Books by Hermann Hesse

Peter Camenzind

Beneath the Wheel

Gertrude

Rosshalde

Knulp

Demian

Strange News from Another Star

Klingsor’s Last Summer

Wandering

Siddhartha

Steppenwolf

Narcissus and Goldmund

The Journey to the East

The Glass Bead Game

If the War Goes On …

Poems

Autobiographical Writings

Stories of Five Decades

My Belief

Reflections

Crisis

CRISIS

PAGES FROM A DIARY

HERMANN HESSE

The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you for your personal use only. You may not make this e-book publicly available in any way. Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify the publisher at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy.

Crisis. Copyright © 1975 by Hermann Hesse.

All rights reserved.

For information, address Farrar Straus Giroux, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

e-ISBN 978-1-4668-3505-4

First eBook Edition: April 2013

Surrender

O dark one, primal mother of all desire,

You whom I have fled and often cursed,

But who have always sought me out—

At last I come to you to still my thirst.

Take me, O terrible mother night!

The death delight of your embrace,

Your burning depths hold out to me

An intimation of redeeming grace,

The somber fire of your love

Burns in your cavernous black eyes—

That love which knows my secret soul

And whose death call I recognize.

Gladly I’ll follow you through blood and fear.

I hear you summon me to the abyss

To claim me as your child again

And utterly consume me with a kiss.

Poet’s Death Song

Soon I shall die,

Already I’m coming unstuck.

My bones will lie

With other bones in the muck.

Hesse, the famous poet, is gone,

Though my publisher’s profits will go right on.

And then I’ll get myself born again

Into the world of mice and men.

I’ll be an endearing little boy,

My father’s pride, my mother’s joy.

Even the crabbiest old aunts and uncles

Will beam at me through their wrinkles.

Later I’ll eat and drink for four,

My name won’t be Hesse any more.

I’ll lie with women, the little dears,

And rub my body against theirs.

And when they bore me, I’ll cut their throat

And the hangman will come and rub me out.

And now if I like I can try once more,

Some mother’d be willing, I’m pretty sure.

I could write books or fornicate;

But no, I prefer this shadowy state

Beyond all pleasure and distress.

Unborn, unshorn, in nothingness

I’ll watch the earthly pantomime

And laugh until the end of time.

Growing Old

The plaster crumbles from the wall,

The dandruff tumbles from my gray hair.

I used to be so light and gay,

I’m older now and in poor repair.

The gently smiling stars

Seem to stand still in the sky.

Oh no, they don’t stand still at all

But go racing madly by.

And so, as I sit here quietly

Sipping my brandy, I

Likewise am racing, faster

And faster toward the grave.

From the wall drips plaster,

Blue lightnings dart across the floor,

The rain comes in through the window

Splashing me more and more.

Good God! Won’t someone come and be nice to me!

But no one comes, no one comes.

I sit here writing, dismally,

Sit splattered by the rain,

Waiting for what never comes

Like an old raven on a withered tree.

Misgivings

If only I had remained a lone ascetic

Far from the withering passion of worldly men,

Instead of plunging into this frenetic

Whirl, and falling in love again!

Sadly I shake my graying head. I know

These frivolous goings-on are not for me,

Or else I should have started long ago.

I can’t even dance the one-step properly!

This life is like a bath of soft, warm mud.

Now that I’m in it, I wallow day and night.

Nothing can cool my overheated blood

Or satisfy my appetite.

Day after day I dance, I fall, I sink

From stage to stage of degradation,

Captive to gaming, lust, and drink,

Drowning in pleasant dissipation.

The Poet

Often at night I lie awake—

The world is an ache—

And then I play with words,

The good ones and bad ones,

The parched and fat ones,

And swim out into the gently mirroring sea.

Palm trees on distant islands rise up blue,

On the beach a fragrant breeze swells,

On the beach a child plays with colored shells;

A snow-white woman swims through

The green crystal. And as colors come blowing

Over the sea, so dream-verses blow

Over my soul, now overflowing

With sensuousness, now stark with death and woe.

Clad in a far-too-modest cloak of words outworn,

They dance, they run, they stop forlorn,

Forever changing in face and form and rhythm.

They seem age-old, yet there’s so much transcience in them.

Most people don’t understand at all.

Merchants, professors, journalists

Take dreams for lunacy, and call

Me mad. But children and some women as well

Love me as I love them, because they see

The chaotic wonder of imagery,

Because the Goddess has lent them too her veil.

A Wretched Night

I was invited out that night,

But, Christ, I wasn’t feeling right.

My head was full of last night’s dregs,

And surely the shooting pains in my legs

Boded no good, no good at all.

And then the stupid pictures on the wall,

The bust of Goethe and the knickknacks—all handmade.

Someone sat down at the piano and played

With muscular but undiscerning hand,

And suddenly I couldn’t stand

That atmosphere of culture any more.

Making some rude remark, I headed for the door.

They said they were sorry to see me leaving,

But I could see they were hardly grieving.

Sadly I went looking for

Some unpretentious little whore

Who didn’t play the piano and didn’t give a damn

About art. When I didn’t find one I began

To drink again, although some hours before

I’d sworn I wouldn’t do it any more.

Tell me, are you all so disgustingly alone?

Or in this wide world am I the only

One doomed to be so angry, sad, and lonely?

And why do you ask each other to your homes?

Why do you hang such rubbish on the wall?

