HHP, 2012

 

[Cover of a Spanish edition of Siddhartha; no copyright data available]

Cover of a Spanish edition of Siddhartha

 

Glorious World


I feel it again and again, no mattcr
Whether I am old or young:
A mountain range in the night,
On the balcony a silent woman,
A white street in the moonliglht curving gently away

That tears my heart with longing out of my body.

Oh burning world, oh white woman on the balcony,

Baying dog in the valley, train rolling far away,

What liars you were, how bitterly you deceived me,

Yet you turn out to be any sweetest dream and illusion.

Often I tried the frightening way of "reality,"
Where things that count are profession, law, fashion, finance.

But disillusioned and freed I fled away alone

To the other side, the place of dreams and blessed folly.

Sultry wind in the tree at night, dark gypsy woman,
World full of foolish yearning and the poet's breath,

Glorious world I always come back to,
Where your heat lightning beckons me,

where your voice
calls!

 

By Hermann Hesse, translated by James Wright, Wandering: Notes and Sketches,

The Noonday Press, New York, 1974, p.36 of 109 pp.

N 420 - Literature

ISBN 0-374-50975-1