Es ist was es ist, sagt die Liebe.
Dichter der Liebe
German poets of love — Fried, Goethe, and Rilke in their native tongue.
Dichter der Liebe
Poets of Love — three German voices that understood the weight of longing, the architecture of devotion, and the impossibility of holding the soul still when it is in love.
Was es ist — Erich Fried
Es ist Unsinn, sagt die Vernunft.
Es ist was es ist, sagt die Liebe.Es ist Unglück, sagt die Berechnung.
Es ist nichts als Schmerz, sagt die Angst.
Es ist aussichtslos, sagt die Einsicht.
Es ist was es ist, sagt die Liebe.Es ist lächerlich, sagt der Stolz.
Es ist leichtsinnig, sagt die Vorsicht.
Es ist unmöglich, sagt die Erfahrung.
Es ist was es ist, sagt die Liebe.
It is what it is, says Love.
Reason argues. Calculation warns. Fear trembles. Pride scoffs. Caution hesitates. Experience shakes its head.
And Love — Love does not argue back. It does not debate. It simply states what it is. Over and over, with the patience of water wearing stone, love repeats its truth until every objection exhausts itself.
Erich Fried wrote this poem as a man who knew that every rational argument against love is correct. And that love does not care about being correct. It cares about being real.
Nahe des Geliebten — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Ich denke dein, wenn mir der Sonne Schimmer
vom Meere strahlt;
Ich denke dein, wenn sich des Mondes Flimmer
in Quellen malt.Ich sehe dich, wenn auf dem fernen Wege
der Staub sich hebt;
In tiefer Nacht, wenn auf dem schmalen Stege
der Wandrer bebt.Ich bin bei dir, du seist auch noch so ferne,
du bist mir nah!
Die Sonne sinkt, bald leuchten mir die Sterne.
O warst du da!
I think of you when the sun shimmers from the sea. I think of you when the moon glimmers in the springs. I am with you, however far away you are — you are near to me.
Goethe — the giant of German literature, the man who could have written about anything — chose to write about the ache of distance. Because for all his brilliance, all his worldly achievement, the truest thing he knew was this: the beloved is never truly absent.
In sunlight, you see them. In moonlight, you feel them. In the dust of distant roads and the trembling of narrow bridges at night, they are there. Not as memory. As presence.
The last line is a cry that every lover separated by distance has whispered: O warst du da! — If only you were here.
Liebes-Lied — Rainer Maria Rilke
Wie soll ich meine Seele halten, dass
sie nicht an deine ruhrt? Wie soll ich sie
hinheben uber dich zu andern Dingen?Ach gerne mocht ich sie bei irgendwas
Verlorenem im Dunkel unterbringen
an einer fremden stillen Stelle, die
nicht weiterschwingt, wenn deine Tiefen schwingen.
How shall I hold my soul so that it does not touch yours? How shall I lift it over you to other things? I would so much like to place it among lost things in the dark, in some quiet, unknown place that does not vibrate when your depths vibrate.
Rilke asks the impossible question. How do you keep your soul separate from someone you love? How do you think clearly when every thought curves back toward them? How do you exist independently when your very depths resonate with theirs?
The answer, of course, is that you cannot. And Rilke knew this. The poem is not a question seeking an answer. It is a confession dressed as a question. It says: I have tried to be separate from you, and I have failed beautifully.
This is perhaps the most honest poem ever written about the impossibility of emotional independence. Once love has tuned two souls to the same frequency, there is no untuning. There is only the music.
Three poets. Three centuries. One truth: love does not care about your plans.