from In Lovely Blue

written by


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Like the stamen inside a flower 
The steeple stands in lovely blue 
And the day unfolds around its needle; 

The flock of swallows that circles the steeple 
Flies there each day through the same blue air 
That carries their cries from me to you; 

We know how high the sun is now 
As long as the roof of the steeple glows, 
The roof that’s covered with sheets of tin; 

Up there in the wind, where the wind is not 
Turning the vane of the weathercock, 
The weathercock silently crows in the wind. 

© Friedrich Hölderlin