not embody moments of
religious insight?
This was indeed felt, and rightly felt, when art
came into being. Art originated at a time when science still formed
a unity, a common whole along with religion and art. At the
beginning of certain great works of art we hear words which, I
would say, seem like a confirmation of these comments from
world-history. It is truly out of a cosmic awareness that Homer
begins his poem with the words:
Sing, O Muse, of the anger of Peleus’ son
Achilles.
Homer himself does
not sing: Homer is conscious that he must raise his soul to the
superhuman, the super-sensible; that he must place his words as a
sacrificial gift before the higher powers he serves, if he is to
become a truly artistic poet. (Of course, the question of
Homer’s identity has nothing to do with this.) And if we
survey a longer period, and come to one of the modern poets, we
hear how Klopstock begins his Messiah with words that are
indeed different, but formally sound quite
similar:
Sing, immortal soul, of sinful
man’s redemption,
Which the Messiah on earth in human
form accomplished.
When we begin from the one poem and progress to the other,
we pass through the period in which man traversed the great,
immeasurable distance from complete surrender to the divine
spiritual powers, whose earthly sheath he felt himself to be, to
the point where man in his freedom started to feel himself a sheath
only of his own soul. But there too, at the beginning of the great
epoch of German poetry, Klopstock appealed to the invisible –
as Goethe constantly did, even if he did not overtly say so. Thus
among poets themselves we can observe the consciousness of a sort
of translation into the super-sensible.
The super-sensible, however, does
not speak in words. Words are in every instance prose. Words are in
every instance components of a discourse, components of a psychic
act which submits to the conditions of logic. Logic exists in order
that we may become aware of external beings and occurrences in
their external sense-reality; logic must not, therefore, intrude
upon spiritual reality. The moment we arrive by means of logic at a
prose sentence we must feel the solid earth under our feet. For the
spiritual does not speak in human words. The spiritual world goes
only as far as the syllable, not as far as the word. Thus we can
say that the poet is in a curious position. The poet has to make
use of words, since these are after all the instruments of human
speech: but in making use of words he necessarily deserts his
proper artistic domain. He can only achieve his aim if he leads the
word back to syllable-formation. In the quantities, metres and
weight of syllable-formation – this is the region where the
word has not yet become word, but still submits to the musical,
imaginative and plastic, to a speech-transcendent spirituality
– there the poet holds sway. And when the poet has to make
use of words, he feels inwardly how he has to lead word-formations
back to the region that he left under the necessity of passing
from syllable to word. He feels that through rhyme, through the
entire configuration of the verse, he must again make good what is
lost when the word abandons the concrete quantities and weight that
belong to the syllable, and round it out artistically, imparting
form and harmony.
Here we are vouchsafed a glimpse into the
intimacies of the poet’s soul. This disposition is truly felt
by a real poet. Platen is not alone in having left us some
remarkable comments on what I have just attempted to
describe:
Only to rambling dilettantes
Are formal strictures ‘senseless’.
Necessity:
That is thy sacrificial gift, O
Genius.
Platen invokes Genius, observing that it is inherent in
Genius to fashion the syllables in accordance with quantity, metre
and weight. Rambling off into prose is merely the foolishness of
the half-talented. (Although, as I have mentioned, these make up
ninety-nine per cent of our versifiers.) And not only Platen, but
Schiller, too, puts it rather beautifully when he says:
It is the peculiar property of an untainted and
purely quantitative verse that it serves as the sensible
presentation of an inner necessity of thought; and conversely, any
licence in the treatment of syllable quantities makes itself felt
in a certain arbitrariness. From this perspective it is of
particular importance, and touches upon the most intimate laws of
art.
It is to the necessity inherent in syllable-quantities that
Schiller refers in this pronouncement.
The declaimer or reciter, as the interpreter of
the poet’s art, must give special attention to what I have
just described. He has to conduct what comes before
him as a poetical composition, which obviously communicates through
words, back to quantity, metre and the weight of the syllables.
