336

        Erwachte er,
        Wär's doch nur
        Um für immer zu verscheiden

His body lies pale before a wall
In a landscape desolate of all
Its proudest heritage. The blood
Of his ancestors, that now would
Founder in his fragility, is blent
Out across his shirt. His spent
Breath still moves upon the air :
His eyes fasten outward, there,
Upon the discoloured and bare
Soil, or there, on a further space
That dark figures seem to pace,
As he figures them before him,
His most loved Väter, grown dim.

Now the stream of his being gives
Its light out gently into the grasses.
As he watches the light he yet lives,
Held in it, until its music passes.