Weltschmerz

Leaf 127 – Art Inspired

 

John William Waterhouse - Miranda, The Tempest (1916)

Weltschmerz (German, noun), literal meaning: ‘world-pain’; denoting a feeling of melancholy or world-weariness; a literary term associated with Romanticism, reflecting a deep sadness arising from the realisation that lived reality can never satisfy the expectations of the mind.

 

There is a lot about the current times in which we live that I find utterly unfathomable. I came of age around the time when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. I still cherish the optimism which was born out of that “wind of change” which quickly transformed Europe. Evidently, such idealism has proved too difficult to sustain. Long since supplanted by political corruption and self-interest. But somehow, I continue to nurture those high hopes for a better and more harmonious future; despite the all too disappointingly parochial and increasingly polarised global trends toward the opposite. We now live in an era of witless farce and tragedy which saddens me to my core. Hence, this poem – reflecting upon these tempestuous times:

 

 

WELTSCHMERZ

 

Waiting, waiting for this tide

to turn; so our ailing ship

can right its keel again.

 

Looking, looking for landfall

on Caliban’s coast –

searching for Prospero.

 

Nursing a deep bitterness

for books unread, and spells

cast, but insubstantial:

 

Who will brew hellebore

– and help to heal

this unending madness?