Why do you carry on

With a wretched life that gives no one any pleasure

And instead of quickly, nobly ending it all,

Play the piano and talk about Thomas Mann?

It’s more than I’ll ever know.

Meanwhile my thirst I gratify.

Too much brandy will lay me low,

But isn’t it nobler to die?

A Happy Night

It’s dismal to lie awake with your feathers drooping,

Lonely, dejected, your bloodstream half congealed.

It’s pleasant to lie awake when your heart is loop-the-looping

With love, and all the springs of longing are unsealed.

Alone I’d sat at the bar, for hours on end benighted.

I paid for my whisky and shuffled out. But then

Halfway down the stairs I stopped, delighted,

Ready to start the evening all over again.

There was Fanny and there was Adelaide.

Meanwhile the band had struck up an entrancing

One-step. How fast, how liltingly they played!

And how we all soon throbbed and burned with the dancing!

Now as I lie abed the dawn is breaking.

That shimmy keeps running through my brain.

Fondly I think of those girls, tired but aching

To start this beautiful night all over again.

After an Evening at the Stag

Late that night in the bar we sprawled half dozing.

I savored the soft fragrance of your fur

Collar and nuzzled your throat. Then suddenly

I was aghast to think how young you were.

What am I doing here in these young arms?

What claims have I, old man whom happiness

Has always shunned, upon these tender lips,

Upon your youth and warmth and loveliness?

What am I doing at these marble tables,

Where dice are thrown and alcohol flows free?

Let me go back to Aquarius and Pisces,

Home to my accustomed misery.

What business has a clown like me

Where youth and beauty are at play?

Come, take your hat, it’s long since midnight struck,

Go home, old fool, and rot away!

I rose and left, they didn’t even notice.

On the canal outside the starlight shone.

I was dead tired, my hands were moist and hot.

An unfamiliar dog was sitting on

My doorstep. He sniffed at me—a stranger—and fled.

I climbed the stairs, each shoe a ton of lead,

I looked into the glass and saw red eyelids,

Withered gray hair, an ugly coated tongue.

If only that dog had bitten me, eaten me up!

I’m on the downgrade, I’ll never again be young.

Back to the Womb

Sometimes from the dismal gray

A happy moment rises up to me,

As flowery as a woman’s name,

Daphne, Louisa, Emily.

Sometimes from a slitted sleeve

A woman’s skin flashes white,

A loving glance from puckered eyes

Sends me a message of delight.

And though I know these joys are brief,

My longing for them burns no less.

The curve of every woman’s bosom

Fills me with passionate tenderness.

In short, I’ve turned into a child,

Secretly looking everywhere,

In all his trivial pursuits,

For a mother’s breasts, a mother’s hair.

Welcome, brief shifting flames of love,

I kiss your eyes, so brown, so blue,

In courtship and capricious love-play.

Woman, eternal mother, I welcome you.

To love you leads, I know, to death.

Too quickly my moth-dreams expire.

Oh, let me not die someday in darkness,

Oh, let me perish in the fire!

After Reading Some Pages of «Steppenwolf» to Friends

This evening two good friends of mine

Dropped in, and at their bidding I read

My work to them. While they sipped wine,

I read and read. Enthusiasm

Warmed me, sent the hot blood to my head.

Magnificent ideas, they said,

Yes, very good. And, yawning slightly,

They thanked me and went home to bed.

And there I sat, alone among

My papers, a nuthouse king, dethroned.

If only they had stayed a little while

Till over a quiet glass of wine

I cooled off and had my feet upon the ground.

But hardly waiting for my last line,

They left me. Suddenly I sat

Sobered, dejected in my chair,

Fallen to earth. And so I’m still

Sitting. I sit and drink and stare

At the disenchanted pages, stare and drink.

I wish I’d kept my writing to myself.

I know tonight that I won’t sleep a wink.

La Bella Milanese

Last night la bella Milanese was there.

We didn’t dance much, mostly we sat talking.

It was five when I got home, the dawn was breaking.

Dearest, I beg you not to laugh or scold.

La Milanese looked so ravishing,

The sparkle of her eyes, the perfect mold

Of her lips. For those two hours I was in love,

Yet I never thought of asking anything

Beyond what every woman gives to every man.

Looking back upon the evening, I confess

It gave me something akin to happiness.

And now I dream of your black hair.

Dear heart, if only you were here with me!

I long for you. I’ll never go to Milan!

Yes, yes, I promised, but ever so casually.

And now the Sunday-morning sun is streaming

Into my room. I’ve slept a little. Dreaming,

I saw la Milanese and you,

Serpent and woman underneath the tree

Of life, merging and embracing me

As in my childhood dreams with the hot, full

Passion that no reality can cool.

I dreamed a flaming paradise.

The two of you, two goddesses, lay

Crushing my heart with the blissful love that kills,

Until in pain and rapture I died away.

And now my paradise has vanished.

Here I’ve been lying for hours, awaiting sleep,

Dog-tired, but still happy in some measure.

Oh well, I know, such joys were never meant to keep.

To John the Baptist from Hermann the Schnapps-ist

Don’t you worry, I’m all right.

Let’s just amble on.

Once this thing is under way,

Nothing can be done.

Look at me : an empty house,

Door and windows open wide.

Ghosts are reeling in and out,

All of them are fried.

You’ve still got some money left,

Buy me, please, a drink.

The world is full of pleasures,

What a pity that they stink!

Other poets have been drinkers,

But stay sober when they write.

Me, it’s just the other way,

Sober puts my Muse to flight.

