Franz Werfel Poems

I am not dead. Through slit and crack
The piercing ray only glanced me,
And in the glow of self-possession
I survive once more once again
...

So many play with you,
You play with the many,
But you never see me
There in the background,
...

I lay in the abyss, where twisting squeezing
The lowest form of life pushed itself peristaltically.
...

Oh the slow fall of snow,
Its unending blanketing swirl!
Yet my mind's eye was giving shape
To what couldn't be kept hidden,
...

Solang noch der Tatrawind leicht
slowakische Blumen bestreicht,
so lang wirken Mädchen sie ein
in trauliche Buntstickerei'n.
...

You stroke the fur of the big fine dog.
Looking way down into its eyes, you speak,
Pointing out for me the enormous sorrow
...

Death has taken me out for a swing.
At first I didn't drop from the quickstep
In his dance and clogged right along
Until he drove the tempo up
...

Now when you come all that way to meet me
From the country house of your death,
I know that you would remove your hat
...

At these tiny old railroad stations,
Which my own train long ago left behind,
I fear for the pressing crush of people
...

You've inherited the great ram's features,
The black-wooled one that bred with Jacob's herds.
...