Read Ahead of All Parting for Free Online Page A

thought you were much further on. It troubles me
    that
you
should stray back, you, who have achieved
    more transformation than any other woman.
    That we were frightened when you died … no; rather:
    that your stern death broke in upon us, darkly,
    wrenching the till-then from the ever-since—
    this concerns
us:
setting it all in order
    is the task we have continually before us.
    But that you too were frightened, and even now
    pulse with your fear, where fear can have no meaning;
    that you have lost even the smallest fragment
    of your eternity, Paula, and have entered
    here, where nothing yet exists; that out there,
    bewildered for the first time, inattentive,
    you didn’t grasp the splendor of the infinite
    forces, as on earth you grasped each Thing;
    that, from the realm which already had received you,
    the gravity of some old discontent
    has dragged you back to measurable time—:
    this often startles me out of dreamless sleep
    at night, like a thief climbing in my window.
    If I could say it is only out of kindness,
    out of your great abundance, that you have come,
    because you are so secure, so self-contained,
    *
     
    daß du herumgehst wie ein Kind, nicht bange
    vor Örtern, wo man einem etwas tut—:
    doch nein: du bittest. Dieses geht mir so
    bis ins Gebein und querrt wie eine Säge.
    Ein Vorwurf, den du trügest als Gespenst,
    nachtrügest mir, wenn ich mich nachts zurückzieh
    in meine Lunge, in die Eingeweide,
    in meines Herzens letzte ärmste Kammer,—
    ein solcher Vorwurf wäre nicht so grausam,
    wie dieses Bitten ist. Was bittest du?
      Sag, soll ich reisen? Hast du irgendwo
    ein Ding zurückgelassen, das sich quält
    und das dir nachwill? Soll ich in ein Land,
    das du nicht sahst, obwohl es dir verwandt
    war wie die andre Hälfte deiner Sinne?
      Ich will auf seinen Flüssen fahren, will
    an Land gehn und nach alten Sitten fragen,
    will mit den Frauen in den Türen sprechen
    und zusehn, wenn sie ihre Kinder rufen.
    Ich will mir merken, wie sie dort die Landschaft
    umnehmen draußen bei der alten Arbeit
    der Wiesen und der Felder; will begehren,
    vor ihren König hingeführt zu sein,
    und will die Priester durch Bestechung reizen,
    daß sie mich legen vor das stärkste Standbild
    und fortgehn und die Tempeltore schließen.
    Dann aber will ich, wenn ich vieles weiß,
    einfach die Tiere anschaun, daß ein Etwas
    von ihrer Wendung mir in die Gelenke
    herübergleitet; will ein kurzes Dasein
    in ihren Augen haben, die mich halten
    und langsam lassen, ruhig, ohne Urteil.
    Ich will mir von den Gärtnern viele Blumen
    hersagen lassen, daß ich in den Scherben
    der schönen Eigennamen einen Rest
    herüberbringe von den hundert Düften.
    Und Früchte will ich kaufen, Früchte, drin
    das Land noch einmal ist, bis an den Himmel.
    *
     
    that you can wander anywhere, like a child,
    not frightened of any harm that might await you …
    But no: you’re pleading. This penetrates me, to
    my very bones, and cuts at me like a saw.
    The bitterest rebuke your ghost could bring me,
    could scream to me, at night, when I withdraw
    into my lungs, into my intestines,
    into the last bare chamber of my heart,—
    such bitterness would not chill me half so much
    as this mute pleading. What is it that you want?
      Tell me, must I travel? Did you leave
    some Thing behind, some place, that cannot bear
    your absence? Must I set out for a country
    you never saw, although it was as vividly
    near to you as your own senses were?
      I will sail its rivers, search its valleys, inquire
    about its oldest customs; I will stand
    for hours, talking with women in their doorways
    and watching, while they call their children home.
    I will see the way they wrap the land around them
    in their ancient work in field and meadow; will ask
    to be led before their king; will bribe the priests
    to take me to their temple, before the most
    powerful of the statues in their keeping,
    and to leave me there, shutting the gates behind them.
    And only then, when