What then flows out into the words has to be consciously rounded
out so as to accord with the verse-structure and rhyme. In our own
age, with its lack of artistic feeling, there has arisen a curious
kind of declamatory-recitative art – a prosaic emphasis on
the prose-sense, something quite unartistic. The real poet always
goes back from the prosaic or literal to the musical or plastic.
Before he committed the words of a poem to paper, Schiller always
experienced a wordless, indeterminate melody, a soul-experience of
melody. As yet without words, it flowed along melodically like a
musical theme, onto which he then threaded the words. One might
conjecture that Schiller could have conjured the most varied poems,
as regards verbal content, out of the same musical theme. And to
rehearse his iambic verse-dramas, Goethe stood in front of his
actors with a baton, like a conductor, considering the formation of
sound, the balance of the syllables, the musical rhythm and
time-signature to be the essential, rather than the literal
meaning. For this reason it has become necessary for our own
spiritual stream to return to a true art of recitation and
declamation, where what has been debased through the means of
expression imposed upon the poet to the level of mere prose can
once again be raised, so as to regain the level of a super-sensible
formative and musical experience.
This work was taken in hand by Frau Dr. Steiner,
who over the last decades has tried to develop an art of recitation
and declamation in which something that transcends prose to become
inwardly eurythmic, the imaginative and musical configuration of
syllable-quantities, the imaginative quality of the sound,
whether plastic or musical –
in which all this is once more made apparent. This comes out
differently in lyric, epic and drama – I shall
deal with that presently. But we would first like to show how what
is indicated here can in general be derived from poetry that is
truly artistic.
As a first example you will hear
“Ostern”, by Anastasius Grün, a poem particularly
suited to such a passing-beyond-the-content and approach to the
aesthetic form. It is a somewhat old-fashioned poem that is (in a
rather narrow sense) topical, in being a poem dedicated to Easter.
On the other hand it is not topical, in the sense that it dates
back to the first half of the nineteenth century, an age when the
poet still felt bound to acknowledge the necessity of plastic and
rhythmical formative power. Let us accept the poem as it is –
though it will nowadays be found tedious by those who attend to the
prose content alone, as being rather antiquated in its imagery.
Even allowing for its tediousness as prose, however, a genuine poet
has here attempted to comply with the inner aesthetic necessity of
the poem.
We shall then continue with a modern poet, with
“An Eine Rose”, a sonnet by Albert Steffen. It is
precisely in the sonnet that, with good will, we can
discern how the verbal presentation is compensated by the strictly
bounded form – this atones for the sin committed with regard
to the words, and the whole is then rounded out and rendered
euphonious. In the case of a poet like Albert Steffen, whose
explorations extend into the hidden depths of his view of the
world, it is interesting to observe how he simultaneously feels the
necessity of transmuting what comes to light as a way of knowledge
into the strictest aesthetic forms.
In the “Terzinen” of Christian
Morgenstern we shall see how a peculiar poetic form – free
terzetti – subsists on the basis of a feeling for continuity,
for openness of form, in contrast to the sonnet which is based on a
rounding-off of feeling. We shall see how the terzetti, albeit
towards the end of the poem, have a quality of openness, while yet
constituting a bounded whole from what flows into the
words.
And then perhaps
I may adduce three poems of my own: “Frühling”,
“Herbst”, and “Weltenseelengeister”, in
which I have tried to bring into strict forms the most inward
experiences of the human soul – not the forms of conventional
prosody or metrics, but forms which stem from the actual emotion,
while at the same time
they try to contain the amorphous, fluctuating, glittering life
within the soul in internally strict forms.
Frau Dr. Steiner
will now demonstrate these six, more lyrical poems.
(“Ostern” is, of course, a long poem of which we will
present only Part V.)
OSTERN
Und Ostern wird es einst, der Herr sieht
nieder
Vom Ölberg in das Tal, das klingt und
blüht;
Rings Glanz und Fühl’ und Wonn’
und Wonne wieder,
So weit sein Aug’ – ein Gottesauge
– sieht!
