The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries/Volume 18/The Seafarer
HE ship was bursting with a mighty crash.
Ablaze were bow and deck and every mast.
The old boat pitching rose to port: a splash—
A surging of gray waves—the gale's shrill blast—
Thundering orders—prayers—then cry on cry—
A blow, a headlong fall—God stand me by!—
Down, down. Black night upon all senses fell.
Mate, fill my glass! This yarn is long to tell.
'T was in the deep I saw—I saw that sight.
They have no day down there, they have no night.
The sand is shimmering green. There planks lie scattered,
A giant mast in livid splinters shattered.
And up from pallid vines rise bubbles whirling—
From vines that evermore are swaying, curling,
Their long and wary tendril-arms unfurling.
And glistening shells among the wreckage lie
That snap without a sound when prey floats by,
And there are fish with lustre livid pale
That beat their tails transparent as a veil.
A restless host is wandering on down there,
A thousand thousand, an unnumbered band:
Their hands are stiff, their eyes unseeing stare,
With leaden feet they wade across the sand,
Way-farers lost without a path or way—
Blue-jackets, grimy fellows, women folding
Limp arms round languid babes that they are holding—
That lived on sunken ships; forlorn they stray,
Their names are lost, they wear strange garbs of yore:—
All those who went and then returned no more.
I saw them all, like pallid phantoms pass,
As though I watched them through a blurring glass.
One beckoned dumbly as he passed me by,
And so I followed him, I knew not why.
The way was endless, and it grew and grew.
Our feet were tired and they stumbled too.
And him who fell, his helping neighbor raised.
A woman slipped and when I helped her, dazed
She hung upon my neck, a load of lead.
Deep blue abysses gaped. And overhead,
Like clouds upon the water gray and pale,
The shadows passed of many a giant whale.
One man I looked at more than all the rest.
His languid head hung limp upon his breast,
And then I knew old Peter Jens, the rover,
Who once went overboard, at night by Dover.
I gently pulled his ragged shirt to say—
And then my voice seemed strange and far away—:
"Where are you bound?"—He looked with glassy eye:
"We're seeking, seeking, seeking!" his reply.
"What are you seeking, Jens?"—He answered: "Land!"—
Then all about who with us crept and drifted,
Their weary, pale and anguished faces lifted.
A wailing trembled all along the sand.
Yet all at once my power seemed to gain.
I turned about with mighty voice to call
Unto this lifeless, ever wandering train:
"Now courage! Follow me! God leads us all! "
My heart was quickened and it beat again,
And ever through the void all pale and still
I was drawn onward by an unknown will,—
Behind me crept that endless gloomy train.
How long a time elapsed, I did not know.
At times the darkness fainter seemed to grow—
The gloom that hung about on every hand—
And on the hard and livid waves of sand
Something arose quite near that seemed like land—
Within our grasp! And then again it faded.
The ugly brood that lurks within the deep
Pursued us lazily. Then faint and jaded,
Lost in the mighty void, we cannot keep
Our courage, stifled all our hopes must cease—
No morning dawns! Ah, there is no release!
Wherefore this torment?
Faint they reeled and stayed
Worn out, beneath the everlasting shade.
Where art Thou, God? I cried, but no sound made.—
—Now, now: a point! A sudden glimmer bright!
A crevice burst—a flood of light was gleaming.
The earth and sky with golden glow were streaming!—
Salvation! Hail! A rushing for the light!
I hurled the woman up unto the strand
And staggered, with my last force crying: Land!
Here, mate! My glass is empty. Fill it, lad!
What next? Why nothing. I can tell no more.
I only know—the night was very bad—
They found me lying on the Scottish shore.
My ship? The wreck? God knows where that had stranded.
All those who in the night with me had landed
Were dead and cold. They've found a resting-place:
A bit of earth, a cross. God give them grace!
Sometimes at night when there's a creaking, crashing
And when the whistling winds the yards are thrashing,
LULU VON STRAUSS UND TORNEY
Against the hatches angry waves are splashing—
Then it comes over me: to wander, wander
Forever with those thousand others yonder!
Many I've seen for years, but ever more
New-comers join—each night a mighty band!
Sometimes I find one whom I knew before;
He nods and dumbly stretches out his hand.
And many a comrade in that silent throng
I've borne upon my back or dragged along.
I see them, all the sea did ever swallow;
The others too I see: those yet to follow.
Many a youth who laughs with us today,
Upon whose heart no thoughts of dying weigh.
And step for step through all the night we go,
Deep, deep down there.
Jan Witt, ah, well you know,
No shaking then can wake me from my dream,
And should you shout to wake the dead, and scream.
But I come back at early dawn of day,
When in the east the blackness turns to gray;
Then I awake. My head is dull and weighs
Like lead. And then I cannot laugh for days.
Ho, fellows, why so dumb? A roundelay!
For what the morrow brings, who cares today?
Heads high and gay! Our sailor's custom keep!
We men, when we're at home or when we fare
On foreign seas, each day our shroud must wear.
And He above—He also knows the deep!
- ↑ Translator: Margarete Münsterberg.