Poem about Longing for Home. Poetry on Longing, Heart Ache, Longing Home.
Longing for leaving, for far distant shores.
And longing to return, longing for home.
Gedichte
Die Sehnsucht
English: Longing, Yearning, Aching
Gedanken wie sie kommen
Gedanken -
Paradies
Schwermütige Gedanken
Danke
Gerda Schieder, daughter -
for collecting her father's works
Thomas Übeleis, close friend -
for preparing the works
so they can be put on the web
Most, the thanks are for caring,
which has meant giving
Erwin's works the time and effort
needed so they could have a place
in the world.
This is a group effort, with each
doing what we are most able
to do, including me, Elsa,
at the end creating these pages.
Longing to leave, longing to return ...
Longing, Yearning, Aching
Longing – longing for riches,
For love and for luck.
Longing for leaving, for far distant shores.
And longing to return, longing for home.
Longing, so powerful,
You trouble me so.
Yet longing, so strong,
You may have luck in tow.
You come. No one's called you.
You come from the soul.
You open and close
The doors of the heart, of the soul.
You're heavy. You weigh on the soul -
So heavy a weight.
Yet when you leave,
I feel … so empty, not light.
Oh longing, you can't be understood,
Not by reason, by thought. There's no reasonable why.
That's why sometimes one longs -
So full of longing - to perish, to give up and die.
For another version, click here.
Erwin Schieder
Translation - Elsa Schieder - October 2009
translation copyright, Elsa Schieder, 2009, all rights reserved
Publishing House - FlufferDuff Impressions, 2009
To go to more of my father's poetry on longing for home,
DU UND DEINE HEIMAT,
click here.
To go to another exploration of the longing for home,
FATHER AND DAUGHTER STORIES,
click here.
Longing - longing for riches,
for love and for luck.
Longing for leaving, for far distant shores.
And longing, the deepest longing, for home.
Longing, so powerful,
you trouble me so.
Longing, so strong,
you may have luck in tow.
You come. No one's called you.
You come from the soul.
You open and close
the doors of the heart, of the soul.
You're heavy. You weigh on the soul -
so heavy a weight.
Yet when you leave,
I feel … so empty, not light.
Oh longing, you can't be understood,
not by reason, by thought.
That's why sometimes one longs -
so full of longing - to perish, to give up and die.
Erwin Schieder
Transation - Elsa Schieder - October 2009
translation copyright, Elsa Schieder, 2009, all rights reserved
Publishing House - FlufferDuff Impressions, 2009
Translator's note:
Quite a headache, translating Sehnsucht - such a common word in German, with thousands
of searches for poems about Sehnsucht every month. As for English, the word longing
is probably closest - but so empty compared to the evocative Sehnsucht. And then
there is yearing - maybe a bit stronger, but even less sought after. As for ache and aching,
one comes to head aches, and aching wrist, knees ahd shoulders. It's a headache,
translating Sehnsucht. Even the word Sehnsucht evokes feeling,
a deep aching yearning longing, feelings of longing. I kept longing for such a word in English.
Poem about Longing for Home. Poetry on Longing, Heart Ache, Longing Home.
Longing for leaving, for far distant shores.
And longing to return, longing for home.
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