The Young Hebbel

in a soft shapely hand.

I beat my head against the marble

to knock it into shape,

my hands work for a living.

I am still a long way from myself,

but I want to become Me!

There is someone deep in my blood

who cries out for homemade

Olympuses and worlds for humans.

My mother is such a poor wretch,

you’d laugh if you saw her,

we live in a tight annex,

built onto the end of the village.

My youth is like a scab:

under it there is a wound

that every day leaks blood.

It disfigures me.

I don’t need sleep,

food just enough to keep from starving.

An implacable struggle

and the world bristling with sword points.

Each one hungers for my heart.

Each one, I, unarmed,

must melt in my blood.