That region’s overall inclination ought to be termed a clearing: a clearing in which the heavenly ones incline towards Earth’s mortals in a manner both foreign and generous, and where those on earth incline to the heavenly by way of gratitude and cultivation. To a region of such inclination belongs, by way of giving and receiving of measure – thus, poetically – that the heavenly and mortals each dwell in their own way and alongside one another.
Still, isn’t all of this a mere dream, the creation of an arbitrary imagination that is lacking all reality, any prospects of possible realization, every claim to validity and obligation?
A single casual glance upon the state of the world today may suffice to compel us towards these questions. Yet here we overlook too easily that Hölderlin himself became cognizant of what poetry demanded and of its hazards along his path – more cognizant than we ever could become today, reflecting on his thought.
The closing stanza of the hymn “The Journey” expresses this as follows (Hellingrath IV, 171; Stuttgart Edition II, 141):
Heaven’s servants
Are ever so wonderful,
Just as all of God’s children.
Through a dream it comes to him who wants just once
To steal from heaven, yet there is retribution for those that
Through forceful means want to be equal to it;
Often it is a surprise to the one
To whom it has hardly ever come to mind before6
And thus it remains premature, even on Hölderlin’s own behalf, to point to, let alone announce as having been uttered with any commitment, the saying “poetically man dwells on this earth”. If we were to mention “poetic dwelling,” the most we could reach by way of assertion at this point is: Man today dwells on this Earth, but not poetically.
6. For comparison of “Die Wanderung” see Friedrich Hölderlin, Friedrich Hölderlin: Hymns and Fragments, trans. Richard Sieburth (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), 66-67; Friedrich Hölderlin, Hölderlin: His Poems, trans. Michael Hamburger (London: The Harvill Press, 1952), 188-189; and Hölderlin, Friedrich Hölderlin: Poems and Fragments, 398-399.