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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Rampolli, by George MacDonald
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Rampolli
+
+Author: George MacDonald
+
+
+Release Date: September, 2005 [EBook #8949]
+This file was first posted on August 29, 2003
+Last Updated: October 9, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RAMPOLLI ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Charles Bidwell and Distributed
+Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+RAMPOLLI
+
+By George Macdonald
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+  PREFACE TO THE TRANSLATIONS
+
+  TRANSLATIONS--
+    FROM NOVALIS
+     “   SCHILLER
+     “   GOETHE
+     “   UHLAND
+     “   HEINE
+     “   VON SALIS-SEEWIS
+     “   CLAUDIUS
+    FROM THE DUTCH OF GENESTET
+    FROM THE GERMAN--_Author to me unkown_
+    FROM PETRARCH
+    MILTON’S ITALIAN POEMS
+    LUTHER’S SONG-BOOK
+
+  A YEAR’S DIARY OF AN OLD SOUL
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE TO THE TRANSLATIONS.
+
+
+I think every man who can should help his people to inherit the earth by
+bringing into his own of the wealth of other tongues. In the flower-pots
+of translation I offer these few exotics, with no little labour taught to
+exist, I hope to breathe, in English air. Such labour is to me no less
+serious than delightful, for to do a man’s work, in the process of
+carrying over, more injury than must be, is a serious wrong.
+
+I have endeavoured, first of all, to give the spirit of the poetry.
+
+Next, I have sought to retain each individual meaning that goes to form
+the matter of a poem.
+
+Third, I have aimed at preserving the peculiar mode, the aroma of the
+poet’s style, so far as I could do it without offence to the translating
+English.
+
+Fourth, both rhythm and rime being essential elements of every poem in
+which they are used, I have sought to respect them rigorously.
+
+Fifth, spirit, matter, and form truly represented, the more literal the
+translation the more satisfactory will be the result.
+
+After all, translation is but a continuous effort after the impossible.
+There is in it a general difficulty whose root has a thousand
+ramifications, the whole affair being but an accommodation of
+difficulties, and a perfect translation from one language into another is
+a thing that cannot be effected. One is tempted even to say that in the
+whole range of speech there is no such thing as a synonym.
+
+Much difficulty arises from the comparative paucity in English of double,
+or feminine rimes. But I can remember only one case in which, yielding to
+impossibility, I have sacrificed the feminine rime: where one thing or
+another must go, the less valuable must be the victom.
+
+But sometimes a whole passage has had to suffer that a specially poetic
+line might retain its character.
+
+With regard to the _Hymns to the Night_ and the _Spiritual Songs_ of
+Friedrich von Hardenberg, commonly called Novalis, it is desirable to
+mention that they were written when the shadow of the death of his
+betrothed had begun to thin before the approaching dawn of his own new
+life. He died in 1801, at the age of twentynine. His parents belonged to
+the sect called Moravians, but he had become a Roman Catholic.
+
+Perhaps some of Luther’s Songs might as well have been omitted, but they
+are all translated that the Songbook might be a whole. Some, I cannot tell
+how many or which, are from the Latin. His work is rugged, and where an
+occasional fault in rime occurs I have reproduced it.
+
+In the few poems from the Italian, I have found the representation of the
+feminine rimes, so frequent in that language, an impossibility.
+
+
+
+
+FROM NOVALIS.
+
+HYMNS TO THE NIGHT
+
+SPIRITUAL SONGS
+
+A PARABLE (From THE DISCIPLES AT SAIS)
+
+
+
+
+HYMNS TO THE NIGHT.
+
+I.