Ein Ostern, wie’s der Dichtergeist sieht
blühen,
Dem’s schon zu schaun, zu pflücken jetzt
erlaubt
Die Blütenkränze, die als Kron’
einst glühen
Um der noch ungebornen Tage Haupt!
Ein Ostern, wie’s das Dichteraug’ sieht
tagen,
Das überm Nebel, der das Jetzt
umzieht,
Die morgenroten Gletscherhäupter
ragen
Der werdenden Jahrtausende schon sieht!
Ein Ostern, Auferstehungsfest, das
wieder
Des Frühlings Hauch auf Blumengräber
sät;
Ein Ostern der Verjüngung, das
hernieder
Ins Menschenherz der Gottheit Atem weht!
Sieh, welche Wandlung blüht auf Zions
Bahnen!
Längst hält ja Lenz sein Siegeslager
hier;
Auf Bergen wehn der Palmen grüne
Fahnen,
Im Tale prangt sein Zelt in
Blütenzier!
Längst wogt ja über all’ den alten
Trümmern
Ein weites Saatenmeer in goldner Flut,
Wie fern im Nord, wo weisse Wellen
schimmern,
Versunken tief im Meer Vineta ruht.
Längst über alten Schutt ist
unermessen
Geworfen frischer Triften grünes
Kleid,
Gleichwie ein stilles, freundliches
Vergessen
Sich senkt auf dunkler Tag’ uraltes
Leid.
Längst
stehn die Höhn umfahn von
Rebgewinden,
Längst
blüht ein Rosenhag auf Golgatha.
Will jetzt ein Mund den Preis der Rose
künden,
Nennt er gepaart Schiras und Golgatha.
Längst alles Land weitum ein sonn’ger
Garten;
Es ragt kein Halbmond mehr, kein Kreuz mehr
da!
Was sollten auch des blut’gen Kampfs
Standarten?
Längst ist es Frieden, ew’ger Frieden
ja!
Der Kedron blieb. Er quillt vor meinen
Blicken
Ins Bett von gelben Ähren
eingeengt,
Wohl noch als Träne, doch die dem
Entzücken
Sich durch die blonden, goldnen Wimpern
drängt!
Das ist ein Blühen rings, ein Duften,
Klingen,
Das um die Wette spriesst und rauscht und
keimt,
Als gält’ es jetzt, geschäftig
einzubringen,
Was starr im
Schlaf Jahrtausende versäumt,
Das ist ein Glänzen rings, ein Funkeln,
Schimmern
Der Städt’ im Tal, der Häuser auf
den Höhn;
Kein Ahnen, dass ihr Fundament auf
Trümmern,
Kein leiser Traum des Grabs, auf dem sie
stehn!
Die Flur durchjauchzt, des Segens freud’ger
Deuter,
Ein Volk, vom Glück geküsst, an Tugend
reich,
Gleich den Gestirnen ernst zugleich und
heiter,
Wie Rosen
schön, wie Cedern stark zugleich
Begraben
längst in des Vergessens Meere,
Seeungetümen
gleich in tiefer Flut,
Die alten Greu’l, die blut’ge
Schergenehre,
Der Krieg und Knechtsinn und des Luges
Brut.
Auf Golgatha, in
eines Gärtchens Mitte,
Da wohnt ein
Pärlein, Glück und Lieb’ im
Blick;
Weit schaut ins
Land, gleich ihrem Aug’ die Hütte,
Es labt ja
Glück sich gern an fremdem Glück!
Einst, da begab sich’s, dass im Feld die
Kinder
Ausgruben gar ein formlos, eisern Ding;
Als Sichel
däuchtis zu grad und schwer die Finder,
Als Pflugschar
fast zu schlank und zu gering.
Sie schleppen’s mühsam heim, gleich
seltnem Funde,
Die Eltern sehn es, – doch sie kennen’s
nicht,
Sie rufen rings
die Nachbarn in der Runde,
Die Nachbarn sehn
es, – doch sie kennen’s nicht.
