Abendgesang / Evening Song
Yvan Goll
translated by Donald Wellman
Introduction by Donald Wellman
Yvan Goll (1891-1950) Born Isaac Lang on March 29, 1891, in Saint-Dié in the Lorraine region of France, Yvan Goll—poet, editor, and translator—contributed in multiple ways to the major developments of modernism in the arts. Notably, his experiences of childhood and exile were multicultural (German-Jewish and French). His work reflects his personal struggles and passions, expressing a unique cultural hybridity inflected by alienation, anguish, and the need for personal acknowledgement. His collaborators included Herman Hesse, Hans Arp, Hans Richter, Marc Chagall, Pablo Picasso, and James Joyce. In October 1924, Goll published the groundbreaking journal Surréalisme. Goll’s conception of surrealism emphasized verbal constructions, relying on disparate phrases, and avoided the Freudian play between language and the unconscious aspects of mental life that are now associated with surrealist practice as promulgated by Andre Breton. Breton, vying for poetic ascendancy, attacked Goll’s surrealism in his first Surrealist manifesto (also in 1924). In 1921, Yvan married Claire Studer, a young journalist and his most important collaborator. Love and heartbreak and reunion are the subjects of Ten Thousand Dawns, a text important to understanding Traumkraut (Dream Grass), 1951, a work of paranoid surreality, according to Francis J. Carmody. Neila, Abendgesang, (Neila, Evening Song), 1954, was composed on the poet’s deathbed as he lay suffering from leukemia. “Neila” is an anagram of “Liane,” both referencing Claire. Neila, Abendgesang is perhaps even more frenetic and disjointed than Traumkraut. Both of these volumes were composed while the poet was in close contact with Paula Celan, who assisted Goll in translating his French-language lyric poetry into German. Unfortunately and apparently driven by her own paranoid insecurities, Claire accused Celan of plagiarizing from her husband’s last works. Celan, who had donated blood to Yvan, never recovered from the shock of this malignant slur. It is my belief that while Neila, Abendgesang is motivated by heart-felt love for Clair, it also carries tones of apprehension and anxiety that derive from Goll’s recognition of Claire’s perhaps disquieting powers. Goll’s work has been translated into English by Kenneth Rexroth, Galway Kinnell and William Carlos Williams among many others. Mine is the only translation of Neila, Abendgesang of which I am aware. I have also translated poems from Traumkraut that appeared in the journals Circumference and Calque.
Abendgesang
Mit allen Farben die ich geblutet
Mit allen Vögeln, die ich getötet
Letzten Gesang über Straßburg
Sing ich Geliebte in dein wissendes Ohr
Denn zusammen haben wir mit großem Herz geliebt
Und beim Ruf der Amsel
Stieg ein Engel in dein Gesicht
Und verwandelte dich zu Natur
Schwalben bewunderten wir
Die sich von Totenkopf nährten
Und den Lerchen warfen wir aus dem Klee
Unser Glück nach
Gottgegeben war unsere Liebe
Die Schwalben sich von Totenköpfen nährend
Schützen uns
Du aus dem unbekannten Traum
* * *
O seh ich Geliebte dich noch
An diesem birnengehangenen Tag
Das Goldblatt in deinem Haar
Und allen Azur der Treue
In deinem großen Doppelaug
Herbst brennt in den Bäumen
Und goldener Most in deinem tiefen Mund
Aus dem die tiefe Stimme umsummt
Wie Hornißorgelbaß
Wer zechten Geliebte den letzten Wein
O Lerchen leiteten uns durch Geißblatt
Hand in Hand den weißen Berg hinan
Und im Salbei
Fand einer des anderen Herz
Ganz naß vom Warten
Heut ist ein Nußbaum der Her der Nacht
Viele Totenfalter und viele Vögel
Sind in seinen Kellern gefangen
Das Trauerspiel des Sommers ist zuende
Wir fanden ein schönes Bett im Minzhang
Und ein Hochzeitsschleier
Wob sich von selbst aus Spinnenseide
