The Weighty Burden of an Eternal Secret - Schammasch

Over there in a grove surrounded by flowers slumbers the

Hermaphrodite, sound asleep upon sward, drenched with his tears.

The moon’s disc is clear of the cloud mass and

with pale beams she caresses this smooth youthful form.

His features manifest the most manly

vigour coeval with a heavenly virgin’s grace.

Nothing in him apears natura, not even the muscle of his body,

which force their way across the

harmonious contours of feminine forms.

One arm curves over his forehead,

the other hand rests against his breast as if to repress the beat of

a heart closed to all confidences,

and fraught with The Weighty Burden of an Eternal Secret.

Weary of life and ashamed to walk among beings who do not resemble

him, despairhas won his soul and he

wanders alone like a beggar in the alley.

How does he find the wherewithal to exist?

Compassionate souls watch over him closely,

without his suspecting such

surveillance, and do not abandon him: he is so good…

so resigned.

Sometimes he talks readily to those os sensitive disposition,

without touching their hands,

and standing his distance for fear of an imagined danger.

If asked why he has taken solitude for companion,

he raises his eyes heavenward and has difficulty holding back a tear

of reproach against providence,

but he does not answer this imprudent question,

which sheds upon his snowy eyelids the blush of a morning rose