Da ist ein Greis,
der in der Jetztwelt Tage
Mit weissem Bart
und fahlem Angesicht
Hereinragt, selbst
wie eine alte Sage;
Sie zeigen’s
ihm, – er aber kennt es nicht.
Wohl ihnen allen, dass sie’s nimmer
kennen!
Der Ahnen Torheit, längst vom Grab
verzehrt,
Müsst’ ihnen noch im Aug’ als
Träne brennen.
Denn was sie nimmer kannten, war ein
Schwert!
Als Pflugschar
soll’s fortan durch Schollen ringen,
Dem Saatkorn nur
noch weist’s den Weg zur Gruft;
Des Schwertes neue
Heldentaten singen
Der Lerchen
Epopeein in sonn’ger Luft!
Einst wieder sich’s begab, dass, als er
pflügte,
Der Ackersmann wie an ein Felsstück
stiess,
Und, als sein Spaten rings die Hüll’
entfügte,
Ein wundersam Gebild aus Stein sich
wies.
Er ruft herbei die Nachbarn in der
Runde,
Sie sehn sich’s an, – jedoch sie
kennen’s nicht! –
Uralter, weiser Greis, du gibst wohl
Kunde?
Der Greis besieht’s, jedoch er kennt es
nicht.
Ob sie’s auch kennen nicht, doch
steht’s voll
Segen Aufrecht in ihrer Brust, in ewigem
Reiz,
Es blüht sein Same rings auf allen
Wegen;
Denn was sie nimmer kannten, war ein
Kreuz!
Sie sahn den Kampf nicht und sein blutig
Zeichen,
Sie sehn den Sieg allein und seinen
Kranz!
Sie sahn den Sturm nicht mit den
Wetterstreichen,
Sie sehn nur seines Regenbogens Glanz!
Das Kreuz von Stein, sie stellen’s auf im
Garten,
Ein rätselhaft, ehrwürdig
Altertum,
Dran Rosen rings und Blumen aller
Arten Empor sich ranken, kletternd um und
um.
So steht das Kreuz inmitten Glanz und
Fülle
Auf Golgatha, glorreich,
bedeutungsschwer:
Verdeckt ist’s ganz von seiner Rosen
Hülle,
Längst sieht vor Rosen man das Kreuz nicht
mehr.
Anastasius Grün.
[In a similar way, Vaughan
here transmutes a religious meditation into
haunting poetry:
THE NIGHT
(John, ii.)
Through that pure
Virgin-shrine,
That sacred vail drawn o’r thy
glorious noon
That men might look and live as Glo-worms
shine,
And face the Moon:
Wise Nicodemus saw such
light
As made him know his God by night.
Most blest believer he!
Who in that land of darkness and blinde
eyes
Thy long expected healing wings could
see,
When thou didst rise,
And what can never more be
done,
Did at mid-night speak with the
Sun:
O who will tell me, where
He found thee at that dead and silent
hour:
What hallow’d solitary ground did
bear
So rare a flower,
Within whose sacred leafs did
lie
The fulness of the
Deity.
No mercy-seat of gold,
No dead and dusty Cherub, nor
carv’d stone,
But his own living works did my Lord
hold
And Lodge alone;
Where trees and Kerbs did watch
and peep
And wonder, while the Jews did
sleep.
Dear night! this worlds
defeat;
The stop to busie fools; cares check and
curb;
The day of Spirits; my souls calm
retreat
Which none disturb!
Christ’s progress, and his
prayer time;
The hours to which high Heaven doth
chime.
Gods silent, searching flight:
When my Lords head is fill’d with dew, and
all
His locks are wet with the clear drops of
night;
His still, soft call;
His knocking time; The souls dumb
watch,
When Spirits their fair kindred
catch.
Were all my loud, evil days
Calm and unhaunted as is thy dark
Tent,
Whose peace but by some Angels wing or
voice
Is seldom rent;
Then I in Heaven all the long
year
Would keep, and never wander
here.
