Paul Gerhardt: 'An das Angesicht Jesu Christi' (the entire poem of 1660)

 

An das Angesicht Jesu Christi

Mel. Herzlich thut mich verlangen

 

O Häupt voll blut und wunden/

Voll schmertz und voller hon!

O häupt, zu spott gebunden

Mit einer dornen kron,

O häupt, sonst schön gezieret

Mit höchster ehr und zier/

Itzt aber hoch schimpfiret/

Gegrüsset seyst du mir!

 

Du edles angesichte/

Dafür sonst schrickt und scheut

Das große weltgewichte/

Wie bist du so bespeyt?

Wie bist du so erbleichet?

Wer hat dein augenliecht/

Dem sonst kein liecht nicht gleichet/

So schändlich zugerichtt?

 

Die farbe deiner wangen/

Der rothen lippen pracht

Ist hin/ und gantz vergangen:

Des blassen todes macht

Hat alles hingenommen/

Hat alles hingerafft/

Und daher bist du kommen

Von deines leibes krafft.

 

Nun, was du/ HErr/ erduldet,

Ist alles meine last:

Ich hab es selbst verschuldet/

Was du getragen hast:

Schau her/ hie steh ich armer/

Der zorn verdienet hat/

Gib mir, o mein Erbarmer/

den anblick deiner gnad.

 

Erkenne mich/ mein Hüter/

Mein Hirte/ nim mich an:

Von dir/ qvell aller güter

Ist mir viel guts gethan:

Dein mund hat mich gelabet

Mit milch und süßer kost/

Dein Geist hat mich begabet

Mit mancher himmelslust.

 

Ich will hie bey dir stehen/

Verachte mich doch nicht/

Von dir will ich nicht gehen/

Wenn dir dein hertze bricht/

Wann dein hertz* wird erblassen

Im letzten todesstoß/

Alsdann will ich dich fassen

In meinem arm und schoos.

 

Es dient zu meinen freuden

Und kömmt mir hertzlich wol/

Wann ich in deinem leiden,

Mein heyl/ mich finden sol:

Ach möcht ich/ o mein leben/

An deinem creutze hier

Mein leben von mir geben/

Wie wol geschähe mir!

 

Ich danke dir von hertzen/

O Jesu, liebster freund/

Für deines todesschmertzen,

Da dus so gut gemeynt:

Ach gib/ daß ich mich halte

Zu dir und deiner treu

Und wann ich nun erkalte/

In dir mein ende sey.

 

Wann ich einmal sol scheiden/

So scheide nicht von mir:

Wann ich den tod soll leiden/

So tritt du dann herfür:

Wann mir am allerbängsten

Wird um das hertze seyn/

So reiß mich aus den ängsten/

Krafft deiner angst und pein.

 

Erscheine mir zum schilde/

Zum trost in meinem tod

Und laß mich sehn dein bilde

In deiner creutzesnoth/

Da will ich nach dir blicken/

Da will ich glaubensvoll

Dich vest an mein hertz drücken:

Wer so stirbt/ der stirbt wol.

 

(* All other versions have häupt)

 

Salve Caput Cruentatum

The poem Salve Caput Cruentatum is the original Latin version on which Paul Gerhardt based his hymn. The main text is the stanza Ad Faciem from the Medieval hymn Salve mundi salutare – also known as the Rhythmica oratio –, a poem ascribed to Bernard of Clairvaux, but now thought to have been written by Arnulf of Louvain (d. 1250). It is divided into seven parts, each addressed to a different part of Christ's crucified body (feet, knees, hands, side, breast, heart, and head).

 

Addressed to the Countenance of Jesus Christ

Mel. Herzlich thus mich verlangen

 

O head/ blood-streaked/ sore wounded/

In pain and put to scorn!

To mockery unbounded

Decked with a crown of thorn/

O head/ adorned but lately

With honours unsurpassed/

Now sworn and cursed at greatly/

I welcome thee at last!

 

Thy countenance so lordly/

Which world’s great powers affrights

And makes them so abhor thee/

Why spat on with such spite?

Why art thou pale and wan now

Who has thine eye’s bright flame/

Which no light else could rival/

So cruelly sought to maim?

 

Thy cheeks’ once healthy colour/

Thy red lips’ wondrous glow

Have grown completely duller:

Pale death’s power here below

Has taken all this from thee/

Has snatched all this away/

And thus deprived thy body

Of force that once held sway.

 

LOrd/ what thou’st suffered direly

Has me as its sole cause:

I am to blame entirely

For torments without pause:

Just look/ a wretch I stand here/

And wrath I here should face/

Bestow me/ Lord of mercy/

A glimpse of thy great grace.

 

My Guardian/ just assess me/

My Shepherd/ take me on:

From thee/ source of all blessings

Much goodness has forthcome:

Thy mouth has oft refreshed me

With milk and sweet delights/

Your Spirit has well-dressed me

On heav’n to fix my sights.

