translated from the German by Samantha Rose Hill and Genese Grill
I am only one
of those things,
the low one
that won
out of ardor.
Enclose me in your hands,
as they shake
to excess
to bring you success
when you’re anxious.*
*Arendt wrote this poem in her notebook and transcribed it on the same page as the previous poem [“Drive Through France”] when she returned to New York. The only modification from the notebook is the lowering of capital letters at the beginning of each line.
Mit einem Ding
Bin nur eines
von den Dingen,
den geringen,
das gelang
aus Überschwang.
Schliesse mich in Deine Hände,
dass sie schwingend
überschwingen
ins Gelingen,
wenn Dir bang ist.
“Reprinted from What Remains: The Collected Poems of Hannah Arendt by Hannah Arendt, translated by Samantha Rose Hill with Genese Grill. Copyright © 2025 by The Hannah Arendt Estate, Samantha Hill, and Genese Grill. Used with permission of the publisher, Liveright Publishing Corporation, a division of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. Hannah Arendt, Ich selbst, auch ich tanze. The poems. Piper Verlag GmbH, Munich/Berlin 2015. All rights reserved.”
Hannah Arendt, a philosopher, political scientist, and poet, was born on October 14, 1906, in Hanover, Germany. She was the only child of Paul Arendt, an engineer who died when she was seven, and Martha (née Cohn). Arendt studied philosophy at the University of Marburg, where she began a relationship with Martin Heidegger, who had been one of her instructors.