But living where the Sun
Doth all things wake, and where all mix and
tyre
Themselves and others, I consent and
run
To ev’ry myre,
And by this worlds ill-guiding
light,
Erre more than I can do by
night.
There is in God (some say)
A deep, but dazzling darkness; As men
here
Say it is late and dusky, because
they
See not all clear
O for that night! where I in
him
Might live invisible and
dim.
Henry Vaughan.]
Sonnet:
AN EINE ROSE
Ich schaue mich in dir und dich in mir:
Wo ich die Schlange bin, bist du die
Blume,
wir assen beide von der irdischen Krume,
in dir ass Gott, in mir ass noch das
Tier.
Die Erde ward für dich zum
Heiligtume,
du wurzelst fest, du willst nicht fort von
ihr.
Ich aber sehne mich, ich darbe hier,
ich such im All nach meinem Eigentume.
Du überwächst den Tod mit deinen
Farben
und saugst dir ewiges Leben aus dem
Boden.
Ich kehre immer wieder, um zu sterben.
Denn ach: Nur durch mein Suchen, Sehnen,
Darben,
nur durch die Wiederkehr von vielen
Toden,
darf ich um dich, O rote Rose, werben.
Albert Steffen (1884-1963).
TO A
ROSE
I see myself in thee, and thee in me:
But where I am the serpent, thou’rt the
flower –
In both consumes and grows by earthly
power
A god in thee,
alas! mere beast in me.
To thee the Earth was given for thy
shrine,
Thou clungst to her, nor wouldst uprooted
be.
But I, I yearn, I hanker to be free,
And seek in the
great All to grow divine.
Thou with thy shooting hues outleapst
corruption,
Drawing eternal life from out of the
soil,
Whilst I fall
back, fall even to death’s repose.
Yet still I seek and I yearn – and after
disruption,
And only through manifold deaths’
laborious toll
Dare court your deathless beauty, rose, red
rose!
Trans. A.J.W.
Terzetti:
Was ist das? Gibt es Krieg? Den
Abendhimmel
verfinstern Raben gleich geschwungnen
Brauen
des Unheils und mit gierigem
Gekrächz.
Südöstlich rudern sie mit wilder
Kraft,
und immer neue Paare, Gruppen,
Völker...
Und drüber
raucht’s im Blassen wie von Blut.
Wie Sankt Franciscus schweb ich in der
Luft
mit beiden Füssen, fühle nicht den
Grund
der Erde mehr,
weiss nicht mehr, was das ist.
Seid still! Nein,
– redet, singt, jedweder Mund!
Sonst wird die
Ewigkeit ganz meine Gruft
und nimmt mich auf
wie einst den tiefen Christ.
Dies ist das
Wunderbarste, dieses feste,
so scheint es,
ehern feste Vorwärtsschreiten –
und alles ist
zuletzt nur tiefer Traum.
Von tausend
Türmen strotzt die Burg der Zeiten
(so
scheint’s) aus Erz und Marmor, doch am Saum
Der Ewigkeit ist
all das nur noch Geste.
Dämmrig Blaun im Mondenschimmer
Berge...gleich Erinnerungen
ihrer selbst;
selbst Berge nimmer.
Träume bloss noch, hinterlassen
von vergangnen Felsenmassen:
So wie Glocken, die verklungen,
noch die Luft als Zittern fassen.
Christian Morgenstern
What is that – is it war? The evening
skies
are dark with ravens, like a congested
brewing
of evil, and gasping horrible, envious
croaks.
Southward and east they steer with reckless
force,
shifting in constellations, pairs and
groups...
and over all the smoke – so pale, like
blood.
I, like St. Francis, rise upon airy
wave,
and feel beneath my feet earth’s solid
ground
no more, no longer knowing what that
is...
Be still! – No, rather let each voice
resound!
lest all Eternity, become my grave,
enclose me like the depth that in Christ
is.
Most wonderful is this: the
fast‑
as-iron (it seems to me) forward advance
–
and yet, all is a dream in which we
sink.
