A Summer courtship: today is Day 582 of the daily poems, 08 July 2024, the one hundred and thirty-fourth anniversary of the birth of German Jewish Expressionist poet Walter Hasenclever (1890-1940), whose works, banned by the Nazis, were burned during the book burning. Our translator-poet Timothy Adès brings us Hasenclever’s tender poem of love.
Rest your head
by Walter Hasenclever (1890-1940)
translated from German by Timothy Adès
Rest your head so gently
On my cool calm hand:
Let us reverently
Dream of verdant land. ?
What know we of living?
Little can we see.
What we think is living
Is but phantasy. ?
Phantasy, the fleeting,
Future none can say!
Glory, fortune, fading
Like a summer day.
Walter Hasenclever
translated by Timothy Adès