02-28-2025, 01:27 AM
Read the book, Only a Boy.
Nature and Art, or Saturn and Jupiter
Hölderlin
From on high you rule the day and with your law
It flourishes, you hold the scales, Saturn’s son!
And divide the lot and rest gladly
In the fame of immortal sovereign arts.
But in the underworld, so the singers say,
Where you expelled the holy father, your own,
To fathomless lamentation, the
Savages of justice stand before you,
The innocent god of the golden age: once
As fluent, even greater than you are now,
Though he uttered no commandment and
No mortals ever called him by his name.
For he’s cast down! Or ashamed at your lack of
Gratitude! And if you want to stay, and serve
The elders, begrudge him that, before
All, to gods and man, who the singers call!
For how all your lightning that comes from the clouds
Comes from him, what's yours, see! So give back in word
To him what you’ve made, for from Saturn’s
Peace every power acquired arises.
And I have something living only in my
Heart, dawning and felt, what you’ve manufactured,
And it lives in your cradle in me,
Ecstasy, as the age drifts into sleep:
Then I know you, Cronus! Then I hear you, wise
Master, who, like ourselves, is a son of time,
Giving to us laws and proclaiming
What is recovered from the holy twilight.
Blake
There Is No Natural Religion
a
The Argument. Man has no notion of moral fitness but from Education. Naturally he is
only a natural organ subject to Sense.
I. Man cannot naturally Percieve but through his natural or bodily organs.
II. Man by his reasoning power can only compare & judge of what he has already
perciev’d.
III. From a perception of only 3 senses or 3 elements none could deduce a fourth or
fifth.
IV. None could have other than natural or organic thoughts if he had none but organic
perceptions.
V. Man's desires are limited by his perceptions; none can desire what he has not
perciev'd.
VI. The desires & perceptions of man, untaught by any thing but organs of sense, must
be limited to objects of sense.
There Is No Natural Religion
b
I. Man’s perceptions are not bounded by organs of perception; he percieves more than
sense (tho’ ever so acute) can discover.
II. Reason, or the ratio of all we have already known, is not the same that it shall be
when we know more.
[III lacking]
IV. The bounded is loathed by its possessor. The same dull round even of a universe
would soon become a mill with complicated wheels.
V. If the many become the same as the few when possess’d, More! More! is the cry of
a mistaken soul. Less than All cannot satisfy Man.
VI. If any could desire what he is incapable of possessing, despair must be his eternal
lot.
VII. The desire of Man being Infinite, the possession is Infinite & himself Infinite.
Application. He who sees the Infinite in all things sees God. He who sees the Ratio
only sees himself only.
Conclusion. If it were not for the Poetic or Prophetic character the Philosophic &
Experimental would soon be at the ratio of all things, & stand still unable to do other than
repeat the same dull round over again.
Therefore God becomes as we are, that we may be as he is.
The Poet’s Vocation
Hölderlin
The banks of the Ganges heard the God of Joy
Triumphant, as from the Indus came
the Supreme, young Bacchus, with healing
wines to awaken the people.
And you, Angel of Day, will wake
Those who still slumber. Give laws, give
Life, Prevail! As only you
Have the right, like Bacchus, to conquer.
Notwithstanding mankind's skill for woe
At home and under the open sky,
Man, noble, being prey, fights back
And feeds himself, an equal woe
Entrusted to the care of writing
Poetry. We are suited to the Highest
By bringing Him close. Ever new
Song heard in the welcoming heart.
O you heavenly All,
Sources and shores and groves
And wonderful plateaus, where first
The Unforgettable came
Upon us, the unexpected Genius.
The Creative, the Divine, that silently
Became sense to us, and as a
Radiance stirred, the skeleton trembled …
Unsettled in our wider world!
That fading day, the God
Of quiet beginnings redirects
His giant, drunk-with-rage steed
Is not for us to say, and if, from the steady
Stillness of the year, in us melodies sound,
They are to echo how brave
And futile are the children of the Master.
Are the pure, consecrated chords touched in jest?
What belongs to you, poet,
Of the Asian prophets and the Greek songs
And newly heard thunder? Does
Spirit require the service of your presence
To rush to the good, in ridicule, and to
Disavow the stupid, heartlessly,
And herd the hunted in a venal game?
Until, goaded by the sting of
The original fury, you cry and call
To the Master, before you,
lifeless, are overgrown with death.
