Not for him is the sound of the harp
nor the giving of rings
nor pleasure in woman
nor worldly glory--
nor anything at all
unless the tossing of waves;
but he always has a longing,
he who strives on the waves.
Groves take on blossoms,
the cities grow fair,
the fields are comely,
the world seems new:
all these things urge on
the eager of spirit,
the mind to travel,
in one who so thinks
to travel far on the paths of the sea. . . .
And now my spirit twists
out of my breast,
my spirit
out in the waterways,
over the whale's path
it soars widely
through all the corners of the world--
it comes back to me
eager and unsated;
the lone-flier screams,
urges on the whale-road
the unresisting heart
across the waves of the sea.
Excerpt from translation by Sean Miller
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