The boy says to his father:Father, nearly always when I see
Rötteln Castle stand out like that,
I wonder whether our house will go that way too.
It stands up there, doesn't it,
as gruesome as Death
in the Dance of Death at Basel.
The longer you look at it
the more uncomfortable you feel.
And our house sits up on the hill like a church,
and the windows glitter, it looks fine.
Tell me, Father, will it really go that way too?
I think sometimes that it simply couldn't!
The father says:
Bless you, of course it can, what do you think?
Everything starts young and new
and everything goes on gently towards old age,
and everything has an end
and nothing stands still.
Do you hear the water rushing?
And do you see up there one star beside the other
in the sky?
You'd think none of them budged,
but everything's on the move,
everything comes and goes.
Yes, that's how it is,
it's no use looking at me like that.
You're young still. Never mind, I was young too,
I have changed now, and age, old age, is coming on,
and everywhere I go, to Gresgen or Wies,
to the fields or the woods, to Basel or home,
it's all the same, I am on the way
to the churchyard willy-nilly
and by the time you are as old as I am,
a grown man,
I shan't be there anymore,
and the sheep and the goats
will be grazing on my grave.
Yes, it's true,
and the house is growing old and dirty too;
the rain washes it dirtier every night
and the sun bleaches it blacker every day,
and the beetles tick in the wainscots.
The rain will come through the loft,
the wind will whistle through the cracks.
Meantime you will have closed your eyes too
and your children's children will come and patch it up.
At long last it will get the rot in the foundations
and then there'll be no help for it.
And by the year two thousand
everything will have tumbled down,
and the whole village will have sunk into its grave.
In time the plough will go where the church stands,
where the mayor's house is, and the rectory.
The boy says: Why, fancy that!
His father says: Yes, that's how it is,
it's no use looking at me like that.
Basel is a fine town, a grand town, isn't it?
There are houses there, some churches aren't as big,
and so many churches,
why some villages haven't as many houses.
It is a crowd of people,
there is lots of money there and lots of fine gentlemen,
and a lot of people I have known lie in the cloisters
behind the Minster Square and sleep.
There's nothing for it, Son,
the hour will strike when even Basel
will go down to the grave too,
and just poke up a limb here and there
out of the ground, a beam, an old tower, a gable;
the elder will grow on it, beeches here, firs there,
and moss and fern, and herons will nest in it —
such a pity! and, if people then
are as foolish as they are now, ghosts will walk there,
Frau Faste (I have an idea she has already started,
at least that's what they say) and Lippi-Läppeli
and heaven knows what besides!
What are you nudging me for?
The boy says: Not so loud, Father,
until we are across the bridge and past the hill
and the wood over there!
There's a wild huntsman hunts up there, didn't you know?
And look, it must have been down in the bushes there
that girl who sold eggs was found,
half-decayed, a year ago.
Listen how Laubi
[one of the pair of oxen drawing the cart] snorts.
His father says: He's got a cold. Don't be so silly!
Gee up, Laubi, Merz! and let the dead be,
they can't do anything to you.
What was I saying?
About Basel, that it will fall down too one day —
and if long after a traveller goes by,
an hour or even half an hour away,
he will be able to look across, if there is no mist,
and will say to his mate who is with him:
‘Look, that is where Basel stood.
That tower they say was St. Peter's Church.
A pity it's all gone.’
The boy says: No, Father, are you serious?
I can't believe it.
His father says: Yes, that's how it is,
it's no use looking at me like that,
and in time the whole world will burn up.
A watchman will go out at midnight,
a foreign chap nobody knows,
he'll glitter like a star and cry,
‘Awake! Behold, the day is come!’
and the sky will turn red
and there'll be thunder everywhere, first soft,
then loud like that time in ninety-six
when the French bombarded so fiercely.
The ground will shake so that the church towers will rock,
the bells will sound and ring out for the service
by themselves to all and sundry, and everyone will pray.
Then the day will come;
O God preserve us, there will be no need of any sun,
the sky will be nothing but lightning
and the world will be all afire.
And a lot more will happen that I've no time for now,
and at last it will catch fire and blaze and blaze,
wherever there is any land,
and no one to put it out.
I suppose it will burn out by itself.
And what do you think it will look like then?
The boy says: Oh, Father, don't tell me any more.
But — what'll happen to the people
when everything blazes and blazes?
The father says: Why, the people won't be there
when the fire comes, they — well, where'll they be?
You be good and live decent, wherever you are
and keep a clean conscience.
Do you see how the sky is splendid with bright stars?
Each star is as it might be a village,
and farther up perhaps there is a fine town,
you can see it from here,
and if you live decent
you will go to one of those stars
and you'll be happy there,
and you'll find your father there, if it is God's will,
and poor Bessie, your mother.
Perhaps you'll drive up the Milky Way
into that hidden town,
and if you look down to one side, what'll you see —
Rötteln Castle! The Belchen will be charred
and the Blauen too, like two old towers,
and between the two everything will be burnt out,
right into the ground.
There won't be any water in the Wiese,
everything will be bare and black and deathly quiet,
as far as you can see;
you'll see that and say to your mate that's with you:
‘Look, that's where the earth was,
and that mountain was called the Belchen.
And not far away was Wieslet;
I used to live there and harness my oxen,
cart wood to Basel, and plough, and drain meadows
and make splints for torches,
and potter about until my death,
and I wouldn't like to go back now!’
Gee up, Laubi, Merz!
Die Vergänglichkeit. Gespräch auf der Straße von Basel zwischen Steinen und Brombach, in der Nacht
The original in Alemannic German can be found here.
This is a memorable poem, unlike anything I've read. Its one big shortcoming is that the father in the poem doesn't see that salvation is in Jesus, and in trusting Jesus, not in our decent living. Thank you for introducing me to this poem. Also, forgive me for being behind on reading your remarkable blog. I do pray for you, though not as often as I should.
ReplyDeleteJim, I was expecting you to comment and exactly in the way you did, because I had exactly the same thought when I first read this poem three decades ago, and every time I read it again.
ReplyDeleteWhat I realised somewhere along the way is this: First, the poem was written in the early 1800's in Switzerland, a country in which at the time everyone (except the Jews) were Christians. Second, of course in that part of Switzerland they were almost all Roman Catholics. Though the father doesn't mention Christ at all, it's because believing in Jesus as Savior was the 'given' in the moral equation, and when he says if you live 'clean and decent' you'll make it to heaven, he is only voicing the idea that formal belief in Christ won't be enough to get you through the pearly gates: you have to add good works to good faith.
The point of the poem, though, is not to debate Catholic versus Reformed viewpoints on salvation, but to emphasize the transitory nature of the created world, and the sovereignty of God. According to some modern Balaam, the world is supposed to end today, and so I posted this old poem as my way of saying, 'Yes, it will end some day, and we had better be ready for it, for Him, because there's no alternative but to be indifferent and un-ready, and I don't want any of us to be in that place when He comes again.
Thanks, as always, brother, for your comments.