Der Panther [English translation]

The Panther

His gaze has from the passing by of bars

become so numb that it holds nothing more.

He feels as if there were a thousand bars

and beyond those thousand bars no world.

The sinuous gait of strong and supple strides

that turns the tightest, ever smallest round

is like a dance of strength around a centre

in which benumbed a greater will is bound.

Just sometimes quietly his pupils' veil

slides open. - Then a view can enter,

goes through the flexing silence of his limbs –

and ceases, deep inside his heart, to be.