Heimweh Ich kann die Sprache Dieses kühlen Landes nicht, Und seinen Schritt nicht gehn. Auch die Wolken, die vorbeiziehn, Weiss ich nicht zu deuten. Die Nacht ist eine Stiefkönigin. Immer muss ich an die Pharaonewälder denken Und küsse die Bilder meiner Sterne. Meine Lippen leuchten schon Und sprechen Fernes, Und bin ein buntes Bilderbuch Auf deinem Schoss. Aber dein Antlitz spinnt Einen Schleier aus Weinen. Meinen schillernden Vögeln Sind die Korallen ausgestochen, An den Hecken der Gärten Versteinern sich ihre weichen Nester. Wer salbt meine toten Paläste — Sie trugen die Kronen meiner Väter, Ihre Gebete versanken im heiligen Fluss. I do not know the speech Of this cool land, I cannot keep its pace. I cannot even read The drifting clouds. The night is a step-queen. I always recall Pharaoh's wood And kiss the images of my stars. My lips already radiant Speak of distances. I am a painted picturebook Upon your lap. But your face weaves A veil of tears. My iridescent birds Stare out of coralless eyes, By the garden Hedges Their soft nests turn to stone. Who will anoint my dead palaces — They wore the crowns of my fathers. Whose prayers drowned in the holy river. The poet, alienated in the land of her birth, looks to the Biblical Land of Israel for solace, yet mourns its centuries-long devastation. She did not live to see the rebirth of the Jewish state, and by the time she died was thoroughly disenchanted by the realities of the homeland. But from the vantage point of Nazi-bound Germany her yearning is both genuine and intense. The violent image of the birds whose corals have been plucked out recalls Uri Zvi Greenberg's Holocaust image of birds one of whose wings had been severed. Commentary from: Bernhard Frank "Eve's Song: Observations on the Poetry of Else Lasker-Schüler." Judaism: A Quarterly Journal of Jewish Life and Thoughts 47: p. 306. Reprinted with permission from Judaism, vol. 47 no. 3 (Summer 1998). Copyright © 1988 American Jewish Congress. To subscribe to Judaism, please call: 212-879-4000; fax 212-249-3672; or write: Judaism Circulation Office American Jewish Congress 15 E. 84th St. New York, NY 10028-0458; email: judaism@cats.ucsc.edu Translation: Durchslag, Audri and Jeanette Litman-Demeestère. Else Lasker-Schüler: Hebrew Ballads and Other Poems. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1980. Back