15
Phantasts
make converts enough and stir a whole crowd into frenzy,
While
the rational man counts on the love of a few.
Miracle-working
pictures are usually bungled as painting;
Works
of the mind and of art do not exist for the mob.
23
Let
the rain come down with drinks for the redcoated froggies,
Water the land that is parched,
making our broccoli grow!
Keep
the water away, however, from my little book now:
Arak, the purest, it is: anyone's punch it will spice.
66
I
can put up with a lot. The things that are most of a bother
Cool and calm I endure, thanks to the gift of a god.
Just
one or two are the things I abominate, or, more precisely,
Four: tobacco (the smoke), bedbugs and garlic and t.
72
"Housewife
is what I would like to be and to have what I needed,
I would be happy and true, hugging and kissing my man."
That's
what she sang to me, other songs too, very vulgar, a streetgirl
Somewhere in Venice-a prayer never more pious I heard.
77
So
you dabble in botany, optics? How can you, a poet?
Don't you feel better employed touching a sensitive heart?
Oh,
those sensitive hearts. Any charlatan knows how to touch them.
No, let my one joy be this, Nature, to touch upon you!
Translated by Michael
Hamburger & Christopher Middleton