 

I would stand close beside thee/

O do not me disdain/

I would not lay aside thee/

When thy heart breaks in twain/

Thy head turns pales and sallow

At death’s last lethal dart/

Then thee I’d seek to hallow/

And hold thee to my heart.

 

Yet stronger a conviction/

I’d gain/ and peace of mind/

If I in thine affliction

Salvation were to find:

Ah! O my life, if grieving

Beside thy cross I might

My life here too be leaving/

How this would me delight!

 

With all my heart I thank thee/

O Jesus/ dearest friend/

For death pains suffered gladly

With such a good intent:

Ah/ grant that I devotion

And trust in thee retain/

And when by death I’m chosen/

I shall with thee remain.

 

When my time comes for parting/

Part not from me/ I pray:

When pangs of death start smarting/

Close by my side then stay:

When fearfulness would seize me

And would my heart constrain/

From all these fears then free me/

Through thine own fear and pain.

 

Be thou my shield my life long/

My solace be in death/

Thine image let me gaze on

In thy profound distress/

Then will my eyes behold thee/

Then full of faith will I

To my heart tightly hold thee:

’Tis blissful thus to die.

 

 

 

Marie Dauguet: 'Printemps' (1913)

 

Printemps

 

I

La vie, c’est-à-dire la conscience lancée

à travers la matière

Bergson

 

Le soleil a fondu comme un fruit dans la bouche

Et la forêt suspend son murmure soyeux,

Sur la mousse, soudain, l’air qui bougeait se couche,

Vénus aux cils mouillés paraît au bord des cieux.

 

A la cime des bois, plus aucun frisson n’ose

Courir, et je m’assieds en silence à leur seuil,

Où je voudrais cueillir, comme on fait d’une rose

Le vol familier près de moi d’un bouvreuil.

 

Voici la nuit venue avec sa douceur d’ange,

Ses cassolettes au brumeux enivrement;

Le parfum de la terre à l’ombre se mélange:

La douleur de penser a son enchantement.

 

J’entends mourir au loin des cloches violettes

Et c’est autour de moi comme un mystique influx;

Pensons très peu… rêvons… surtout ne pleurons plus

Devant le ciel désert aux profondeurs muettes.

 

Résigne-toi, tais-toi, referme tes deux mains

Sur les trésors furtifs que peut donner chaque heure

Et ne les dresse plus vers cet absurde leurre:

Le ciel vide où s’en vont tant de sanglots humains.

 

Si la divinité, que nous cherchons encore,

Doit exister un jour, elle se crée en nous,

Sa rythmique beauté dans mes vers s’évapore,

Tout son mystère coule en mes veines dissous.

 

Si je sais me livrer à l’élan de la Vie,

De mon plus fort vouloir… mieux que l’ambre ou le fer,

Ouvrir à son effort mes moëlles, chaque nerf,

Un dieu peut naître un jour sous ma tempe ravie.

 

 

                                           II

 

Le devoir ? – Le voilà: c’est tout ce qu’on transgresse

De ces contours par l’on est délimité.

O Vie ingénieuse, à l’essor entêté,

Violant la lourdeur de la matière épaisse,

 

Je m’offre tout entière à ta subtilité!

Que par toi, sous mon front, l’univers se connaise,

Plus de l’humble morale où l’être se rabaisse,

Mais l’orgueil de Satan dans son immensité;

 

Son geste projeté vers l’Énigme géante.

Mystère de moi-même et que toujours je tente,

Toit, secret de l’éther nébuleux, d’où l’on sort,

 

Que mes rêves ce soir, en éclairs, vous saisissent,

Au seuil du bois d’Avril, dont les germes frémissent,

Sous la lune, à mes pieds, semant des duvets d’or.

 

 

                                           III

                                           Pour Gustave Le Bon

 

Écoute, écoute, c’est le formidable bond

Du soleil animal dont la crinière flambe

Et la course en vertige au rythme furibond

De la terre captive où l’humanité rampe.

 

L’éther dissout ses morts, berce ses derniers nés,

Mêle des astres neufs à des soleils fantômes,

Mais sur les raiuls du temps, tous glissent entraînés

Dans les vibrations de votre danse, atômes.

 

Fluidité! Néant! Le contour exprimé

Des mondes et des cœurs, puis tout se désagrège.

Apparence, tends-moi du moins ton divin piège!

 

Au travers du printemps, dans mon âme essaimé,

Rose, dont j’aurai su goûter le sortilège

Qu’importe si tu n’es qu’un sépulcre embaumé?

 

 

Spring

 

I

Life, that is to say consciousness

launched into matter.

                                 Bergson

 

The sun has melted just as fruit can do inside

The mouth, and in the forest silky murmurs die,

On moss the moving breezes suddenly subside –

And moist-eyed Venus now appears low in the sky.

 

At the crest of the woods, no single quiver shows

Itself, and at their edge I settle silently;

And I would like to pluck, as one would do a rose,

A bullfinch’s familiar flight quite close to me.

 

Here with angelic gentleness night has arrived,

Its censers burning with misty intoxication;

The earth’s strong scent with shadows mingles uncontrived:

The pain of thinking has its own strong captivation.

