Hyperion to Bellarmin
The beloved soil of my fatherland gives me joy and grief once more.
I’m up now every morning on the heights of the Isthmus of Corinth, and often, like the bee from flower to flower, my spirit flits back and forth between the seas to right and left that cool the feet of my glowing mountains.
One of those two gulfs would specially have delighted me, had I stood here some thousand years ago.
Then, like a conquering demi-god between the glorious wilderness of Helicon and Parnassus, where the rosy light of dawn plays on a hundred snow-covered peaks, and the paradisal plain of Sicyon, the shining gulf surged in towards the city of joy, youthful Corinth, pouring forth before its favourite the accumulated bounty from all corners of the earth.
But what is that to me? The howl of the jackal, singing its wild dirge amidst the rubble of antiquity, jolts me from my dreams.
Happy the man for whom a flourishing fatherland gladdens and fortifies the heart! Being reminded of mine is like being pitched into the mire, like having the coffin lid slammed shut over me, and whenever anyone calls me Greek, I always feel I’m being throttled with a dog collar.
And see, my Bellarmin! whenever I’d burst out with such remarks, as often as not with tears of anger in my eyes, along came the wise gentlemen who so delight in gibbering among you Germans, those wretches for whom a grieving disposition is such a welcome opportunity to unload
their maxims; they were in their element, and made so bold to tell me: ‘Don’t moan, act!’ Oh, that I had never acted! how many hopes I’d now be richer by! — Yes, just forget that men exist, starving, vexed and deeply harassed heart! and return whence you came, into the arms of nature, never- changing, beautiful and tranquil.