'Wounded in His Hopes'

You whose hopes are wounded, peace be upon you:
no sorrow is on its way, and no sorrow is at hand.
If despair has spread out the nets of rescue,
then sleep at ease, as time itself sleeps.

You whose hopes are wounded, life has struck you down;
memories have seared you with the secret of longing.
So bid your longings farewell and live in quiet,
for you are a passing-away, and this is death.

Let today go by as though it had never been;
let life be folded up, though its hour has not come;
for you are a stranger, and this wide space
grows narrow for every stranger without a nest.

You whose hopes are wounded, forget your sleeplessness
and bleed your wounds out upon the bed;
what harm can this blaze do you,
when on the pillow you have already turned to ash?

Come, say to your soul: come along with me,
come gently, and do not take fright;
what use is the clamor of anguish
when the march leads on to the scalpel?

He whose hopes are wounded is a wounded victim:
neither dead nor at rest;
this heart keeps beating with burning grief
and forgets that the ribs are a tomb.

You whose hopes are wounded, your wounds are fire —
have you water to put out the blaze?
The tears have steamed away, like a spring from the bare rock;
you melt and dissolve, and there is no abiding.

Why do I see you craving the impossible,
and a fortune that has hidden itself behind the mountains?
Let despair lock up the tomb of longing
and heap over it the dust of extinction.

Come, come, you whose longings are wounded:
I have become you, and you are I;
your wounds are my wound — shall you then be seen
alone, outcast, a stranger in this world?

Come, let me show you the many companions,
for we are a company long on the road;
you are not alone, and neither am I —
come, for we are the very heart of mankind.

You whose hopes are wounded — ah, would that I
could comfort your heart; oh, would that I could!
For my consolation — and what a good consolation it is —
is a life of struggle and a contented death.