Time prides herself (apparently) on
all
her forts of stone and iron – yet, from
the brink
of Endlessness, mere gestures all at
last!
Dusky, blue, in moonlight quiver
mountains...self-remembrances
themselves, as they were mountains
never.
Mere dreams! the last, abandoned
fragment
of some primeval, vast escarpment:
like stopped bells, whose resonances
in the vibrant air augment.
Trans. A.J.W. after V. Jacobs.
[Stevens has made extensive use of this form, as
in his “Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction”. This example
comes from the section “It Must Give Pleasure,” part
VIII:
What am I to believe? If the angel in his
cloud,
Serenely gazing at the violent abyss,
Plucks on his
strings to pluck abysmal glory,
Leaps downward
through evening’s revelations, and
On his spredden wings, needs nothing but deep
space,
Forgets the gold centre, the golden
destiny,
Grows warm in the motionless motion of his
flight,
Am I that imagine this angel
less-satisfied?
Are the wings his,
the lapis-haunted air?
Is it he or is it
I that experience this?
Is it I then that keep saying there is an
hour
Filled with expressible bliss, in which I
have
No need, am happy, forget need’s golden
hand,
Am satisfied without solacing
majesty,
And if there is an
hour there is a day,
There is a month, a year, there is a
time
In which majesty is a mirror of the
self:
I have not but I am and as I am, I
am.
These external regions, what do we fill them
with
Except reflections, the escapades of
death,
Cinderella fulfilling herself beneath the
roof?
Wallace
Stevens (1879-1955).]
Lyric poems by Rudolf Steiner.
FRÜHLING
Der Sonnenstrahl,
Der lichterfunkelnde,
Er schwebt heran.
Die Blütenbraut,
Die farberregende,
Sie grüsst ihn froh.
Vertrauensvoll
Der Erdentochter
Erzählt der Strahl,
Wie Sonnenkräfte,
Die
geistentsprossenen,
Im Götterheim
Dem Weltentone
lauschen;
Die Blütenbraut,
Die farberglitzernde,
Sie höret sinnend
Des Lichtes
Feuerton.
HERBST
Der
Erdenleib,
Der Geistersehnende,
Er lebt im Welken.
Die
Samengeister,
Die
Stoffgedrängten,
Erkraften
sich.
Und Wärmefrüchte
Aus Raumesweiten
Durchkraften Erdensein.
Und
Erdensinne,
Die
Tiefenseher,
Sie schauen
Künft’ges
Im
Formenschaffen.
Die
Raumesgeister,
Die
ewig-atmenden,
Sie blicken
ruhevoll
Ins
Erdenweben.
SPRING
The Sun’s bright beam –
a gash of light,
he soars above.
His blossom-bride
showered with colour,
greets him with joy.
And trustfully
the beam instructs
the daughter of earth
how solar powers
(the spirit’s progeny!)
in the heavenly spheres
eavesdrop on their harmonies;
the blossom-bride
–
sprinkled and bright with colour
–
she hears the light’s
cadence of flame!
AUTUMN
The world’s body –
its life for spirit yearns
amidst the shrivelling.
The germinal
sprites,
crushed with
matter,
gather their
power.
And fruits of
warmth
from far expanses
saturate earthly being.
And worldly
senses
(ah, deeply
seeing!)
behold the future
in forming power.
The daemons of space –
eternal breathings! – they gaze
reposefully at the world’s
unceasing weft.
Trans. A.J.W.
WELTENSEELENGEISTER
Im Lichte wir
schalten,
Im Schauen wir
walten,
Im Sinnen wir
weben.
Aus Herzen wir heben
Das Geistesringen
Durch
Seelenschwingen.
Dem Menschen wir
singen
Das
Göttererleben
Im
Weltengestalten.
SPIRITS OF THE
ANIMA MUNDI
In light is our
being,
and human
seeing,
sensations
weaving;
from deep hearts upheaving
through soul’s wide wending
the spirit’s contending;
our song to men sending
of gods’ true perceiving,
world-forms decreeing.
Trans. A.J.W.