We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
from Part I - Neue Gedichte / New Poems
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 July 2016
The King is sixteen: no more regency.
At just sixteen, he is the State.
He looks, as if from ambush; looks to see
beyond the Council graybeards, straight
out past them, somewhere deep into the hall.
Perhaps he feels upon his skin
the cold chain of the Fleece, and that is all.
It chills his chin — long, hard, and thin.
The instrument of death has been
without his signature
so long! They think, “Such agony!”
They'd know — if him they knew, they knew for sure —
that he is slowly counting seventy
before he lifts his pen.
Auferstehung
Der Graf vernimmt die Töne,
er sieht einen lichten Riß;
er weckt seine dreizehn Söhne
im Erb-Begräbnis.
Er grüßt seine beiden Frauen
ehrerbietig von weit —;
und alle, voll Vertrauen,
stehn auf zur Ewigkeit
und warten nur noch auf Erich
und Ulriken Dorotheen,
die, sieben- und dreizehnjährig, (sechzehnhundertzehn)
verstorben sind im Flandern,
um heute vor den andern
unbeirrt herzugehn.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