The Divine has been subservient too long,
And heaven’s powers used up, thrown away
By the gentle, with desire
Without thanks from the sly, who think they know,
When the Sublime is formed upon their fields,
Daylight and Thunderer, they peer
Through telescope and count
Only the stars they have given names.
But the Father blankets with a holier
Night, that we might want to keep our eyes shut.
His love transcends beasts, but never forces
The far-reaching violence of heaven.
It is not good to be too wise. He sees your gratitude,
And does not keep it
But returns it, gladly, for you
to bless another poet.
Alone before God, the poet is unafraid,
That he may protect, through simplicity,
With no need for weapons or deceit.
God's absence will sustain us.
To Nobodaddy
Blake
Why art thou silent & invisible
Father of jealousy
Why dost thou hide thyself in clouds
From every searching Eye
Why darkness & obscurity
In all thy words & laws
That none dare eat the fruit but from
The wily serpents jaws
Or is it because Secrecy
gains females loud applause
London
I wander thro’ each charter’d street,
Near where the charter’d Thames does flow,
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.
In every cry of every man,
In every Infant’s cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forg’d manacles I hear.
How the Chimney-sweeper’s cry
Every blackning Church appalls;
And the hapless Soldier’s sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls.
But most thro’ midnight streets I hear
How the youthful Harlot’s curse
Blasts the new-born Infant’s tear,
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse.
![[Image: 9.png]](https://static.poetryfoundation.org/jstor/i20607397/pages/9.png)
Vacillation
Accept the miracles of the saints and honour sanctity?
The body of Saint Teresa lies undecayed in tomb,
Bathed in miraculous oil, sweet odours from it come,
Healing from its lettered slab. Those self-same hands perchance
Eternalised the body of a modern saint that once
Had scooped out pharaoh’s mummy. I – though heart might find relief
Did I become a Christian man and choose for my belief
What seems most welcome in the tomb – play a pre-destined part.
Homer is my example and his unchristened heart.
The lion and the honeycomb, what has Scripture said?
So get you gone, Von Hugel, though with blessings on your head.
I'm tinkering with the second Hölderlin poem. Whoever translated it doesn't understand it, and the translation is bad. I've made a few adjustments near the end and will make more.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
There, I've tuned it up.
Nature and Art, or Saturn and Jupiter
Hölderlin
From on high you rule the day and with your law
It flourishes, you hold the scales, Saturn’s son!
And divide the lot and rest gladly
In the fame of immortal sovereign arts.
But in the underworld, so the singers say,
Where you expelled the holy father, your own,
To fathomless lamentation, the
Savages of justice stand before you,
The innocent god of the golden age: once
As fluent, even greater than you are now,
Though he uttered no commandment and
No mortals ever called him by his name.
For he’s cast down! Or ashamed at your lack of
Gratitude! And if you want to stay, and serve
The elders, begrudge him that, before
All, to gods and man, who the singers call!
For how all your lightning that comes from the clouds
Comes from him, what's yours, see! So give back in word
To him what you’ve made, for from Saturn’s
Peace every power acquired arises.
And I have something living only in my
Heart, dawning and felt, what you’ve manufactured,
And it lives in your cradle in me,
Ecstasy, as the age drifts into sleep:
Then I know you, Cronus! Then I hear you, wise
Master, who, like ourselves, is a son of time,
Giving to us laws and proclaiming
What is recovered from the holy twilight.
Blake
There Is No Natural Religion
a
The Argument. Man has no notion of moral fitness but from Education. Naturally he is
only a natural organ subject to Sense.
I. Man cannot naturally Percieve but through his natural or bodily organs.
II. Man by his reasoning power can only compare & judge of what he has already
perciev’d.
III. From a perception of only 3 senses or 3 elements none could deduce a fourth or
fifth.
IV. None could have other than natural or organic thoughts if he had none but organic
perceptions.
V. Man's desires are limited by his perceptions; none can desire what he has not
perciev'd.
VI. The desires & perceptions of man, untaught by any thing but organs of sense, must
be limited to objects of sense.
There Is No Natural Religion
b
I. Man’s perceptions are not bounded by organs of perception; he percieves more than
sense (tho’ ever so acute) can discover.
II. Reason, or the ratio of all we have already known, is not the same that it shall be
when we know more.
[III lacking]
IV. The bounded is loathed by its possessor. The same dull round even of a universe
would soon become a mill with complicated wheels.
V. If the many become the same as the few when possess’d, More! More! is the cry of
a mistaken soul. Less than All cannot satisfy Man.
