Summer’s heat and springtime’s mildness,

Conflict and peace alternate here

Wondrously in my heart

In front of the silent divine image;

Angry in the midst of homages,

Shamed, conquered, I have often

Struggled to grasp the woman

Who surpasses my boldest imaginings.

– Friedrich Holderlin

Sweet rest, sweet ecstasy in the grass,

With the aroma of the herbs around me,

Deep current, deep, deeply enraptured current,

When the cloud dissolves into azure

When sweet laughter falls like an illusion

Onto my weary, dizzy head

When a lovely voice murmurs and drips down

Like the lime-tree blossoms onto a grave.

I jumped up and shook myself

Like someone who has just escaped a cataleptic fit,

And dashed along the dark boundary hedges,

Still in doubt whether the star by the ridge of the field

Was really the glow from my bedside lamp

Or the eternal light by the sarcophagus.

– Annette von Droste-Hulshoff

I certainly must admit

That things resembling people appear around me;

That I hear them, yes, that I see them in the flesh

I cannot deny; yet this kingdom of the world

Remains so foreign and hollow to me, that all its turning

Is not sufficient to remove my doubts

Whether being or nonbeing is nosily bustling here,

Whether a world like this even has a soul in its body!

– Clemens Brentano

And the confusion, more and more variegated,

Becomes a magically impetuous river;

Down into the beautiful world

This stream’s greeting lures you.

Joy, the beautiful, credulous child,

Is rocking in the evening breezes:

Where silver is flowing on branches and bushes

You will find the most beautiful girl!

The years pass like clouds

And leave me here alone;

The world has forgotten me,

Then you stepped toward me miraculously

When, to the rustling of the forest,

I sat here lost in thought.

– Joseph von Eichendorff

all selections translated by Stanley Appelbaum