VALUS

A few glimpses of what might have been... a radiant Marilyn trying her best to deal with an uncooperative co-star...Tippy the Dog ... in her last bits of film for the unfinished "Something's Got To Give" (1962)

In my boyhood days Often a god would save me From the shouts and from the rods of men; Safe and good then I played With the orchard flowers And the breezes of heaven Played with me. And as you make glad The hearts of the plants When toward you they stretch Their delicate arms, So you made glad my heart, Father Helios, and like Endymion I was your darling, Holy Luna. O all you loyal, Kindly gods! Would that you knew how My soul loved you then. True, at that time I did not Evoke you by name yet, and you Never named me, as men use names, As though they knew one another. Yet I knew you better Than ever I have known men, I understood the silence of Aether, But human words I've never understood. I was reared by the euphony Of the rustling copse And learned to love Amid the flowers. I grew up in the arms of the gods. ———————————— And from the wood comes the stag now, from clouds comes the daylight,/ Up in a sky that is clear now hangs the hawk and looks round./ But in the valley below where the flowers are nourished by well-springs,/ Look, the small village spreads out among meadows, relaxed./ Quiet, it’s here. From afar comes the noise of the mill-wheels revolving,/ But the day’s decline church bells convey to my ear./ Pleasantly clangs the hammered scythe and the voice of the farmer/ Who, going home with his bull, likes to command and to curb,/ Pleasant the mother’s song as she sits in the grass with her infant;/ Sated with seeing he sleeps; clouds, though, are tinged now with red,/ and by the glistening lake where the orchard extends its full branches/ over the open yard gate, window-panes glitter with gold,/ There I’m received by the house and the garden’s secretive half-light,/ Where together with plants fondly my father reared me;/ Where as free as the winged ones I played in the boughs’ airy greenness/ Or from the orchard’s crest gazed into spaces all blue./ Loyal you were, and loyal remain to the fugitive even,/ Kindly as ever you were, heaven of home, take me back. ———————————— Menon's Lament for Diotima ((The First Four Parts)) 1 Daily I search, now here, now there my wandering takes me Countless times I have probed every highway and path; Coolness I seek on those hilltops, all the shades I revisit, Then the wellsprings again; up my mind roves and down Begging for rest; so a wounded deer will flee to the forests Where he used to lie low, safe in the dark towards noon; Yet his green lair no longer now can refresh him or soothe him, Crying and sleepless he roams, cruelly pricked by the thorn, Neither the warmth of the daylight nor the cool darkness of night helps, In the river's waves too vainly he washes his wounds. And as vainly to him now Earth offers herbs that might heal them, Cheer him, and none of the winds quiets his feverish blood, So, beloved ones, it seems, with me it is too, and can no one Lift this dead weight from my brow, break the all-saddening dream? 2 And indeed, gods of death, when once you have utterly caught him Seized and fettered the man, so that he cringes, subdued, When you evil ones down into horrible night have conveyed him Useless it is to implore, then to be angry with you, Useless even to bear that grim coercion with patience, Smiling to hear you each day chant him the sobering song. If you must, then forget your welfare and drowse away tuneless! Yet in your heart even now, hoping, a sound rises up, Still, my soul, even now you cling to your habit of music Will not give in yet, and dream deep in the lead of dull sleep! Cause I have none to be festive, but long to put on a green garland; Am I not quite alone? Yet something kind now must be Close to me from afar, so that I smile as I wonder How in the midst of my grief I can feel happy and blessed. 3 Golden light of love, for dead men, for shades, do you shine then? Radiant visions recalled, even this night, then, you pierce? Pleasant gardens, and mountains tinged with crimson at sunset, Welcome I call you, and you, murmurless path of the grove, Witness to heavenly joy, and stars more loftily gazing, Who so freely would grant looks that were blessings to me! And you lovers, you too, the May-day's beautiful children, Quiet roses, and you, lilies, I often invoke! Springs, it is true, go by, one year still supplanting the other, Changing and warring, so Time over us mortal men's heads Rushes past up above, but not in the eyes of the blessed ones, Nor of lovers, to whom different life is vouchsafed. For all these, all the days and years of the heavenly planets, Diotima, round us closely, forever conjoined; 4 Meanwhile we — like the mated swans in their summer contentment When by the lake they rest or on the waves, lightly rocked, Down they look, at the water, and silvery clouds through that mirror Drift, and ethereal blue flows where the voyagers pass -- Moved and dwelled on this earth. And though the North Wind was threatening Hostile to lovers, he, gathering sorrows, and down Came dead leaves from the boughs, and rain filled the spluttering storm-gusts Calmly we smiled, aware, sure of the tutelar god Present in talk only ours, one song that our two souls were singing, Wholly at peace with ourselves, childishly, raptly alone. Desolate now is my house, and not only her they have taken, No, but my own two eyes, myself I have lost, losing her. That is why, astray, like wandering phantoms I live now Must live, I fear, and the rest long has seemed senseless to me... ———————————— Bread and Wine ((parts 6 and 7)) Now in earnest he means to honour the gods who have blessed him, Now in truth and in deed all must re-echo their praise. Nothing must see the light but what to those high ones is pleasing, Idle and bungled work never for Aether was fit. So, to be worthy and stand unashamed in the heavenly presence, Nations rise up and soon, gloriously ordered, compete One with the other in building beautiful temples and cities, Noble and firm they tower high above river and sea — Only, where are they? Where thrive those famed ones, the festival’s garlands? Athens is withered, and Thebes; now do no weapons ring out In Olympia, nor now those chariots, all golden, in games there, And no longer are wreaths hung on Corinthian ships? Why are they silent too, the theatres, ancient and hallowed? Why not now does the dance celebrate, consecrate joy? Why no more does a god imprint on the brow of a mortal Struck, as by lightning, the mark, brand him, as once he would do? Else he would come himself, assuming a shape that was human, And, consoling the guests, crowned and concluded the feast. But, my friend, we have come too late. Though the gods are living, Over our heads they live, up in a different world. Endlessly there they act and, such is their kind wish to spare us, Little they seem to care whether we live or do not. For not always a frail, a delicate vessel can hold them, Only at times can our kind bear the full impact of gods. Ever after our life is dream about them. But frenzy, Wandering, helps, like sleep; Night and distress make us strong Till in that cradle of steel heroes enough have been fostered, Hearts in strength can match heavenly strength as before. Thundering then they come. But meanwhile too often I think it’s Better to sleep than to be friendless as we are, alone, Always waiting, and what to do or to say in the meantime I don’t know, and who wants poets at all in lean years? But they are, you say, like those holy ones, priests of the wine-god Who in holy Night roamed from one place to the next. ~ FRIEDRICH HÖLDERLIN