After six or seven glasses,

Logic goes hang.

That’s when I enjoy my scribbling.

Then without blush or pang

I celebrate existence,

I praise, I laud, I vaunt,

And give the bourgeoisie

Exactly what they want.

We who know the joys of life

Can sing a merry tune.

Besides, we know we’re singled out

To kick the bucket soon.

Every Night

Every night the same old story:

Dancing, laughing, drinking; dead

Tired returning to my room,

Falling into my cold bed;

Waking after fitful slumbers,

Scribbling verses, God knows why,

Rubbing bloodshot eyes, uncertain

Whether I should laugh or cry.

In a mound of rumpled bedclothes

And of shattered dreams I lie,

Aching in my heart and bones,

Pouring whisky down my gullet,

While my stifled spirit moans.

Morning from the depths of Hades

Creeps at last into my room,

And upon my sins the daylight

Stares with eyes of bitter gloom.

Envy

If I could only play the banjo

And blow the trumpet in a band,

And lead the chorus in a floor show,

Winning all hearts with my delightful spiel,

Always the sparkler, always in demand,

The shopgirl’s hero and ideal!

How happily, how blissfully I’d play

And fill the intervals with sprightly song!

Into the overheated cabaret

Flinging my bombshells of rhythm and melody,

I’d lash the dancing, drunken throng

Into a rhythmic ecstasy!

Then I’d no longer be a stranger here,

I too would be a priest of wild Astarte.

No longer would I wait outside in fear

Or, having entered, cringe and slink away.

I’d be the life and spirit of the party.

Alas, it cannot be. This common clay

Can never hope to equal the glittering

Gods of this earth. I’m lonely and I’m weak.

I know that I shall never dance and sing

Like these inspired performers. I shall be

Always a stranger, an outsider, a bleak

Onlooker, perched sadly on my shelf,

Listening to banjo and trumpet enviously,

Grinding the hurdy-gurdy of my verses,

Ridiculous to others, hateful to myself.

Thoughts

I used to be a poet,

Jingles now are all I spawn.

The friends who read them gnash their teeth

And wonder where my wits have gone.

Once I was wise and full of knowledge,

A stone’s throw from the goal,

And now I’m back where I started,

An empty-headed fool.

Maybe I’ll murder and pillage, before

I’m through, as heroes do in war.

The fates, it’s certain, did not intend

That I should come to any good.

Even my teachers understood

That I was headed for a dismal end.

To such an end a voice within me calls,

Luring me with its dark, insistent song,

Bidding me lie down on the rails.

For death can hardly be as bad as life.

Many have taken their lives, but when

Has any dead man ever taken

His death? He’d have been very much mistaken.

Innumerable men

Have chosen voluntarily to kill

Themselves. Has any been born of his own free will?

The Seducer

I’ve waited outside many doors,

My lover’s cause I’ve pleaded;

I’ve courted many a fair lady,

And sometimes I’ve succeeded.

But always when the lips were given

And always when my desire was fed,

I held but flesh within my arms,

A heavenly fantasy was dead.

At last the kiss for which I longed,

The night which had been uppermost

In all my thoughts were mine. But then

The blossom was broken, the fragrance lost.

How often have I risen from woman’s bed,

No sooner satisfied than surfeited,

Looking on pleasure as distress,

Yearning for dreams and for yearning loneliness.

A curse that no possession can gladden me,

That all fulfillment puts the dream to flight

Which courtship kindled in my fantasy,

So full of promise and delight.

Hesitantly I reach out for new blossoms,

For yet another courtship I prepare.

Fair lady, gird yourself in hardness.

Charm me, torment me, but reject my prayer.

Late in the Night …

Late in the night I made my way

Homeward, rebuffed, unloved, unkissed,

Alone beneath the paling sky

As Orion sank sadly to the west.

And now I lie forlornly in my bed,

Betrayed, cast out, forsaken,

Mulling dark thoughts, longing in vain

For sleep, for dreams, for consolation,

Grieving over a wasted life,

Scraping the pits of memory,

Taking my only comfort from the thought

That, forced to live, we’ll have the luck to die.

Steppenwolf

I, Steppenwolf, go loping through the woods.

The world is covered with snow,

From the birch tree flies a crow,

But nowhere a hare and nowhere a deer.

Ah, the deer, the dears, I love them so.

If I could only find one!

Oh, how I’d hold her in my paws,

Oh, how I’d grind her in my jaws!

In all the world there’s nothing so good.

With what delicious pangs

Of love I’d sink my fangs

Into her tender thighs and drink her blood.

After which I’d howl all night alone.

Even a hare would be all right,

The dark, warm flesh tastes sweet at night.

Dear God, are all the pleasures gone

From me, that gave some cheer to life?

The hair on my tail has gone gray,

My eyesight is giving way,

Long years ago death took my beloved wife.

And now I’m loping through the woods,

Dreaming of the deer I love so well,

Listening to the wintry night wind blow,

Stanching my burning throat with snow,

Dragging my poor soul to hell.

Protest

Man is entitled to repose on

The Sabbath when his work is through,

But in addition there are several

Other things that he can do.

Gracious flowers bloom on woman’s belly;

Inside, it’s full of chitterling.

There I’m less enthusiastic,

At home we didn’t like that sort of thing.

Manners and customs in the meantime

Have suffered beyond a doubt;

The decency I set such store by

Has practically gone out.

