Poems of Friedrich Hölderlin


 

The Rhine - 2

What arises unconditionally is a riddle.
Poetic songs can barely reveal it.
You’ll stay the same as you started,
Whatever the effects of training
And contingency.  And discipline too,
But being born that way is the main thing,
And the ray of light that meets
The new-born infant.
But where is there anyone
Like the Rhine, remaining free
All their life to fulfill the heart’s
Desire, born from auspicious heights,
Born in fortune from a holy womb?

His word is therefore jubilant.
He doesn’t want to cry like other children,
Wrapped in nursery clothes.
When the crooked riverbanks
First creep to his side and thirstily
Wind around him, wanting
To draw him along and perhaps protect him,
The reckless one, with their teeth,
He rips them apart like snakes
And plunges off with his prey.
Unless in the rush someone greater than he
Restrains him and lets him grow,
Then he’ll have to split open the earth
Like lightning, and the forests will come
Under his spell and run after him, along
With the mountains sinking around him.

A god wants to spare his sons
From dashing through life: he smiles
When as with this one, unstoppable
Though obstructed by the holy Alps,
The currents rage in his depths.
In such a smithy all that is pure
Is forged, and it is beautiful
After leaving the mountains
How he travels quietly and contentedly
Through German lands,
Calming his passions with goodly enterprise,
Father Rhine building the land,
Nourishing dear children
In towns he has founded.


Perhaps the poet was inspired by the Rhine Falls near Schaffhausen, about 40 miles from his residence in Hauptwil. [Photo by David Gubler, CC BY-SA 4.0.]

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