Poetry Chaikhana
Sacred Poetry from Around the World

About Friedrich Holderlin

Timeline (1770 - 1843)

Friedrich Holderlin, Friedrich Holderlin poetry, Secular or Eclectic, Secular or Eclectic poetry, Romantic poetry, [TRADITION SUB2] poetry, Christian poetry

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English version by
Robert Bly

Original Language
German

All the Fruit...

Themes

Fire

Garden

Mountain

Snake

Water

Recommended Books

	Elucidations of Holderlin's Poetry: (Contemporary Studies in Philosophy and the Human Sciences), by Martin Heidegger
	Holderlin: Selected Poems and Fragments, by Friedrich Holderlin / Translated by Michael Hamburger
	Hymns and Fragments, by Friedrich Holderlin / Translated by Richard Sieburth
	Hyperion and Selected Poems: (German Library), by Friedrich Holderlin
	Music of the Sky: An Anthology of Spiritual Poetry, Edited by Patrick Laude / Edited by Barry McDonald

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All the fruit is ripe, plunged in fire, cooked,
And they have passed their test on earth, and one law is this:
That everything curls inward, like snakes,
Prophetic, dreaming on
The hills of heaven. And many things
Have to stay on the shoulders like a load
of failure. However the roads
Are bad. For the chained elements,
Like horses, are going off to the side,
And the old
Laws of the earth. And a longing
For disintegration constantly comes. Many things however
Have to stay on the shoulders. Steadiness is essential.
Forwards, however, or backwards we will
Not look. Let us learn to live swaying
As in a rocking boat on the sea.

1803

-- from News of the Universe: Poems of Twofold Consciousness, Edited by Robert Bly

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Poetry Chaikhana Sacred Poetry from Around the World

About Friedrich Holderlin

Poetry Chaikhana
Sacred Poetry from Around the World