Six days shalt thou eat

And on the seventh rest in your sweat,

Make plenty of money, do good deeds,

God’s in His heaven, don’t forget.

All these commandments, I regret,

Even in Switzerland are very

Largely neglected, for art

Is solemn and the flesh is merry.

Sometimes a hardened sinner

Will even order tripe for dinner.

I sit and watch with loathing,

Though God enjoineth every human

To love his neighbor, man or woman.

In short, I don’t know where I’m at,

The world is on the slant.

Therefore, dear reader, I protest,

As man, as Christian, as patriot, as Protestant.

Sunday Matinee:
«The Magic Flute»

I did a foolish thing today.

Responding to a naïve impulse,

I went to hear The Magic Flute.

There I sat in the theater’s night,

Listening enraptured to the music I loved too well.

The tears ran down my cheeks

Under the spell of the immortal beauty

Which once had been my home but was now a foreign land.

How sweetly the angelic boys sang!

How delicate the breath of Tamino’s flute!

The magic which once filled me with joy

Streamed once again through my tormented heart

And swelled to a torrent of raging pain.

Around me in a cloud of stench, rustling their programs,

The Sunday philistines sat contentedly,

Praised the performance, and started homeward.

But I, who know neither home nor peace,

Who have never plucked anything but thorns,

Stagger about in the night, plunging

Daggers of longing deep into my heart,

Planning to shoot myself as soon as possible.

Yet, born dilettante that I am, I know

That when I’m thoroughly hot and tired,

I’ll end up some place where wine and brandy flow.

Dream Figure

His hat is black, his hair is white,

An aged man, he looks all right.

His talk is lively and well schooled,

But oh, he’s old, his blood has cooled.

He looks ridiculous

In his ancestral dress,

So comical in its solemnity

It moves my heart to sympathy.

Sagely and sadly the old man

Deplores the evils of our day.

I don’t exactly understand

But smile and let him talk away.

His knotted throat spouts wisdom. To console

Myself, I think: What’s this old man to me?

Nothing at all. But then I’m forced to see:

There stands the spit and image of my soul.

At the Dressing Table

For many years I lived in solitude

Far from this mart of women and vanities,

Unkempt, dependent on myself alone.

A brother to the streams and lakes and trees.

And now I spend the evening dressing up,

Choosing a tie, attending to my skin,

And then, where fashion gathers, showing

The spotless dinner jacket I am in.

I see my smiling features in the glass,

Tired, a little pale, a little grayer,

A little more malicious too, and wrinkled.

In times gone by the smile was softer, gayer,

The eyes were clear, the skin devoid of seams;

I had no need of powder, rouge, and creams.

Keep it up, old fellow, put your boiled shirt on,

Rub tonic on your hair and smooth it down.

Your efforts in the end will come to nothing,

You’ll always be a stranger here in town.

One day the woods will call you back again,

The brooks, the lakes, the hills, the stars, the rain.

You’ll chuck out all this frippery and once more

Go back to being what you once have been,

Tread the old pathways where your fancy lies,

Free as the wind, with wonder in your eyes.

And when you’ve drained the cup of loneliness

You’ll perish in the wilderness, unseen.

In Vain …

In vain I’ve drunk up all the brandy.

I haven’t slept. I feel no better.

With burning eyes, as open as wounds,

I lie in torment reading the letter

My loved one wrote me yesterday.

I curse this life, I curse love’s lunacy

In jumbled trochees and iambics,

Though Hölderlin still lives in me.

Far from the lights of youth’s enthusiasm,

I stare at the mad mask of destiny.

Father and mother, God forgive you

For suffering one more human to be born!

Oh, but by passing on the curse of life,

What crime have I committed in my turn!

Only by murder can amends be made.

You are the enemy. Plant your knife in that breast.

Assault the sun—the cruel gods will laugh,

And the sun will go on shining none the less.

Chained to the burning cliff of pain,

I hear the blood in my temples clamoring,

Avidly, hungrily crying for new torment

And dreading death in spite of everything.

The Immortals

Time and again the life drive rises

Up to us in its many guises :

Cries of affliction, Corybantic

Joy, smoke from a thousand hecatombs, frantic

Never-ending desire, hands

Of murderers, moneylenders, supplicants.

Driven by fear and lashed by lust,

The human multitude in the dust

Exudes its harsh, warm, sultry smell,

Breathes searing passion and beatitude,

Hatches out wars and noble arts as well,

Devours itself and spits itself out again,

Paints madness on the walls of the burning

Brothel, gobbles and whores its way through the churning

Fairground of children who call themselves men,

Rising for every creature anew from the waters, just

As for everyone it will someday crumble to dust.

We, on the other hand, have gathered

Here in the silent, starlit cold

Ether. Knowing neither days nor hours,

We are neither men nor women, young nor old.

Your sins, your murders, joys and fears,

For us are moments in the play

Of everlasting circling suns.

Each of our days is the longest day.

Serenely nodding at your quivering life,

Serenely gazing at the starry face

Of heaven, befriended by the constellations,

We breathe the winter of cosmic space.

Cold and immutable is our eternal being.

Cold and star-bright is our eternal laughter.

Oh, How Quickly …

Only the other day I was still a child.

My skin was smooth, my laugh was bright.

And now I’m old and doddering

With a foolish look in my red-rimmed eyes,

Spinning out crazy fantasies,

Barely able to walk upright.

Oh, how quickly everything fades!

Yesterday young and gay,

Shaky on my pins today,

Tomorrow rotting in the clay.

