Thinking of a Friend At Night - Hermann Hesse

• In this evil year, autumn comes early...
• I walk by night in the field, alone, the rain clatters,
• The wind on my hat...And you? And you, my friend?
•  
• You are standing—maybe—and seeing the sickle moon
• Move in a small arc over the forests
• And bivouac fire, red in the black valley.
• You are lying—maybe—in a straw field and sleeping
• And dew falls cold on your forehead and battle jacket.
•  
• It's possible tonight you're on horseback,
• The farthest outpost, peering along, with a gun in your fist,
• Smiling, whispering, to your exhausted horse.
• Maybe—I keep imagining—you are spending the night
• As a guest in a strange castle with a park
• And writing a letter by candlelight, and tapping
• On the piano keys by the window,
• Groping for a sound...
•  
• —And maybe
• You are already silent, already dead, and the day
• Will shine no longer into your beloved
• Serious eyes, and your beloved brown hand hangs wilted,
• And your white forehead split open—Oh, if only,
• If only, just once, that last day, I had shown you, told you
• Something of my love, that was too timid to speak!
•  
• But you know me, you know...and, smiling, you nod
• Tonight in front of your strange castle,
• And you nod to your horse in the drenched forest,
• And you nod to your sleep to your harsh clutter of straw,
• And think about me, and smile.
• And maybe,
• Maybe some day you will come back from the war,
• and take a walk with me some evening,
• And somebody will talk about Longwy, Luttich, Dammerkirch,
• And smile gravely, and everything will be as before,
• And no one will speak a word of his worry,
• Of his worry and tenderness by night in the field,
• Of his love. And with a single joke
• You will frighten away the worry, the war, the uneasy nights,
• The summer lightning of shy human friendship,
• Into the cool past that will never come back. 

HERMANN HESSE

In a translation by James Wright.