Only Fool! Only Poet!

In the fading light of dusk,
When the dew’s solace begins
To well down to the earth,
Invisible, as well as unheard —
For the comforter dew slips on
Delicate footwear as all gentle consolers —
Then do you remember, hot heart, remember
How once you thirsted
After heavenly tears and dewdrops,
Scorched and weary, thirsting
While on yellow paths of grass
The spiteful evening glances of the sun
Ran around you through black trees,
Glowing sun-glances, dazzling with malicious delight.

“The suitor of truth—you?"—thus they mocked me —
"No! Only a poet!
A cunning, plundering, stealthy beast,
That must lie,
That knowingly, willingly must lie,
Lusting after prey,
Colorfully masked,
Self-shrouded,
Prey for itself
This—the suitor of truth? ...
Only fool! Only poet!
Merely speaking colorfully,
From fools’ masks shouting colorfully,
Climbing about on deceptive word-bridges,
On misleading rainbows,
Between false heavens
Rambling, lurking —
Only fool! Only poet!

This—the suitor of truth? ...

Not still, stiff, smooth, cold,
Become an image,
A pillar of God,
Not set up before temples,
A god’s gatekeeper:
No! hostile to all such truth statues,
More at home in any desert than in temples,
Fraught with cats’ mischief,
Leaping through every window
Swiftly! into every chance,
Sniffing for every jungle,
That you in jungles
Among motley-shagged beasts of prey
Would run sinfully sound and beautiful and colorful,
With lusting animal lips,
Blissfully sneering, blissfully hellish, blissfully bloodthirsty,
Plundering, prowling, lying would run ...

Or like the eagle that, for a long time,
A long time gazes with a fixed stare into abysses,
Into its abysses ...
— Oh how they spiral downward,
Down, down under,
Into ever deeper depths! —
Then,
Suddenly,
Plummeting straight down
Wings pulled out
To pounce on lambs,
Right down, hot-hungry,
Lusting for lambs,
Hating all lamb-souls,
Grimly hating whatever looks
Virtuous, sheepish, curly-wooled,
Dull, with lambs’ milk-goodwill ...

Thus
Eagle-like, panther-like,
Are the poet’s longings,
Are your longings under a thousand masks,
You fool! You poet!...

You that have looked upon man
As god and as sheep —
Tearing to pieces the god in man
As well as the sheep in man,
And laughing while tearing —

This, this is your bliss,
A panther’s and eagle’s bliss,
A poet’s and fool’s bliss!” ...

In the fading light of dusk,
When just as the moon’s sickle
In between green and crimson-reds
Enviously creeps —
The day’s enemy,
With every stealthy step
At rose hammocks
Scything, till they sink,
Sink down pale in nightfall:

Thus I myself once sank,
Out of my truth-madness,
Out of my day-longings,
Weary of day, sick from the light —
Sank downward, eveningward, shadowward,
By one truth
Burnt and thirsty —
Do you still remember, hot heart, remember
How you thirsted then? —
That I be exiled
From all truth!
Only fool!
Only poet!...