Stages

As each fine flower wilts and each young person
Becomes an old one, so each stage of life blooms,
And every wisdom blooms and every virtue,
In its own day and cannot last forever.
At each of life’s calls the heart must be ready
For a departure and a new beginning,
Surrendering itself courageously and 

Without mourning into new relationships.

And every beginning contains a magic,

To protect and help us to go on living.

We should stride cheerfully through place after place,

Not clinging to any of them as our home,

Great Spirit would not have us chained and narrowed,

But stage after stage would raise and broaden us.

When we become settled in a sphere of life,

Cosily familiar, threatened with slackness,

We must prepare for leaving and a journey,

Or else get entangled in deadening habits.

It’s possible that even the hour of death

Sends us more youthfully towards new spaces,

Life’s call to us will never reach an ending ...

So, heart, take your leave now and regain your health!  

Stufen

Hermann Hesse, 4 May 1941