Poetry Explorer


Classic and Contemporary Poetry


CARAVAN OF LONGING by IWAN GOLL

First Line: OUR FAR-STRETCHING CARAVAN OF LONGING
Last Line: TO OVERWHELM US, WE WOULD CRY WITH MORE TERRIBLE THIRST!
Subject(s): LONGING;

Our far-stretching caravan of longing
Never finds an oasis of nymphs and shadows!
Love singes us, birds of anguish
Bite forever, tearing our hearts out.
Ah, we know of cool winds and waters:
Everywhere might Elysium be!
But we wander, we wander ever in longing!
Somewhere a man leaps from a window
To snatch a star, and perishes for it,
Someone searches in the panopticon
For his waxen dream and loves it—
But each parching heart is a Land of Fire.
Ah, were the floods of Nile and Niagara
To overwhelm us, we would cry with more terrible thirst!



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