Béguinage

The high gate seems to keep no one inside,

the bridge goes just as gladly there and back,

and yet for certain all of them remain in the old

open elm court, and go out no more

from their houses, except along that strip

toward the church, the better to grasp

why there was so much love within them.

so alike, as though only the image of one

a thousandfold in the chorale, which deep and clear

turns to mirrors on the scattered pillars;

and their voices climb the ever steeper

song upward, and from there fling themselves,

where it goes no further, from the last word,

toward the angels, who do not give them back.

and turn, are silent. And so they pass, in silence,

with a bow, the ones who show, showing to

the receivers, holy water, which

cools the brows and turns the mouths pale.

across that strip once more—

the young ones calm, uncertain the old,

and one ancient woman, lingering, behind—

to their houses, which quickly hush them away

and which, through the elms, from time

to time, a little pure solitude,

shimmering in a small pane, reveal.

the church window, into the court within,

in which silence, sheen and counter-sheen

mingle, drink, dim, and overdo each other,

aging fantastically, like an old wine?

outerness upon innerness, and eternity

upon ever-passing-on, expanse over expanse,

going blind, dark, unused, leaded over.

There remains, beneath the wavering décor

of the summer day, the grey of old winters:

as though there stood, motionless, a gentle-minded,

long-suffering, long-waiting one behind it,

and a weeping waiting woman before it.