A poem in couplets by Dèr Mouw! With a touch of the opening of Faust about it.

 

It’s stock-still in the house. Dawn’s drawing near.

The clock-tick and gas hissing’s all I hear.

The pendulum seems madly on the go,

it flares up, gleams more dully, to and fro.

In this small, stupid thing I seem to see

wise time nod earnestly its No at me.

The table’s full of opened books I’ve pondered:

through seeking wisdom all my life I’ve squandered.

The arching pages look like snowy peaks,

the chilly heights of knowledge that man seeks.

In lowlands I’d envisaged a wide view:

infinity stretched further, grew and grew.

Around the lamp cigar-smoke’s bluish trail

coils like vague reveries to no avail;

from smoke-wreathed lampshade the dull light falls chill

on snowy peaks of science stiff and still.

I sat thus every evening, year by year,

in knowledge rich, a beggar though, I fear.

It was as is so often seen in dreams:

you must find something, but you can’t, it seems.

Out on the balcony, where’er I turn,

here, there and yonder, fireflies’ scared lights burn.

Glowworm Gladness dares rise into the air,

thrashes till dead in life’s pain-web up there.

Orion shines in its vast majesty.

I hate, hate its soulless eternity.

The worlds’ vast glory brings me no relief.

The one who most loved me I caused great grief.

And happiness in life I never earned:

the one I loved most I most cruelly hurt.

I had one solace once: that love of mine

keeps the fond memory as a sacred shrine.

Deep-boring seconds gnawed through, did destroy

what both remembered, and my greatest joy.

Pain’s slid to resignation within me.

Like the dead past, far off, I hear the sea.

I sit down once again; the gas-hiss swells.

Oddly, it’s as if I were someone else.

Things seem unreal around me. Just the glow

of gaslight. The pendulum nodding No.