Poems & Reflections On Life By Hermann Hesse:Stages***Lying In Grass

Music:
Chris Spheeris - Eros

What could I say to you that would be of value, except that perhaps
you seek too much,that as a result of your seeking you cannot find.
When someone is seeking,it happens quite easily that he only sees
the thing that he is seeking;that he is unable to find anything,unable
to absorb anything, because he is only thinking of the thing he is
seeking, because he has a goal, because he is obsessed with his goal.

Seeking means: to have a goal;but finding means:to be free,to be
receptive,to have no goal.You,O worthy one,are perhaps indeed
a seeker, for in striving towards your goal,you do not see many
things that are under your nose.
Hermann Hesse

Stages
Hermann Hesse

As every flower fades and as all youth
Departs, so life at every stage,
So every virtue, so our grasp of truth,
Blooms in its day and may not last forever.

Since life may summon us at every age,
Be ready, heart, for parting, new endeavour,
Be ready bravely and without remorse
To find new light that old ties cannot give.

In all beginnings dwells a magic force
For guarding us and helping us to live.
Serenely let us move to distant places
And let no sentiments of home detain us
But lifts us stage by stage to wider spaces.

If we accept a home of our own making,
Familiar habit makes for indolence.
We must prepare for parting and leave-taking
Or else remain the slaves of permanence.

Even the hour of our death may send
Us speeding on to fresh and newer spaces,
And life may summon us to newer races.
So be it, heart: bid farewell without end.

Lying In Grass
Hermann Hesse

Is this everything now, the quick delusions of flowers,
And the down colors of the bright summer meadow,
The soft blue spread of heaven, the bees' song,
Is this everything only a god's
Groaning dream,
The cry of unconscious powers for deliverance?
The distant line of the mountain,
That beautifully and courageously rests in the blue,
Is this too only a convulsion,
Only the wild strain of fermenting nature,
Only grief, only agony, only meaningless fumbling,
Never resting, never a blessed movement?

No! Leave me alone, you impure dream
Of the world in suffering!
The dance of tiny insects cradles you in an evening radiance,
The bird's cry cradles you,
A breath of wind cools my forehead
With consolation.
Leave me alone, you unendurably old human grief!
Let it all be pain.
Let it all be suffering, let it be wretched-
But not this one sweet hour in the summer,
And not the fragrance of the red clover,
And not the deep tender pleasure
In my soul.

APRIL by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

April
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

TELL me, eyes, what 'tis ye're seeking;
For ye're saying something sweet,
Fit the ravish'd ear to greet,
Eloquently, softly speaking.

Yet I see now why ye're roving;
For behind those eyes so bright,
To itself abandon'd quite,
Lies a bosom, truthful, loving,--

One that it must fill with pleasure
'Mongst so many, dull and blind,
One true look at length to find,
That its worth can rightly treasure.

Whilst I'm lost in studying ever
To explain these cyphers duly,--
To unravel my looks truly
In return be your endeavour!

The original poem in German

APRIL
Goethe

Augen, sagt mir, sagt, was sagt ihr?
Denn ihr sagt was gar zu Schönes,
Gar des lieblichsten Getönes;
Und in gleichem Sinne fragt ihr.

Doch ich glaub' euch zu erfassen:
Hinter dieser Augen Klarheit
Ruht ein Herz in Lieb' und Wahrheit
Jetzt sich selber überlassen,

Dem es wohl behagen müßte,
Unter so viel stumpfen, blinden,
Endlich einen Blick zu finden,
Der es auch zu schätzen wüßte.

Und indem ich diese Chiffern
Mich versenke zu studiren,
Laßt euch ebenfalls verführen,
Meine Blicke zu entziffern!

APRIL(Another English Version)
Eyes tell, tell me, what you tell me,
Telling something all too sweet,
Making music out of beauty,
With a question hidden deep.

Still I think I know your meaning,
There behind your pupils’ brightness,
Love and truth are your heart’s lightness,
That, instead of its own gleaming,

Would so truly like to greet,
In a world of dullness, blindness,
One true look of human kindness,
Where two kindred spirits meet.

Only in Thought by BERTRAND RUSSELL

Only in thought is man a God; in action and desire
we are the slaves of circumstance.
BERTRAND RUSSELL

Calm soul of all things! by MATTHEW ARNOLD

Calm soul of all things! make it mine
To feel, amid the city's jar,
That there abides a peace of thine,
Man did not make, and cannot mar.

The will to neither strive nor cry,
The power to feel with others give!
Calm, calm me more! nor let me die
Before I have begun to live.
MATTHEW ARNOLD

Reason obeys itself by Thomas Paine

Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits
to whatever is dictated to it.

When men yield up the privilege of thinking,
the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon.
Thomas Paine

EVERYBODY DIES, BUT NOT EVERYBODY LIVES-PRINCE AE

Inspirational Mother Earth Quotes

And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees,
books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.
William Shakespeare

To see a world in a grain of sand, And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, And eternity in an hour.
William Blake

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep-sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more.
Lord Byron