 

Far off I hear the violet bells’ sound slowly die

And round me seems a mystic influx everywhere;

Let’s think no more… let’s dream… above all let’s not cry

Before the desert sky with silent depths of air.

 

Resign yourself, be silent, let both your hands make sure

Of all the furtive treasures that each hour bestows

And no more raise them up towards that senseless lure:

The empty sky where so much human sobbing goes.

 

If the divinity for which we search and wait

Should one day come, within us it will have its source,

Its rhythmic beauty from my verse will emanate,

And all its mystery, dissolved, through my veins course.

 

If by Life’s vital force I upwards dare be borne,

Better than amber or than iron, with utmost verve

And to its impulse yield my marrow, every nerve,

Beneath my raptured brow a god might yet be born.

 

 

                                           II

 

One’s task and duty? – This: To endlessly dispute

The contours by which all one’s being is defined.

Oh Life, full of resource, to soaring flight inclined,

Which seeks the weight of all dense matter to refute,

 

I offer all within me to your subtlety!

So that by you, through me, the universe may know

Itself, no humble morals where one bows down low,

But all of Satan’s pride in its immensity –

 

His gesture sent towards the vast great Mystery.

My own enigma, which I challenge endlessly,

You cloudy aether’s secret, exit door of old –

 

Like lightning flashes may my night dreams you both seize,

Here by this April wood, whose seeds shake in the breeze

’Neath the moon, at my feet, sowing duvets of gold.

 

 

                                           III

                                           To Gustave Le Bon

 

Ah, listen, listen, it’s the formidable bound

Of the instinctive sun whose mane is all ablaze

And the dizzying race with frenzied, rhythmic sound

Of captive earth, where humans crawl as in a daze.

 

Aether dissolves its dead, it rocks its newly born,

Mixes new stars with ghostlike suns as if by chance,

But on the rails of time, all slide away, are drawn

As atoms in the strong vibrations of our dance.

 

Sheer flux! And nothingness! The contour that is drawn

Of worlds and hearts before all things disintegrate.

Appearance, lay your sacred trap is all I crave!

 

Throughout all spring, dispersed and in my soul still borne,

Oh Rose, whose spell I will have tasted at some date,

What does it matter if you’re but a scented grave?

Marie Dauguet: 'Le silence'

 

Le silence

 

Je n’écouterai plus la chanson des ramiers,

Le bleu roucoulement lentement qui palpite

De leurs couples errant parmi les alisiers;

Je n’écouterai plus la feuille qui crépite,

 

Éclate hors du bourgeon et s’ouvre en la clarté

D’une aurore d’Avril. Ce que je vois se fane

Et le silence étend sa morne aridité

Dans mon bois intérieur que la bise décharne.

 

Le paysage est dur, fait de bronze et d’acier

Où le soleil répand des lueurs funéraires

Près des étangs mangés de rougeâtres ulcères.

 

Le jour souillé vacille aux bords où je m’assieds,

Et tombe ivre d’erreur, de doute et de blasphème :

Tout meurt immensément au dedans de moi-même.

 

 

The silence

 

I’ll hear no more the wood pigeons’ delightful song

The soft blue cooing with its slow and gentle beat

From pairs that roam among the woodbeams all day long;

I’ll hear no more the leaf that crackles as from heat,

 

That thrusts forth from the bud, unfolds in the clear light

Of a fine April dawn. That which I see now fades

And silence spreads its dismal barrenness like blight

In inner woods the harsh north wind emaciates.

 

The landscape’s hard, entirely made of bronze and steel

Where the enfeebled sun funereally has glowered

Close to small ponds that reddish cancers have devoured.

 

The tarnished day reels at the banks by which I kneel,

And falls, quite drunk with error, doubt and blasphemy:

And all things die immensely deep inside of me.

 

 

Paul Gerhardt: 'O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden' (verse 1)

 

O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden,

Voll Schmerz und voller Hohn,

O Haupt, zum Spott gebunden

Mit einer Dornenkron,

O Haupt, sonst schön gezieret

Mit höchster Ehr und Zier,

Jetzt aber hoch schimpfieret:

Gegrüßet seist du mir!

 

O head, blood-streaked, sore wounded,

In pain and put to scorn,

To mockery unbounded

Decked with a crown of thorn,

O head, adorned but lately

With honours unsurpassed,

Now sworn and cursed at greatly:

I welcome thee at last!

 

Paul Gerhardt: 'O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden' (verse 9)

 

Wenn ich einmal soll scheiden,

So scheide nicht von mir,

Wenn ich den Tod soll leiden,

So tritt du denn herfür!

Wenn mir am allerbängsten

Wird um das Herze sein,

So reiß mich aus den Ängsten

Kraft deiner Angst und Pein.

 

 

When my time comes for parting,

Part not from me, I pray,

When pangs of death start smarting,

Close by my side then stay!

When fearfulness would seize me

And would my heart constrain, 

From all these fears then free me,

Through thine own fear and pain.