Help!

[Lianne]

I'm an italian student and I'm currently searching a short text of Hermann Hesse in english. The italian version is contained in the book "Le stagioni delle vita" with the title "Metamorphosis". This book is the translation of "Jedem Anfang wohnt ein Zauber inne". Could anybody please help me to find out if the aforesaid book has been translated into english?
Thanks in advance

Lianne

[geke]

I'm an italian student and I'm currently searching a short text of Hermann Hesse in english. The italian version is contained in the book "Le stagioni delle vita" with the title "Metamorphosis". This book is the translation of "Jedem Anfang wohnt ein Zauber inne". Could anybody please help me to find out if the aforesaid book has been translated into english?
Thanks in advance

Lianne

Dear Lianne,
This is a poem that is very dear to me! Your book quotes it from Hesse's "The glass bead game", where it's in the part called "The Legend". In one edition, it's on page 411.

The surrounding text says that Joseph Knecht (the main character of the book) had written this poem in his youth, and that the original title was "Transcend!"

It seems that this is close to autobiographic for Hermann Hesse: An old poem, which he had written after a longer illness (in which he had not been able to write at all) put into his last and -- he hoped -- most complete work, a key to his understanding of life at that point.

In the book, it plays a role in Joseph Knecht's decision to leave Castalia, the university/monastery of supreme human culture, because he has learned everything it can teach him and still has not found fulfilment.

So here it is; enjoy!

Geke
---------------
Stages

As every flower fades and as all youth
Departs, so life at every stage,
So every virtue, so our grasp of truth,
Blooms in its day and may not last forever.
Since life may summon us at every age
Be ready, heart, for parting, new endeavor,
Be ready bravely and without remorse
To find new light that old ties cannot give.
In all beginnings dwells a magic force
For guarding us and helping us to live.

Serenely let us move to distant places
And let no sentiments of home detain us.
The Cosmic Spirit seeks not to restrain us
But lifts us stage by stage to wider spaces.
If we accept a home of our own making,
Familiar habit makes for indolence.
We must prepare for parting and leave-taking
Or else remain the slaves of permanence.

Even the hour of our death may send
Us speeding on to fresh and newer spaces,
And life may summon us to newer races.
So be it, heart: bid farewell without end.

---

[literary lew]

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