Slowly the stones begin moving and speaking
The grasses freeze to green metal. The woods,
Deep dense hideouts, devour distant platoons.
The heavens, the chalk-white mystery, threaten to burst.
Two colossal hours roll out to two minutes.
The empty horizon expands upwards
My heart is as large as Germany and France together,
Bored through by all the bullets of the world.
The battery raises its lion voice
Six times out into the land. The shells howl.
Stillness. In the distance the infantry fire seethes,
For days, for weeks.
From: Aufforderung, first published 1917
(Translated from the German by Penelope Monkhouse)
“Battle on the Marne” by Wilhelm Klemm describes the scene in Sept. 1914; also a realistic depiction with apocalyptic traits. The freezing of the grass to “green metal” is a way of expressing the mass loss of life. Even nature has demon-like features. In the second part of the poem, Klemm identifies with both countries – all suffer under the firing and shelling of the one huge lion of war.