If only my love had not betrayed me,

If only my wife hadn’t fled,

I’d still walk singing through the streets,

I’d still lie thriving in my bed.

But when the women start to leave you,

Then it’s all up with you, my friend.

Stock up on whisky, grit your teeth,

Get ready for the downgrade and the end.

A Bad Night

By now they must be at the Odeon,

Drinking champagne, dancing, for all I know,

And wondering where I am. I said I’d go.

Instead I’m in this stinking bar alone.

I broke my promise. I was feeling low,

I couldn’t bring myself to shave and dress

And travel to the other end of town.

In a fit of silly, sulky childishness

I grabbed my oldest hat and clattered down

The stairs. And now I’m sitting here

Consuming hard-boiled eggs and beer,

Disgusted with myself for making

Hash of an evening long looked forward to.

I guess I’ll drink until my head starts aching,

Smoke two, three, four cigars, and when I’m through

Start home. Then maybe on the way

I’ll stop off at the Bear and go on drinking

Until I really feel I’m sinking

In filth and misery. I hope I may

Never get home, I hope a car

Hits me, I hope its rubber tires erase

Me, wipe me off the face

Of the earth. It should have happened long ago.

I’m always, always too late, whatever I do.

Step on it, driver, your victim’s just ahead!

And, pastor, be ready with your prayers for the dead!

I’ll never have the courage. Really now,

I’d feel ashamed if I hadn’t forgotten how.

Reaction to an Attack in the Daily Press

A dog has bitten me in the leg,

One of that agile breed

I hate with a most especial love.

He has torn my trousers and reputation.

This able journalist—

With zeal and rage his face was lobster red;

Needless to say, he’s a saber-rattling nationalist—

Devoutly wishes me dead,

A wish that I return with interest.

His article taught me quite a lot,

Except that it’s wretchedly expressed.

A writer he’s most certainly not;

Indeed, like the dog he is, he’s very

Short on syntax and vocabulary.

And yet this agile dog, this flunky of the press,

Is right in his main point, I must confess,

In wishing me dead and gone.

Let me respond with wishes of my own :

I hope the bedbugs tear his skin apart,

I hope the bastard lives a hundred years,

Condemned to learn his articles by heart.

I, however, considering this life’s smells,

Would gladly turn it in for something else.

Schizophrenia

The jig is up. So kindly turn the page,

Ungird your loins and make yourself at home.

Cast off your precious personality, and from

The wardrobe of life’s glittering stage

Choose some convenient incarnation,

Don Juan, for instance, or the Prodigal Son,

Or, if you like, the Whore of Babylon,

The better to delude the population.

Tell me, did you happen to know my parents? They

Were quiet folk, of proved morality,

Yet to ancestral sins they too were prey,

Or else they wouldn’t have manufactured me.

But that’s apart from the present situation.

Myself, I use a tuber for procreation.

It can be done with electricity

And makes for unparalleled felicity.

You get the drift. So if you please,

Let’s mate—politely, at our ease,

As fitting between father and son.

Meanwhile, dear sir, you may as well relax.

Stay here and play the gramophone,

While I run down to City Hall

And pay the copulation tax.

An Evening with Dr. Ling

If life is such a stinking mess,

It’s because we all must perish,

For why the effort, why the stress,

When death takes everything we cherish?

The only way to help the human race

Would be to hold it under water for half an hour,

But if only because of the water we’d have to displace,

That is beyond our power.

So probably the wisest thing

That I can do is talk with Dr. Ling—

One of those long, nocturnal sessions

Devoted to our respective depressions.

And meanwhile we could have an oyster fry

Or a roasted butterfly.

Fame’s laurel wreath—of what avail,

If it has no apples on it.

And the prettiest, glossiest tail—

If I can’t wag it, why then don it?

No, we’d better drink some more

And buy ourselves a good cigar.

What more has life to offer?

And then from our depressions we shall build

A house to live in while we wait

For posterity to plait

Our laurel wreaths. And there we’ll sit,

Looking benignly on the world,

Imagining it’s we that govern it.

Fever

I went to see my love. I took the train

And stumbled home at night through sleet and rain.

Chilled to the bone, I went to bed,

The fever mounted to my head,

And now I’ve really got the flu.

The things I dream I wouldn’t wish on a dog.

Yet now and then I’m lucid enough to brew

Myself a hot and potent grog.

Tomorrow morning I shall take

A steaming bath. It helps, they say.

But if my fever doesn’t break,

So be it then, I’ll pass away.

For this eventuality, I’m writing

A thought or two that comes to mind,

Not caring whether friend or foe will find

My lucubrations in the least exciting :

I send my love a shower of kisses,

On eyes and mouth, on shoulders, knees, and toes.

I loved her far more than she knows.

Also she made me suffer more

Than I had ever suffered before.

Her lovely fingers, her hair, her winsome ways

Merit adoration, thanks, and hymns of praise.

My friends, my comrades dear,

Let me invite you to a wake.

A hundred bottles of burgundy

My contribution. Drink them for my sake

And say whatever you like of me,

But say it, please, with laughter and good cheer.

I thank you all in this melancholy hour.

Of all the gifts my fellow men

Have given me, your friendship is the best.

I’ve always looked for love. Time and again

Your eyes have sent me the happiest

Message on earth : that I too had my part

In the love that burns in the human heart.

And oh, the winds, the hills, the woods, the rays

Of leafy sunlight, nature’s pantomime,

Which has rejoiced so many of my days :

I press you to my bosom one last time.

