Steps

Hermann Hesse

As every blossom wilts
and all youth gives way to old age,
so every stage of life, each wisdom and also every virtue
blooms in its day and must not last forever.
At each call of life the heart must be prepared to leave
and for a new beginning,
to be willing to give in to new bonds
with courage and without grief.
And magic dwells in each beginning,
that protects us and helps us to live.

Cheerfully we shall pace area by area,
should not cling to any as a home,
the world of spirit will not bind and tie us
but raise us higher, step by step.
Scarcely we have homely settled down in one sphere of life
then apathy threatens.
Only someone who is prepared to leave and travel,
may deprive themselves of crippling habit.

Maybe even the hour of death will send us out youthful
towards undreamed lands,
the call of life to us will never end.
Now then my heart, say farewell and recover!