Der Panther

His vision, from the constantly passing bars,

has grown so weary that it cannot hold anything else.

It seems to him there are a thousand bars;

and behind the bars, no world.

As he paces in cramped circles, over and over,

the movement of his powerful soft strides

is like a ritual dance around a center

in which a mighty will stands paralyzed.

Only at times, the curtain of the pupils lifts, quietly--.

An image enters in,

rushes down through the tensed, arrested muscles,

plunges into the heart and is gone.

Trans. Stephen Mitchell