And gracious music, of all our guests most blest,

With gratitude I bid you too

Farewell. O sacred wood of melody,

No other goddess has given me

Such joyful, sorrowful comfort as you.

But dearer far to me than all the froth

Of life, than friendship, love, and dreams,

Than music’s charms and woodland streams,

Is my dark brother, death.

Long have I served you, long held out my hand

To you. In pain and fever I yearn,

In love and exultation I burn

For your embrace. Come, take me, carry me off,

Extinguish me. I have lived long enough.

Still Sick

Fever really gets me down,

All I do is lie and doze.

Grog is all the food I’ve eaten,

Sickness makes me dull and cross.

If at least grim death were near, oh,

Then I’d pull myself together,

Proud to face it like a hero.

This time, though, I’ve been in luck.

Friends have come to visit me,

Alice brought me cake and tea …

Though no doting wife is plying

Me with hot and cold compresses

And no swarms of children threaten

To obstruct me in my dying,

Though no sisters, cousins, aunts

Turn up to commiserate,

Still, I haven’t been forsaken.

That I can appreciate.

Oh, but next time I’m afraid my

Solitude will be complete,

Lying in a hospital

On some unfamiliar street.

No one will caress my hair,

No one say kind things to me,

No one bring me cake and tea.

Lonely I’ll be lying there,

Waiting lonely for the end.

Seeing me so very ill,

Hard-faced nurses will advise

Resignation to God’s will,

And their pious, bony fingers

With unloving care

Will arrange my lifeless hands

In an attitude of prayer.

God of everlasting mercy,

Save me from their clutches. I

Don’t want pious scarecrows near me

When it’s time for me to die.

Swine Song

If things were not the way they are,

If they were slightly more condign,

I’d take it as an honor

To be a thorough swine.

Things, the philosophers deem,

Are never what they seem.

Ah yes, but they forget the swine.

Oh, how perfectly divine

To be a pure young swine,

Rooting about

In the swill with his snout,

With beady, lecherous eyes looking out

On an unsuspecting world,

To bask in a benign

Awareness of being an out-and-out swine.

Such happiness has been denied me,

Whereas other swine honored by all, with utter

Freedom from any sense of guilt,

Wallow swinishly in every gutter.

In dreams at night I often see

Infinitely desirable feats

Of swinishness that seem to be

Designed especially for me.

But sad to say, poor idiot that I am,

This boundless joy cannot be mine.

Behind me in the empty shadows

I hear them grunting: swine, swine, swine.

A Letter

Dear and respected Herr von Klein,

I have received your letter inviting

Me to attend a meeting of your circle

And read selections from my writing.

Unfortunately I am quite unable

To guarantee that I shall still exist

Next January. Existence gives me little

Pleasure, and I’ve a good mind to desist.

As for my writing, God knows what you’ve heard.

Believe me, you’ve been cruelly misled.

The members of your circle would hate it. My

Own friends have often jibbed at what they read,

Because they are convinced a writer’s mission

Is to encourage the bourgeoisie with praise

Of life—a theory borne out by many authors

Of famous novels and magnificent plays.

Yes, to be sure, I used to write such things,

Saying a great big Yes to life. I hadn’t seen

A hundredth part of what life brings;

To put it mildly, I was out of touch.

Today I can’t help laughing, for between

You and me, this vaunted life that springs

Eternal doesn’t amount to much.

However, there are plenty of other writers.

Kürschner lists hundreds and more.

Nowadays I find literature a bore,

Preferring, like the Prodigal Son,

To sit fraternally among the swine

(Meaning the grisly characters I meet in bars),

Slurping down brandy or a bottle of wine.

And all in all, I’m happier than you’d think,

I’m fond of jazz and like to drink.

I hope, most honored Herr von Klein, that this

Profession of the good and beautiful

Will not be taken amiss,

And sign myself your humble and most dutiful …

The Debauchee

The flower of lust blooms red,

The smiling pink buds of your breasts

Quiver under my tongue.

Once I was a little boy,

Studying Greek and preparing for confirmation,

A pious father’s promising son.

But my early promise

Hasn’t come to much.

I broke out of my parents’ garden

And now I’m wandering about in the wilderness,

Wavering, still pursued and tormented by that youthful portrait,

Doing my best to expunge it, to murder it by degrees.

Perhaps, my love, I shall murder it in your soul.

Perhaps before this hour of passion wanes,

My hands will close around your pulsing throat.

Oh, how darkly flowers the smile on your lips!

Kiss me! Bite me! In an hour

Perhaps it will be all over and done with,

The portrait effaced, the tedious page turned,

Blood flowering in the bed and the police

Looking for the murderer.

The flowers of your breasts bloom.

It’s no good loving my kind of man.

A pity you had to love me.

Let us pay, little flower of sorrow,

Let us both pay

With our blood.

Weepy

The rain comes down,

The wind howls in the trees,

The world stinks

Of spilled wine and spent festivities,

Of death and birth and life’s bedevilment,

Of soup and excrement.

Around the corner death is waiting

To see if I’m disintegrating.

It doesn’t bother me,

I look back wearily.

My ears are coming unstuck,

My hair is falling off my dome.

I’m just pathetic.

Won’t someone take me home?

Written during a Sleepless Night

My life has seeped away,

I have forgotten everything.

Sometimes it seems early in the day,

As if I were still a child. And sometimes it seems

As if I’d lived since time past measuring

And I were older than the hills and streams.

