The Holy Longing

 

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Tell a wise person or else keep silent
for mass man will mock it right away.
I praise what is truly alive,
what longs to be burned to death.

In the calm waters of the love nights,
where you were begotten, where you have begotten,
a strange feeling creeps over you,
as you watch the silent candle burning.

Now you are no longer caught in the obsession with darkness,
and a desire for higher lovemaking sweeps you upwards.

Distance does not make you falter.
Now, arriving in magic, flying,
and finally, insane for the light,
you are the butterfly, and you are gone.

And so long as you have not experienced this: to die and so to grow,
you are only a troubled guest on the dark earth.


–Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Robert Bly translation

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