Ahead of All Parting Read Online Free Page A

sky on a rainy day above a landscape.
    And through the gentle, unresisting meadows
    one pale path unrolled like a strip of cotton.
    Down this path they were coming.
    In front, the slender man in the blue cloak—
    mute, impatient, looking straight ahead.
    In large, greedy, unchewed bites his walk
    devoured the path; his hands hung at his sides,
    tight and heavy, out of the falling folds,
    no longer conscious of the delicate lyre
    which had grown into his left arm, like a slip
    of roses grafted onto an olive tree.
    His senses felt as though they were split in two:
    his sight would race ahead of him like a dog,
    stop, come back, then rushing off again
    would stand, impatient, at the path’s next turn,—
    but his hearing, like an odor, stayed behind.
    Sometimes it seemed to him as though it reached
    back to the footsteps of those other two
    who were to follow him, up the long path home.
    But then, once more, it was just his own steps’ echo,
     
    und seines Mantels Wind was hinter ihm war.
    Er aber sagte sich, sie kämen doch;
    sagte es laut und hörte sich verhallen.
    Sie kämen doch, nur wärens zwei
    die furchtbar leise gingen. Dürfte er
    sich einmal wenden (wäre das Zurückschaun
    nicht die Zersetzung dieses ganzen Werkes,
    das erst vollbracht wird), müßte er sie sehen,
    die beiden Leisen, die ihm schweigend nachgehn:
    Den Gott des Ganges und der weiten Botschaft,
    die Reisehaube über hellen Augen,
    den schlanken Stab hertragend vor dem Leibe
    und flügelschlagend an den Fußgelenken;
    und seiner linken Hand gegeben:
sie.
    Die So-geliebte, daß aus einer Leier
    mehr Klage kam als je aus Klagefrauen;
    daß eine Welt aus Klage ward, in der
    alles noch einmal da war: Wald und Tal
    und Weg und Ortschaft, Feld und Fluß und Tier;
    und daß um diese Klage-Welt, ganz so
    wie um die andre Erde, eine Sonne
    und ein gestirnter stiller Himmel ging,
    ein Klage-Himmel mit entstellten Sternen—:
    Diese So-geliebte.
    Sie aber ging an jenes Gottes Hand,
    den Schritt beschränkt von langen Leichenbändern,
    unsicher, sanft und ohne Ungeduld.
    Sie war in sich, wie Eine hoher Hoffnung,
    und dachte nicht des Mannes, der voranging,
    und nicht des Weges, der ins Leben aufstieg.
    Sie war in sich. Und ihr Gestorbensein
    erfüllte sie wie Fülle.
    Wie eine Frucht von Süßigkeit und Dunkel,
    so war sie voll von ihrem großen Tode,
    der also neu war, daß sie nichts begriff.
    *
     
    or the wind inside his cloak, that made the sound.
    He said to himself, they had to be behind him;
    said it aloud and heard it fade away.
    They had to be behind him, but their steps
    were ominously soft. If only he could
    turn around, just once (but looking back
    would ruin this entire work, so near
    completion), then he could not fail to see them,
    those other two, who followed him so softly:
    The god of speed and distant messages,
    a traveler’s hood above his shining eyes,
    his slender staff held out in front of him,
    and little wings fluttering at his ankles;
    and on his left arm, barely touching it:
she.
    A woman so loved that from one lyre there came
    more lament than from all lamenting women;
    that a whole world of lament arose, in which
    all nature reappeared: forest and valley,
    road and village, field and stream and animal;
    and that around this lament-world, even as
    around the other earth, a sun revolved
    and a silent star-filled heaven, a lament-
    heaven, with its own, disfigured stars—:
    So greatly was she loved.
    But now she walked beside the graceful god,
    her steps constricted by the trailing graveclothes,
    uncertain, gentle, and without impatience.
    She was deep within herself, like a woman heavy
    with child, and did not see the man in front
    or the path ascending steeply into life.
    Deep within herself. Being dead
    filled her beyond fulfillment. Like a fruit
    suffused with its own mystery and sweetness,
    she was filled with her vast death, which was so new,
    she could not understand that it had happened.
    *
     
    Sie war in einem neuen