Children of mine are living here and there,

And women who loved me and gave me the air.

No one stayed with me very long.

As a child I drank milk from birthday mugs,

Now I drink wine and beer and grogs,

Because of which my stomach has gone wrong.

I’d have perished long ago

If not for the curiosity

That drives me time and time again

To hearken to the pleasure and the pain

That surge inside of me.

There like a mountain brook I often hear

This life whose reasons I can never know

Swirling away, yet rising forever anew,

And listen in fascination to its flow.

Women also fascinate me.

Lots of them like me. They smile languidly

But refuse to take me seriously. They rate me

As unaccountable, not to be

Trusted, in which, of course, they’re right.

One was named Ruth. She charmed me and tormented

Me. She could never understand

What stopped me from being happy and contented.

Dear Ninon, at the moment you’re my moon

Shining upon the fearful night

That shrouds my heart in gloom.

Your wise dark eyes glow with love’s light.

If she could only stay with me forever!

But suddenly I’m alone again,

And neither stars nor moon are bright

Enough to pierce the darkness of my room.

It makes you laugh. You’ve never known the ache

Of lying for nights on end awake,

Listening, with anguish gnawing at your heart.

But sometimes, like the moonlight or

A woman’s kiss, life glows once more

Enchanted from the east, a strange new sun

Rising above the hills. Its beams,

Suffusing the whole world with love, invite

Me once again to bathe in its unfathomable light.

Intimations

Sometimes I’m sorry I embarked on this

Steppenwolf life so late. It might,

If I had only started sooner,

Have been a source of infinite delight.

Sometimes behind the fuss and clutter,

Behind the veils that still remain to fall,

The joy of boundless freedom seems to beckon,

A cold and distant future seems to call.

Laughing I see myself traverse the wall

That now divides me from the firmament,

And take my place beside the glorious sinners

Whose deeds no words can represent.

I see the people nail me to the cross.

In crown of thorns I rise above the commonplace,

God-fearing mass, approach the sun and stars,

And feel the cosmos folding me in its embrace.

Alas, these cold and starry dreams,

These intimations of infinity,

Are cherished dreams and nothing more.

Never have I been truly free.

Never have I in total earnest forsworn

The pallid hopes and petty fears

Of my philistine neighbors and peers.

I’ve only nibbled at the godly food.

That’s why I lie so often, torn,

Perplexed and helpless in the dust,

Listening in terror to my conscience,

Whose voice, however, I no longer trust.

Morning after the Masked Ball

Sure. In a certain sense you’re right.

Your stupid car goes clattering away,

While I stand here and bite my lips.

The morning sun tastes terrible today.

How wildly your lips sucked themselves to mine!

How desperately the words of passion poured!

And now you’ve driven off and left me,

A docile female with her rightful lord.

Cheated, I stand here in the early light.

Oh, well. In a certain sense you’re right.

And in a sense I wish you all the best,

Namely, that both of you in your damn Ford

Should break your necks and that a mangy dog

Comes sniffing your remains. Just one last word :

Think of me while you ring the dinner bell.

I’m going home, and you can go to hell.

Slightly Tipsy

In a certain sense and relatively speaking

The foolishness we talk is like the flowers that fade

Quietly on old ladies’ bosoms. Meanwhile life

Goes streaking past, by words and flowers undelayed.

Some animals reside in hidden caves,

And there they sleep, consuming their own fat.

They live contented, free from care.

The scientists have seldom questioned that.

Our own existence is thought to have higher meaning,

A view that has become almost canonical,

And this is probably what makes our situation

So dismally, forlornly comical.

Dream of Paradise

The lotus charms me with its pallid grace,

Blue flowers spread their fragrance round about.

In every leaf a magic word is sealed,

And from the branches silent snakes peer out.

From calyxes, hard shapely bodies grow,

Red blossoms glisten in the coal-black hair

Of women lurking in the lush green swamps.

Their eyes shine tigerlike. The air

Is moist with generation and seduction,

With untried sins of dark lasciviousness,

And irresistibly in sleep-drenched hollows

Fruit upon fruit invites caress.

The breezes whisper of erotic ecstasy,

Everywhere lust and lavish pleasure hide.

Over the women’s breasts and bellies

Like loving fingerplay the serpents glide.

Not this one and not that one lures and beckons,

I see them all approaching, hear their calls,

Innumerable, they are coming to delight me,

A forest of bodies, a whole world of souls.

Slowly, desire with its joyful pain

Swells up in me, unbinds me, sets me free.

Released, I merge with woman, lake, and tree,

With lotus blossom, arching sky, and plain.

My soul that I believed was one

Unfolds upon a thousand wings.

Transformed into a motley universe,

I die to myself and merge with the whole world.

The Drunken Poet

I wish I were a Catholic,

For then the Saviour would have died for me.

My life is ruined utterly,

I feel it in my eyes and neck.

Death sits in my heart

Like a ghost in a crumbling house.

One by one they douse

The lights, as the frame falls apart.

Candle of love, candle of childhood,

Wavering flame of poetry,

Torch of desire and blind ecstasy—

I see you all flicker and go out.

Soon when I’m good and drunk again,

Some prosperous master baker

Will come along in his car

And send me to my maker.

I only hope that in the wreck

That worthy Catholic breaks his neck—

That happy owner of house and garden,

With wife and children waiting

Behind the window grating,

Who surely would have made

More money and begotten

More children if some besotten

Poet on a bender

Hadn’t obstructed his fender.

