The organization of this volume is chronological (from 1918 to 1955) but with some slight shifts now and then for variety of tone, and also with groupings of poems addressed to or concerned with particular women. Brecht’s love poems, so various in form, voice, register, feeling, and argument, belong entirely in the whole oeuvre to which they here give access.

—DAVID CONSTANTINE
and TOM KUHN

BERTOLT BRECHT

LOVE POEMS

BAAL’S SONG

If I find a well-stacked woman, then I take her in the hay,

Lift her skirts and let the breeze in, in the sun—for that’s my way.

If she bites me in flagrante, then I wipe her down with hay,

Mouth and teeth and crotch, gallantly: nice and clean—for that’s my way.

If the wench gets in a fever of excitement at our play,

I salute and laugh and leave her, friendlily—for that’s my way.

O YOU CAN’T KNOW WHAT I SUFFER . . .

O you can’t know what I suffer

When I see a woman who

Sways her yellow silk-clad bottom

Under skies of evening blue.

A BITTER LOVE SONG

Let things be now as they will

She was once very dear to me

So I know this also: once

She must have been very beautiful.

But now I no longer know how she looked then:

One day extinguished what for seven months shone.

HOWEVER THAT MAY BE, THERE WAS A TIME . . .

All the girls, I’ve long since forgotten them

Yet I remember they were once good to kiss

Just of her, only her, my most beloved

Not even this.

SONG OF LOVE

Side by side sat Heider Hei with Tine Tippe in the grass

The bright sun shone on them

And Hei asked Tine, No or yes?

And she laughed at him.

Oh how she laughed at him!

THE YOUTH AND THE MAIDEN

(Chastity ballad in a major key)

Oh they were melting into one!

He was feeling: she is mine.

And the darkness egged them on.

She was feeling: we’re alone.

And he kissed her forehead for

She was not a bad girl nor

Did she want to cross that line.

Oh their hands’ delicious playing!

Oh her heart went clippety-clop!

He is praying, she is praying

That he’ll stir her courage up.

And she kissed his forehead for

She was not a bad girl nor

Knew what point or if to stop . . .

So as not to desecrate her

Now he visited a whore

Learned the festivals of Nature

And the art of spewing there.

Dipping in her body he

Washed away unchastity

Swore himself chaste ever more.

She however to put out

The guiltless fire he had lit

Attached herself to one without

Scruple who was fit for it.

He was rough, he laid her out

On the stairs, hard. And yet

Oh the grip of him was bliss!

She was not a nun and this

Stirred in her the taste for it.