Night Thoughts

 by Brett Rutherford

after Goethe

Ye Stars above, I do not now envy you,
there in the selfsame beauty and glory
as ever on high — the hope of sailors
when hurricane and tempest roaring come,
the one last ask when God and men all fail
their shouted prayers, and when “Stars above!”
leaps up from heart-felt humbleness from one
who sees Polaris in the waterspout’s eye —
And there! And there! Star upon star arrayed
telling in their count and coming how far
the harbor, how near the perilous reef —

No! Stars do not love, and have never loved!
Those whom they save, they save indifferently.
Your circling spheres unvarying tick on,
dragging your plows through Heaven’s black furrows.
You are the same! The same! Yet though you whirl,
in depths beyond the number of zeroes
that are and ever will be inscribed there
in that line that is infinity’s arc
for you, almost-eternal hours have passed,
while I, by love distracted, looked not out
the window, nor up amid my moonless
dark amours, bereft of sense and starless
over two eyes, dark brows and a mere mouth —

All memory of night and of burning stars
forgot! Wind back for me, o starry vault
and fill my bitter thoughts with luminance,
you wise ones who, immortal, do not love,
and I shall trade with you my illusion,
that one for another should be dizzy
and stumble about in one’s own orbit,
imagining some astral collision
that would not be mutually deadly,
dragging along all your friends and neighbors
until the cosmos is a billiards game.

Ye stars then, say that you envy me not!
Say: Men do not love, and have never loved!

Ludwig Tieck's The Wild Huntsman

I have published the famous Wild Huntsman of Burger, as translated by Sir Walter Scott, and I have also adapted a Wild Huntsman poem by Victor Hugo. Here is another retelling of the legend, by German Romantic poet Ludwig Tieck:

The “ Wild Huntsman" of the Harz Mountains was also a cruel and profligate lord , who indulged in his passion for the chase without regard to the crops or even the lives of his vassals, or of the holy days set apart by the Church. He is firmly believed in by the peasant of the Black Forest, and many ballads have been written on this legend. The following is a translation of one of Tieck's poems:

 

THE WILD HUNTSMAN

 

By Ludwig Tieck

 

At the dead of the night the wild huntsman awakes

In the deepest recess of the forest's dark brakes;

He lists to the storm and arises in scorn,

He summons his hounds with his far -sounding horn.

He mounts his black steed; like the lightning they fly,

And sweep the hush'd forest with snort and with cry.

Loud neighs his black courser;  hark! his horn how 'tis swelling;

He chases his comrades, his hounds wildly yelling

Speed along! Speed along! for the race is all ours;

Speed along! Speed along! while the midnight still lowers;

The spirits of darkness will chase him in scorn

Who dreads our wild howl and the shriek of our horn.

Thus yelling and belling they sweep on the wind,

The dread of the pious and reverent mind;

But all who roam gladly in forests at night,

This conflict of spirits will strangely delight.”

 

Unattributed translation, found in: From “Dogs of Legend and Romance.” M.F. O’Malley. Aunt Judy’s Christmas Volume for 1879. Edited by H.K.F. Gatty. 1879. London: George Bell & Son.

Bride of the Vampire

 

by Brett Rutherford

After a ballad by Felix Dahn

Gladly would I, as the other
     dead, my grave in quiet keep;
Yet a curse, a ban eternal
     makes me roam while mortals sleep.

Peaceful in the azure moonbeams
     stand the vaults where others rest,
yet I, beneath my marble tombstone,
     a burning pang within my breast

flow out and up, my dusty pinions
     shaking as they set me free,
over hill and dale to wander,
     unslaked yearnings driving me

to where my tender bride reposes,
     in her dreams of a living lover.
I will hover, bat and shadow,
     lightly falling from above her.

Now my black eyes, forever open
     lock on her closed orbs, lashed shut;
now the candle flickers lower
     as my wing-beat snuffs it out. 

I nearly faint from undead passion,
     yet from here I cannot go.
She must join me ’ere the sunrise
     join me in the realms below!