VI. If any could desire what he is incapable of possessing, despair must be his eternal
lot.
VII. The desire of Man being Infinite, the possession is Infinite & himself Infinite.
Application. He who sees the Infinite in all things sees God. He who sees the Ratio
only sees himself only.
Conclusion. If it were not for the Poetic or Prophetic character the Philosophic &
Experimental would soon be at the ratio of all things, & stand still unable to do other than
repeat the same dull round over again.
Therefore God becomes as we are, that we may be as he is.
The Poet’s Vocation
Hölderlin
The banks of the Ganges heard the God of Joy
Triumphant, as from the Indus came
the Supreme, young Bacchus, with healing
wines to awaken the people.
And you, Angel of Day, will wake
Those who still slumber. Give laws, give
Life, Prevail! As only you
Have the right, like Bacchus, to conquer.
Notwithstanding mankind's skill for woe
At home and under the open sky,
Man, noble, being prey, fights back
And feeds himself, an equal woe
Entrusted to the care of writing
Poetry. We are suited to the Highest
By bringing Him close. Ever new
Song heard in the welcoming heart.
O you heavenly All,
Sources and shores and groves
And wonderful plateaus, where first
The Unforgettable came
Upon us, the unexpected Genius.
The Creative, the Divine, that silently
Became sense to us, and as a
Radiance stirred, the skeleton trembled …
Unsettled in our wider world!
That fading day, the God
Of quiet beginnings redirects
His giant, drunk-with-rage steed
Is not for us to say, and if, from the steady
Stillness of the year, in us melodies sound,
They are to echo how brave
And futile are the children of the Master.
Are the pure, consecrated chords touched in jest?
What belongs to you, poet,
Of the Asian prophets and the Greek songs
And newly heard thunder? Does
Spirit require the service of your presence
To rush to the good, in ridicule, and to
Disavow the stupid, heartlessly,
And herd the hunted in a venal game?
Until, goaded by the sting of
The original fury, you cry and call
To the Master, before you,
lifeless, are overgrown with death.
The Divine has been subservient too long,
And heaven’s powers used up, thrown away
By the gentle, with desire
Without thanks from the sly, who think they know,
When the Sublime is formed upon their fields,
Daylight and Thunderer, they peer
Through telescope and count
Only the stars they have given names.
But the Father blankets with a holier
Night, that we might want to keep our eyes shut.
His love transcends beasts, but never forces
The far-reaching violence of heaven.
It is not good to be too wise. He sees your gratitude,
And does not keep it
But returns it, gladly, for you
to bless another poet.
Alone before God, the poet is unafraid,
That he may protect, through simplicity,
With no need for weapons or deceit.
God's absence will sustain us.
To Nobodaddy
Blake
Why art thou silent & invisible
Father of jealousy
Why dost thou hide thyself in clouds
From every searching Eye
Why darkness & obscurity
In all thy words & laws
That none dare eat the fruit but from
The wily serpents jaws
Or is it because Secrecy
gains females loud applause
London
I wander thro’ each charter’d street,
Near where the charter’d Thames does flow,
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.
In every cry of every man,
In every Infant’s cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forg’d manacles I hear.
How the Chimney-sweeper’s cry
Every blackning Church appalls;
And the hapless Soldier’s sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls.
But most thro’ midnight streets I hear
How the youthful Harlot’s curse
Blasts the new-born Infant’s tear,
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse.
Vacillation
Yeats
I
Between extremities
Man runs his course;
A brand, or flaming breath.
Comes to destroy
All those antinomies
Of day and night;
The body calls it death,
The heart remorse.
But if these be right
What is joy?
Man runs his course;
A brand, or flaming breath.
Comes to destroy
All those antinomies
Of day and night;
The body calls it death,
The heart remorse.
But if these be right
What is joy?
II
A tree there is that from its topmost bough
Is half all glittering flame and half all green
Abounding foliage moistened with the dew;
And half is half and yet is all the scene;
And half and half consume what they renew,
And he that Attis’ image hangs between
That staring fury and the blind lush leaf
May know not what he knows, but knows not grief
Is half all glittering flame and half all green
Abounding foliage moistened with the dew;
And half is half and yet is all the scene;
And half and half consume what they renew,
And he that Attis’ image hangs between
That staring fury and the blind lush leaf
May know not what he knows, but knows not grief
III
Get all the gold and silver that you can,
Satisfy ambition, animate
The trivial days and ram them with the sun,
And yet upon these maxims meditate:
All women dote upon an idle man
Although their children need a rich estate;
No man has ever lived that had enough
Of children’s gratitude or woman’s love.
