I am silence. Don't look for music here.
I resemble an instrument in this world
Like the one I saw, that violoncello
In the corner of a pleasing noble room.
The strings were broken. The neck was covered
By a veil of mourning, a silent crape.
Yet, it was not a sentimental object.
Dust covered it. Dust of reconciled years.
Such pain was written on it, that its silence
Itself is the saint, like that of the hermit,
Who, in the solitude of years, - and on the
Threshold of his cell, forgot how to speak.
While in a reverie about his lost life,
No longer does he remember old sorrows:
Only as if some fine far away vapour
Sprinkled blood all over the thick nightfall,
And made it a prettier, heavenlier secret,
Nothing else matching it merely muteness.
Let the loudmouthed crowd then roar away,
God's broken cello, I keep my silence.
1926
Translated by: Maria Bencsath
1926
Translated by: Maria Bencsath