* * *
Was klage ich, solang noch deine Hand
In meiner Hand erblüht
Wie eine Rose von Jericho
Von einer einzigen Träne betaut
Was fürcht’ ich in der Weltennacht
Solange ich deine Lippen wandern hör
Von Kosewort zu Kosewort
Von Schweigen zu Wahrheit
Mein Aug wird nimmer hart und blind
Solange die zwei Sonnen deiner Augen
Die Nächte und die Tage
Auf ewig gleichen Liebesschalen wiegen
* * *
Deine Augen sind wie die Kirchenfenster von Chartres
Von gelben von roten von blauen Scherben gemacht
Sie spiegeln die Allegorien der Liebe
Die vierundzwanzig Stationen des Tags und der Nacht
Deine Augen sind wie der Schnee mit seinen Pailletten
Der Schnee ist gelb ist rot ist blau
Ich glaube nur er wäre weiß und weiß
Und plötzlich singt er wie tragische Vögel
Wenn deine Füße über ihn streifen
Deine Augen sind wie der Stern der Nacht
Die Sterne sind gelb sind rot sind blau
Es war ein Irrtum sie für Gold zu halten
In Lumpen wandert der Tag den deine Augen nicht kennen
In Schmutz die Straße die sich von dir wendet
Der Schnee und die Vögel ziehen zum Meer und zur Wüste
Sie werden erzählen wie gelb wie rot wie blau
Die Augen einer Menschin sind
Evening Song
With all the colors that I bled
With all the birds that I killed
I sing the last song of Strasburg
Beloved in your knowing ear
For together we have loved with large heart
And at the call of the blackbird
An angel climbs into your face
And transforms you into Nature
We admired swallows
That flew near the death’s head
And we tossed larks into the clover
For luck
Our love was given by God
May swallows feeding on death’s heads
Protect us
You from out of unknown dream
* * *
O beloved I see you still
On this day festooned with pear tree boughs
The gold leaf in your hair
And all the blue of truth
In your great double eye
Autumn burns in the trees
And golden must in your deep mouth
From which deep voices buzz around me
Like hornets’ organ-bass
We guzzled beloved the last wine
O may larks lead us through goat-leaf honeysuckle
Hand in hand up the white mountain
And in salvia
One found the other’s heart
Drenched from waiting
Today is a Walnut Harvest for the Lord of the Night
Many dead moths and many birds
Are imprisoned in your cellar
The tragedy of summer has ended
We found a beautiful bed on a lawn of mint
And a wedding veil
Wove itself from spun silk
* * *
What’s my complaint, so long as your hand
In my hand blossoms
Like the rose of Jericho
Bedewed with a single tear
What do I fear in the night-world
As long as I hear your lips move
From love-word to love-word
From silence to truth
My eye will never be hard and blind
As long as the two suns of your eyes
Weigh nights and days
In eternally equal loving cups
* * *
Your eyes are like the cathedral windows of Chartres
Made from yellow from red from blue shards
They mirror the allegories of love
The four and twenty stations of day and night
Your eyes are like snow with its sequins
Snow is yellow is red is blue
I thought it to be only white and white
And suddenly it sings like a tragic bird
When kissed by your foot
Your eyes are like the night-star
The stars are yellow are red are blue
It was a mistake to think them gold
In rags the day wanders that does not know your eyes
In dirt lies the street that turns itself from you
The snow and the birds are drawn to the sea and wasteland
They will be told how yellow how red how blue
Are the eyes of a little girl
Yvan Goll Die Lyrik in vier Bänden. Band II. Liebesgedichte. 1917-1950, hg. u. kommentiert v. Barbara Glauert-Hesse im Auftrag der Fondation Yvan et Claire Goll, Saint-Dié-des-Vosges. Argon Verlag, Berlin 1996. © Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen.
Poet, translator and independent scholar Donald Wellman has work in E·ratio 8, 11 and 16. Donald Wellman is online at http://faculty.dwc.edu/wellman/index.htm.
