Preliminary drafts: Scenes not included in the drama

THE GUARDIAN OF THE THRESHOLD: If your heart can decide, To cross this threshold, Then let it be so. But know that in this realm you will find What the fruits of your life will help you achieve. You do not know The powers that allowed these fruits to ripen. I cannot reveal them to you. For my spirit can never see What the princes of the world plant in human hearts. I never desired to see In this prince's ominous workshop. But I see in your being, Into which my gaze can penetrate, What of your life's content Must fall away like dry leaves from trees, If you want to enter the realm, Of which I am appointed guardian. I look into your soul, How it wants to preserve its self. Here this self will disappear into nothingness, And you may only be a member In the life of a higher being. In earthly life you cherished The saying that promises miraculous power, Know thyself. Here live only beings Who serve other selves And act from other thoughts. I recognize your self only as a being That I must crush When it approaches my being. And you have learned Through many earthly lives To direct your gaze Into realms that meet the gaze With their glistening light of revelation. It is my duty to walk in misty haze Everything you could ever see, And only backwards may Your soul look Into the root powers of its being. There were never times When spirits like me saw differently. Whatever you ever thought beautiful and great, You must abandon it. This sword of flame Must, upon your entry, Erase from your memory That from which you often drank joy, In which you revelled in bliss. And what will seem hardest to you: There will be no change in events That will satisfy your soul's desire. The unchanging existence of eternity Will, stripped of birth and death, Always stand before your eyes in the same way.