Blades crossing in combat and clinging:

The End is contained in the Quest;

Not in words of a bard, but in singing

The Syllables all is expressed.

Ins Englische übertragen von Florin Bican.

The bard gives in to reveries

Of days bygone, like you and I;

Enchanted birds in magic trees

Pipe song upon him from on high.

His own soul and the oversoul

Are joined by harmonies so sweet

That thwo half-throats make up a whole,

To sing the song yet incomplete:

The song of mountain crystal bright,

The song of water-nymphs serene,

The song of dwarves devoid of sight,

The song of forests dense and green.

The song of the abandoned lances,

The song of saints behind the bars,

The song of Moors that sing romances,

The song of travel from afar.

The song of seas unseen and deep.

The song of life's toil long and hard,

The song that causes man to weep

When given voice to by the bard.

The Emperor once dreamt

he was a butterfly

hovering through the sunshine,

in bliss, from flower to flower.

He had no other knowledge,

none whatsoever, except being

a butterfly, an insect on the wing,

adrift in summer's meadows.

He suddenly awoke

and in confusion

he realized he was the Emperor,

yet found it hard to tell it all apart:

Was he indeed the Emperor himself,

wo had just dreamt

he was a butterfly,

or was he,

after all, the butterfly himself

now dreaming

he was the Emperor.

Perhaps that's what appearance means,

As it's in dreams revealed -

That God, from far beyond life's screens,

Through all times and for evermore,

Behind a Word with bolted door,

Has the true World concealed.

Sky of my deepest songs, of yellow hue,

Throughout your halls, a dead wind spreads its blast.

Sweet spring will not return so soon anew,

My songs are sung now, to the very last.

Birds have sools of their own, too, and what's more,

There are so many in the world around.

Yet all of God's birds are accounted for-

None falls without His knowledge to the ground.

He also clothes the lilies of the field,

The hardest stone in moss He does array.

I Know: the Paradise of Birds shall yield

To a good Garden of The Lord, one day.

The bell calls to prayer, should I rush?

Let me paint - one more stroke of the brush,

And one more, needs must be;

Worship and paint are of a kind,

And if I sometimes lag behind,

Then God shall pardon me.

For thus to Him I also pray:

With Blue and Green and Gold -

A saint is dying, far away

A peacock's tail unfolds.

I have to paint this tail complete,

Against the background's gold so bright!

The monk with sandals on his feet,

That has appeared in sight,

Is me myself as I break free

From my own cell, so small,

And go past mountain, land and sea

And house and town and wall,

And find myself in Heaven -

How? I myself can't say.

And there the radiant Hosts I see,

And I pant them, paint away..

We, too, 've been waylaid by Time's robber band,

And yet, the Poet's rhyme it cannot thieve,

Nor can it plunder what we both believe,

As long as we two travel hand in hand.

Some roads are in the darkness, some must pay

A heavy-earned price for to find the light,

Yet our own road was lit up and full bright,

Come from afar, and leading far away.

Where it shall take us, none knows, but your Guide,

Your Angel - trust Him, and His light let's trust,

Down in this world with horror overcast,

Down in ist depth as yet unclarified.

The wild and sacred Temple Beast

Comes in my sleep, comes from the East.

My sleep's a mace, my dreams - I dread,

Penance hangs heavy overhead.

My dreams - I dread, my sleep's a mace

From long before both time and space.

The wild and sacred Temple Beast

Is raised in you again, like yeast.

I've recognized you by clear sight -

Both dream and world did us unite.

I was the Temple Priest before,

And you loved me for evermore.

The wild and sacred Temple Beast

In night and deathly lust does twist.

Bull, Lion, Eagle, Angel -wings -

It lies upon me as the Sphinx.

And somewhere, far away from here,

Time and Space merge and disappear.

I'm uttering these words while my mouth is shut tight;

The soul is still around the flesh it fled.

I've overcome the darkest hour of the night:

Dying is hard; it's not hard to be dead.

I know: the Realm of Death may also pose a threat,

And there are places where light never fell,

Just like the years we spent upon this earth, and yet

Jesus lives in the world beyond as well.

Jesus is Lord over the living and the dead,

He shall forgive me what I've left undone.

Under my feet the Ten Commandments did I tread,

And yet I did my best under the sun.

It's hard work to be man, and hardest for a bard,

To whom the names of all he sees are known.

The Bard has such a lot of faces, that it's hard

For him to tell at last which one's his own.

Perhaps one sound of all my verse, one scattered grain,

Has found its way to Jesus - only one:

Then everything I've done on Earth is not in vain,

For each of us is the Prodigal Son.

It' s time now, to this earth my last goodbye I'll say -

Oh, all the things and all the love it gave -

Again, in a new body, I shall return some day -

Only my empty husk sinks in the grave.

Isa, now Time is taking me away from you;

And yet I know we do not have to part:

Night after night into your dreams I'll come anew.

I'll be with you, beloved child of my heart.

As I say these, we have already said goodbye:

Oh, Isa, do remain for ever mine!

Then shall the shadow world I enter when I die

Light up around me with your love, and shine.

I'll find it hard to leave what cannot follow:

The bonds of love are difficult to break.

In the beginning, Death shall make us hollow,

And free our life-drive from its constant ache.

As I've been living upon Earth for all this time,

I'll now be moving to the spheres, and

Perhaps, from over there, I'll hear my verses chime,

Whenever they are read throughout the land.

The coffin closes now! - I loved to be alive!

And yet I now there's Heaven, too, above,

And Jesus shall forgive the dead, when they arrive,

If they the Earth's beauty so did love.