Satisfy ambition, animate
The trivial days and ram them with the sun,
And yet upon these maxims meditate:
All women dote upon an idle man
Although their children need a rich estate;
No man has ever lived that had enough
Of children’s gratitude or woman’s love.
No longer in Lethean foliage caught
Begin the preparation for your death
And from the fortieth winter by that thought
Test every work of intellect or faith,
And everything that your own hands have wrought
And call those works extravagance of breath
That are not suited for such men as come
proud, open-eyed and laughing to the tomb.
Begin the preparation for your death
And from the fortieth winter by that thought
Test every work of intellect or faith,
And everything that your own hands have wrought
And call those works extravagance of breath
That are not suited for such men as come
proud, open-eyed and laughing to the tomb.
IV
My fiftieth year had come and gone,
I sat, a solitary man,
In a crowded London shop,
An open book and empty cup
On the marble table-top.
While on the shop and street I gazed
My body of a sudden blazed;
And twenty minutes more or less
It seemed, so great my happiness,
That I was blessed and could bless.
I sat, a solitary man,
In a crowded London shop,
An open book and empty cup
On the marble table-top.
While on the shop and street I gazed
My body of a sudden blazed;
And twenty minutes more or less
It seemed, so great my happiness,
That I was blessed and could bless.
V
Although the summer Sunlight gild
Cloudy leafage of the sky,
Or wintry moonlight sink the field
In storm-scattered intricacy,
I cannot look thereon,
Responsibility so weighs me down.
Cloudy leafage of the sky,
Or wintry moonlight sink the field
In storm-scattered intricacy,
I cannot look thereon,
Responsibility so weighs me down.
Things said or done long years ago,
Or things I did not do or say
But thought that I might say or do,
Weigh me down, and not a day
But something is recalled,
My conscience or my vanity appalled.
Or things I did not do or say
But thought that I might say or do,
Weigh me down, and not a day
But something is recalled,
My conscience or my vanity appalled.
VI
A rivery field spread out below,
An odour of the new-mown hay
In his nostrils, the great lord of Chou
Cried, casting off the mountain snow,
‘Let all things pass away.’
An odour of the new-mown hay
In his nostrils, the great lord of Chou
Cried, casting off the mountain snow,
‘Let all things pass away.’
Wheels by milk-white asses drawn
Where Babylon or Nineveh
Rose; some conquer drew rein
And cried to battle-weary men,
‘Let all things pass away.’
Where Babylon or Nineveh
Rose; some conquer drew rein
And cried to battle-weary men,
‘Let all things pass away.’
From man’s blood-sodden heart are sprung
Those branches of the night and day
Where the gaudy moon is hung.
What’s the meaning of all song?
‘Let all things pass away.’
Those branches of the night and day
Where the gaudy moon is hung.
What’s the meaning of all song?
‘Let all things pass away.’
VII
The Soul. Seek out reality, leave things that seem.
The Heart. What, be a singer born and lack a theme?
The Soul. Isaiah’s coal, what more can man desire?
The Heart. Struck dumb in the simplicity of fire!
The Soul. Look on that fire, salvation walks within.
The Heart. What theme had Homer but original sin?
The Heart. What, be a singer born and lack a theme?
The Soul. Isaiah’s coal, what more can man desire?
The Heart. Struck dumb in the simplicity of fire!
The Soul. Look on that fire, salvation walks within.
The Heart. What theme had Homer but original sin?
VIII
Must we part, Von Hugel, though much alike, for weAccept the miracles of the saints and honour sanctity?
The body of Saint Teresa lies undecayed in tomb,
Bathed in miraculous oil, sweet odours from it come,
Healing from its lettered slab. Those self-same hands perchance
Eternalised the body of a modern saint that once
Had scooped out pharaoh’s mummy. I – though heart might find relief
Did I become a Christian man and choose for my belief
What seems most welcome in the tomb – play a pre-destined part.
Homer is my example and his unchristened heart.
The lion and the honeycomb, what has Scripture said?
So get you gone, Von Hugel, though with blessings on your head.
I'm tinkering with the second Hölderlin poem. Whoever translated it doesn't understand it, and the translation is bad. I've made a few adjustments near the end and will make more.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
There, I've tuned it up.