Even a baker in his pride

Must bow to death.

For him, however, Christ was crucified.

The likes of me can expect no pardon.

Poor Devil on the Morning after the Masked Ball

I’m just unlucky. It began so well.

She sat on my lap so lovingly. But then

She ran off with that miserable Pierrot,

And I in my rage began to drink again.

After a while I knocked some tables over

And somehow got this rotten dent in my knee.

My money’s gone, my glasses smashed to pieces.

That’s right, you little minx, you’ve ruined me.

And now on top of all my other trouble,

My conscience plagues me, there’s no escaping from it.

If only this wretched Sunday would burst like a bubble,

Destroying you, me, the earth, and everything on it!

But that’s enough. I’d better go and vomit.

To the Indian Poet Bhartrihari

Like you, forebear and brother, so I too

Make my way through life on a zigzag course between

Spirit and instinct, now sage, now fool, today

Bound to the god, tomorrow to the flesh.

Mortification and pleasure: with these two scourges

I flay my flanks, now monk, now debauchee,

Now thinker and now beast. The guilt of all

Existence cries out within me for forgiveness.

Either way I must judge and punish sin;

Both fires consume me and destroy me.

Those who revered me as a saint before

See me converted to debauchery,

And those who lay beside me in the gutter

See me immersed in fasting and in prayer.

All of them spit and shun me,

The faithless lover devoid of dignity,

As through the world of false appearances

I carry my false piety. And yet,

Though hateful to myself and those about me,

I know that all men’s doings, yours as mine,

Weigh less in the eyes of God than dust in the wind.

I also know the breath of God has blown me

Along this sinful and inglorious path,

That drunk with pleasure, a slave to evil, I

Must persevere and pile up further guilt.

The meaning of this life I live evades me.

With tainted, sinful hands I wipe the blood

And dust from my face, knowing full well

That I must travel this road to the very end.

With These Hands

Everything has gone from me,

And now my darling is gone too.

It was horrible,

Her name was Mary Charlotte Lou.

I listened over her open lips,

Not a murmur, not a sigh,

No breath or heartbeat under her ribs;

No more fights and no more love,

Everything finished and gone by.

The Prodigal Son

Had one last flower left,

Now he has broken this last one.

I wish I were the knife

With which I took her life.

The blood on the floor ran black,

I stood there thinking back.

The many suns that I’ve extinguished

Have vanished utterly

And left no even-glow.

I tore them out of the sky

And shattered them with these hands

Against the earth below.

What other end was possible

With these pale, bloody hands?

The End

The flame that lured me through the pain

Of frantic pleasure has flickered and gone out.

My rigid fingers scream with gout,

And suddenly I’m in the wilderness again.

Recoiling from the shards of luckless revels,

Glutted, exhausted, disappointed, I,

Steppenwolf, have packed my bag. I’m going

Back to my native steppe to die.

Goodbye to sparkling, smiling masquerades,

Ladies too lovely, too ingratiating.

Behind the suddenly fallen curtain,

I know the old familiar dread is waiting.

Slowly I go to meet the enemy.

Harried by anguish, with laborious breath

And pounding, apprehensive heart,

I wait, wait, wait for death.

Postscript to My Friends

Dear Friends,

While you are congratulating me on my birthday, I am having this book of poems, the diary of a winter, printed for you—an anticipated reply to your congratulations. A “man of fifty” has little claim to congratulations. He tends to be more preoccupied with fear of old age and death than with the thought of festive pleasures.

Yet the problem of growing old, the familiar tragicomedy of the man of fifty, is by no means the sole content of these poems. They deal not only with the flaring up of the life-drive in an aging man but still more with one of those phases when the spirit grows tired of itself and abdicates, making way for nature, chaos, and animal instinct. Throughout my life, periods of intense sublimation, of asceticism aimed at enhanced spirituality, have alternated with periods of abandonment to naïve sensuality, to childlike folly and the dangers of madness. Every man has all this within him. In my early writings I unconsciously passed over a large part of this darker, perhaps deeper, half of life in silence, or embellished it. This silence was due, I believe, not to naïve repression of the sensual element, but to a feeling of inferiority in this domain. I had a better understanding of the spirit, in the widest sense of the word, than of the senses. When it came to thinking or writing, I felt able to compete with my most distinguished contemporaries. But when it came to dancing the shimmy or to the arts of the man-about-town, I was a barbarian, though I knew that these arts also have their value and are a part of our culture.

Since in growing older I have ceased to derive pleasure from writing pretty and pleasant things and am impelled only by a late-awakened passion for honesty and self-knowledge to go on writing, it became necessary for me to gain awareness of the half of life I had hitherto neglected and to write about it. This did not come easy, for it is more pleasant and more satisfying to the ego to show the world one’s noble, sublimated side than that other side at whose expense the sublimation has been effected. Indeed, many of my friends have told me plainly that my recent ventures both in life and in writing are irresponsible and that the author of Siddhartha owes it to himself to display a more dignified attitude. I take a different view of the matter, or rather, it is a question not of views and opinions but of necessities. Once a man takes honesty as his ideal, he cannot confine himself to showing the pleasant and reasonable side of his nature. The other side is there. I must even admit that my honesty in this respect is flawed, for I have omitted from this book a number of poems publication of which would have been too damaging to my self-esteem.

Dear friends, I attach no importance to your judgment. But I set great store by your love. Continue to love me, even if you do not approve of my poems.