Well she knows my bite’s destruction.
     Twice have I been here and gone.
In vain, in vain, the others warned her;
     outside they pray, and watch for dawn.

Slowly I feed, and take my pleasure,
     vein to lips, and blood to throat.
Now I press the fatal signet
     upon her breast, Undead,

unblessed, unsoul’d, unmourned,
I carry her off on night’s last zephyr,
so pale, so cold, forever-more.
Only an empty bed discover’d,

a drop of blood upon the floor,
a taper snuff’d, an unread prayer,
the garland of protective herbage,
the crucifix she shunned to wear.

Now hark! Beware! The cock is crowing.
     They are calling out her name!
And though she whispers, “Father! Mother!”
     She is far beyond their finding,

Back into my grave I burrow,
     sliding aside my marble roof.
At sunset, on the hungry morrow,
     side by side we’ll issue forth.

 

 

What Does the Raven Eat Today?

 

by Brett Rutherford

    After a ballad by Kreuznach

Over the parched field one raven flew.
Keen was his eye, but nothing he found.
One comrade comes from the flock to join him.
“My coal-black friend, a word I pray.
What man shall give us our food this day?”

Quoth he: “Beyond the wood in Elfindale,
a lordly feast awaits us all.
Come follow me, to the gallow-tree
where the smell  of blood I keen,
the blood of a hero, once brave and kind.”

“Ah!” cried his friend. “I will alert the host.
Who was the wretched man, and how his fall?” —
“Ask the knight’s falcon, who knew him well,
or ask the grieving charger on which he rode,
or better yet, ask of the wife at home alone

what name shall the tombstone call him.
The hawk speaks now, for he has flown
beyond the hunt and its dainty reward.
The horse now serves the murderer,
who rides and rides to the humble abode

where he will play with his enemy’s child,
and take the woman and lift her up
from weeping widow to his armor’d kiss.
Come, ravens wild! The feast is ours,
another banquet from human-kind!”

 

The Poet Who Starved (Revised)

     by Brett Rutherford, after the German of Uhland

Such was his lot — each dismal day

was short, and was marked with sorrow;

just as a poet ought, he withered

and quite forgotten, passed away.

He was an ill-starred infant

with only a muse hag for a nurse-maid,

and she it was who tutored him

to sing whether supper came or did not.

His mother, if one called some woman that,

crisped early to her untitled urn,

and so presaged his latter doom,

an anonymous and unread vessel

unfit for holding in or keeping gold.

When all around passed pewter mugs,

flagons and cups and champagne flutes,

he was the one they scorned to cheer,

pouring the dregs on cindered ground.

He knew the names of their fine vintages,

the lineage of kings who trod the valleys;

he could tell the rise and fall of empires,

but not one sip was given him!

Still, smiles returned to him each Spring,

his dreams of sweet blossoms woven,

but others hewed his trees to splinters,

boots muddying his purple stream.

When others orgied holidays, game days

and feasts, and marched in victory parades,

he raised his proud cup from afar —

his, the clear cold water; theirs, bloating beers.

The others watched him as he walked on by,

between his study and the library shelves,

thought him a pale being of scarcely flesh.

“He must have inherited money.

“An other-worldly man, almost a ghost.

He doesn't live like us. Ambrosia, mead,

strange fruits and berries, and a millet stew,

must be his monkish provender.”

Dead! dead! they found him sitting there

over the crumbs of one last saltine, pot

of a weak tea too many times infused

until it was merely shaded water.

There was nothing in his house! Just papers piled!

Cupboards zig-zaggedy with spiderwebs,

ice-box unplugged, a gasless stove,

plates in the sink, oh, too far gone for mould!

Easy it was to carry him, pine box

weighing no more than pine box and a suit

of grave-clothes. No hearse for him: a handcart

sufficed to trundle him off to the graveyard.

His tread had scarcely marked the dust

when he walked of nights. May the earth

rest light on his shoulders. May someone find

those papers he left, and publish them.

May someone remember those words were his.

[Written February 2019, revised May 2019].