'Sentiment'

Sentiment

Whatever it was in plain sight
gave me fresh heart, if, nonetheless
it could not, being nature, give me rest,
soon it will be far away, outside.

I'll go without it then, this glow,
this ringing of the sounds and of the colors,
and with a passion sing of it. Somehow, as if
what's missing left me with a mystery,
its absence makes me love it all twice over.

Once you have seen it with your inward eye,
a beautiful thing spreads beauty all around.
To dote on it, or want it back again, is wrong.
It walks along with you, kept well in mind.


By Robert Walser
Trans. Christopher Middleton