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Jeg har det ondt, for jeg har mistet det som var mitt livs eneste fryd, den hellige, livgivende kraft, hvormed jeg skapte verdener omkring meg; den er borte! –– Når jeg ser ut av vinduet mot de fjerne åsene, hvor morgensolen bryter gjennom tåken og lyser på de stille engene, og elven bukter seg mot meg mellom de bladløse piletrærne, da står denne herlige naturen for meg som et fernisert lite bilde, og all skjønnheten formår ikke å pumpe en dråpe salighet fra hjertet opp til hjernen på meg, og hele jeg står som en tom brønn,

Jeg gleder meg over at jeg kan føle den samme enkle og uskyldige lykke som den mann der setter på sitt bord det kålhodet han selv har plantet, og han nyter ikke bare kålen, men alle de gode dagene, den vakre morgenstunden da han plantet den, de lune kveldene da han vannet den og gledet seg over at den vokste så fint, – alt dette gjenopplevd i et eneste frydefullt øyeblikk. –

Enhver som er forelsket er gal, sies det. Men kan man forestille seg en gal som forelsket? Umulig.

Hvorfor jeg ikke har skrevet på lenge? – Det spør du om, du som er en lærd mann! Du burde gjette deg til at jeg har det bra

Når du spør hvordan menneskene her er, så må jeg svare: som over alt ellers! Det er noe ensformig ved menneskeslekten. De fleste sliter og arbeider størsteparten av tiden for å leve, og den vesle friheten som de har igjen, skremmer dem slik at de finner på alt mulig for å bli kvitt den. Spør om hensikten med det hele!

Slik er det 'sunne' menneskets tale: Enten, eller. Men den forelskede svarer (og det er det Werther gjør): Jeg forsøker å smyge meg frem mellom alternativene, det vil si, Jeg har ikke noe håp, men allikevel . . . Eller også: Jeg velger gjenstridig å ikke velge; jeg velger å gå utenom, – jeg fortsetter.

[...], min Smerte og min Lidelse er navnløs.

You were the last dream of my soul.

Because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place

Bibbles
Little black dog in New Mexico,
Little black snub-nosed bitch with a shoved-out jaw
And a wrinkled reproachful look;
Little black female pup, sort of French bull, they say,
With bits of brindle coming through, like rust, to show
you're not pure;
Not pure, Bibbles,
Bubsey, bat-eared dog;
Not black enough!

First live thing I've "owned" since the lop-eared rabbits
when I was a lad,
And those over-prolific white mice, and Adolf, and Rex
whom I didn't own.
And even now, Bibbles, little Ma'am, it's you who appro-
priated me, not I you.
As Benjamin Franklin appropriated Providence to his
purposes.

Oh Bibbles, black little bitch
I'd never have let you appropriate me, had I known.
I never dreamed, till now, of the awful time the Lord must
have, "owning" humanity.
Especially democratic live-by-love humanity.

Oh Bibbles, oh Pips, oh Pipsey
You little black love-bird!

Don't you love everybody!
Just everybody.
You love 'em all.
Believe in the One Identity, don't you,
You little Walt-Whitmanesque bitch?

First time I lost you in Taos plaza,
And found you after endless chasing,
Came upon you prancing round the corner in exuberant,
bibbling affection
After the black-green skirts of a yellow-green old Mexican
woman
Who hated you, and kept looking round at you and cursing
you in a mutter,
While you pranced and bounced with love of her, you
indiscriminating animal,
All your wrinkled miserere Chinese black little face
beaming
And your black little body bouncing and wriggling
With indiscriminate love, Bibbles;
I had a moment's pure detestation of you.

As I rushed like an idiot round the corner after you
Yelling: Pips! Pips! Bibbles!

I've had moments of hatred of you since,
Loving everybody!
"To you, whoever you are, with endless embrace!"--
That's you, Pipsey,
With your imbecile bit of a tail in a love-flutter.
You omnipip.

Not that you're merely a softy, oh dear me no.
You know which side your bread is buttered.
You don't care a rap for anybody.
But you love lying warm between warm human thighs,
indiscriminate,
And you love to make somebody love you, indiscriminate,
You love to lap up affection, to wallow in it,
And then turn tail to the next comer, for a new dollop.

And start prancing and licking and cuddling again, indis-
criminate.

Oh yes, I know your little game.

Yet you're so nice,
So quick, like a little black dragon.
So fierce, when the coyotes howl, barking like a whole
little lion, and rumbling,
And starting forward in the dusk, with your little black fur
all bristling like plush
Against those coyotes, who would swallow you like an oyster.

And in the morning, when the bedroom door is opened,
Rushing in like a little black whirlwind, leaping straight as
an arrow on the bed at the pillow
And turning the day suddenly into a black tornado of
joie de vivre, Chinese dragon.

So funny
Lobbing wildly through deep snow like a rabbit,
Hurtling like a black ball through the snow,
Champing it, tossing a mouthful,
Little black spot in the landscape!

So absurd
Pelting behind on the dusty trail when the horse sets off
home at a gallop:
Left in the dust behind like a dust-ball tearing along
Coming up on fierce little legs, tearing fast to catch up, a
real little dust-pig, ears almost blown away,
And black eyes bulging bright in a dust-mask
Chinese-dragon-wrinkled, with a pink mouth grinning, under
jaw shoved out
And white teeth showing in your dragon-grin as you race,
you split-face,
Like a trundling projectile swiftly whirling up,
Cocking your eyes at me as you come alongside, to see if
I'm I on the horse,
And panting with that split grin,
All your game little body dust-smooth like a little pig,
poor Pips.

Plenty of game old spirit in you, Bibbles.
Plenty of game old spunk, little bitch.

How you hate being brushed with the boot-brush, to brush
all that dust out of your wrinkled face.
Don't you?
How you hate being made to look undignified. Ma'am;
How you hate being laughed at, Miss Superb!

Blackberry face!

Plenty of conceit in you.
Unblemished belief in your own perfection
And utter lovableness, you ugly-mug;
Chinese puzzle-face,
Wrinkled underhung physiog that looks as if it had done
with everything,
Through with everything.

Instead of which you sit there and roll your head like a
canary
And show a tiny bunch of white teeth in your underhung
blackness,
Self-conscious little bitch,
Aiming again at being loved.

Let the merest scallywag come to the door and you leap
your very dearest-love at him,
As if now, at last, here was the one you finally loved,
Finally loved;
And even the dirtiest scallywag is taken in,
Thinking: This dog sure has taken a fancy to me.

You miserable little bitch of love-tricks,
I know your game.

Me or the Mexican who comes to chop wood
All the same,
All humanity is jam to you.

Everybody so dear, and yourself so ultra-beloved
That you have to run out at last and eat filth,
Gobble up filth, you horror, swallow utter abomination and
fresh-dropped dung.

You stinker.
You worse than a carrion-crow.
Reeking dung-mouth.
You love-bird.

"Reject nothing", sings Walt Whitman.
So you, you go out at last and eat the unmentionable,
In your appetite for affection.

And then you run in to vomit it in my house!
I get my love back.
And I have to clean up after you, filth which even blind
Nature rejects
From the pit of your stomach;
But you, you snout-face, you reject nothing, you merge so
much in love
You must eat even that.

Then when I dust you a bit with a juniper twig
You run straight away to live with somebody else,
Fawn before them, and love them as if they were the ones
you had really loved all along.
And they're taken in.
They feel quite tender over you, till you play the same trick
on them, dirty bitch.

Fidelity! Loyalty! Attachment!
Oh, these are abstractions to your nasty little belly.
You must always be a-waggle with LOVE.
Such a waggle of love you can hardly distinguish one human
from another.
You love one after another, on one condition, that each
one loves you most.
Democratic little bull-bitch, dirt-eating little swine.

But now, my lass, you've got your Nemesis on your track,
Now you've come sex-alive, and the great ranch-dogs are all
after you.
They're after what they can get, and don't you turn tail!
You loved 'em all so much before, didn't you, loved 'em
indiscriminate.
You don't love 'em now.
They want something of you, so you squeak and come
pelting indoors.

Come pelting to me, now the other folk have found you out,
and the dogs are after you.
Oh yes, you're found out. I heard them kick you out of the
ranch house.
"Get out, you little, soft fool"!!

And didn't you turn your eyes up at me then?
And didn't you cringe on the floor like any inkspot!
And crawl away like a black snail!
And doesn't everybody loathe you then!
And aren't your feelings violated, you high bred little love-
bitch!

For you're sensitive,
In many ways very finely bred.
But bred in conceit that the world is all for love
Of you, my bitch: till you get so far you eat filth.
Fool, in spite of your pretty ways, and quaint, know all,
wrinkled old aunty's face.

So now, what with great Airedale dogs,
And a kick or two,
And a few vomiting bouts,
And a juniper switch,
You look at me for discrimination, don't you?
Look up at me with misgiving in your bulging eyes,
And fear in the smoky whites of your eyes, you nigger;
And you're puzzled,
You think you'd better mind your P's and Q's for a bit.
Your sensitive love-pride being all hurt.

All right, my little bitch.
You learn loyalty rather than loving,
And I'll protect you.

Desire may be dead
and still a man can be
a meeting place for sun and rain,
wonder outwaiting pain
as in a wintry tree.

Peace is written on the doorstep
In lava.

Peace, black peace congealed.
My heart will know no peace
Till the hill bursts.

Wir ordnens wieder und zerfallen selbst.