+
+Before all the wondrous shows of the widespread space around him, what
+living, sentient thing loves not the all-joyous light, with its colours,
+its rays and undulations, its gentle omnipresence in the form of the
+wakening Day? The giant world of the unresting constellations inhales it
+as the innermost soul of life, and floats dancing in its azure flood; the
+sparkling, ever-tranquil stone, the thoughtful, imbibing plant, and the
+wild, burning, multiform beast-world inhales it; but more than all, the
+lordly stranger with the meaning eyes, the swaying walk, and the sweetly
+closed, melodious lips. Like a king over earthly nature, it rouses every
+force to countless transformations, binds and unbinds innumerable
+alliances, hangs its heavenly form around every earthly substance. Its
+presence alone reveals the marvellous splendour of the kingdoms of the
+world.
+
+Aside I turn to the holy, unspeakable, mysterious Night. Afar lies the
+world, sunk in a deep grave; waste and lonely is its place. In the chords
+of the bosom blows a deep sadness. I am ready to sink away in drops of
+dew, and mingle with the ashes.--The distances of memory, the wishes of
+youth, the dreams of childhood, the brief joys and vain hopes of a whole
+long life, arise in gray garments, like an evening vapour after the
+sunset. In other regions the light has pitched its joyous tents: what if
+it should never return to its children, who wait for it with the faith of
+innocence?
+
+What springs up all at once so sweetly boding in my heart, and stills the
+soft air of sadness? Dost thou also take a pleasure in us, dusky Night?
+What holdest thou under thy mantle, that with hidden power affects my
+soul? Precious balm drips from thy hand out of its bundle of poppies. Thou
+upliftest the heavy-laden pinions of the soul. Darkly and inexpressibly
+are we moved: joy-startled, I see a grave countenance that, tender and
+worshipful, inclines toward me, and, amid manifold entangled locks,
+reveals the youthful loveliness of the Mother. How poor and childish a
+thing seems to me now the light! how joyous and welcome the departure of
+the day!--Didst thou not only therefore, because the Night turns away from
+thee thy servants, strew in the gulfs of space those flashing globes, to
+proclaim, in seasons of thy absence, thy omnipotence, and thy return?
+
+More heavenly than those glittering stars we hold the eternal eyes which
+the Night hath opened within us. Farther they see than the palest of those
+countless hosts. Needing no aid from the light, they penetrate the depths
+of a loving soul that fills a loftier region with bliss ineffable. Glory
+to the queen of the world, to the great prophetess of holier worlds, to
+the foster-mother of blissful love! she sends thee to me, thou tenderly
+beloved, the gracious sun of the Night. Now am I awake, for now am I thine
+and mine. Thou hast made me know the Night, and brought her to me to be my
+life; thou hast made of me a man. Consume my body with the ardour of my
+soul, that I, turned to finer air, may mingle more closely with thee, and
+then our bridal night endure for ever.
+
+
+II.
+
+Must the morning always return? Will the despotism of the earthly never
+cease? Unholy activity consumes the angel-visit of the Night. Will the
+time never come when Love’s hidden sacrifice shall burn eternally? To the
+Light a season was set; but everlasting and boundless is the dominion of
+the Night. Endless is the duration of sleep. Holy Sleep, gladden not too
+seldom in this earthly day-labour, the devoted servant of the Night. Fools
+alone mistake thee, knowing nought of sleep but the shadow which, in the
+gloaming of the real night, thou pitifully castest over us. They feel thee
+not in the golden flood of the grapes, in the magic oil of the almond
+tree, and the brown juice of the poppy. They know not that it is thou who
+hauntest the bosom of the tender maiden, and makest a heaven of her lap;
+never suspect it is thou, the portress of heaven, that steppest to meet
+them out of ancient stories, bearing the key to the dwellings of the
+blessed, silent messenger of secrets infinite.
+
+
+III.
+
+Once when I was shedding bitter tears, when, dissolved in pain, my hope
+was melting away, and I stood alone by the barren hillock which in its
+narrow dark bosom hid the vanished form of my Life, lonely as never yet
+was lonely man, driven by anguish unspeakable, powerless, and no longer
+aught but a conscious misery;--as there I looked about me for help, unable
+to go on or to turn back, and clung to the fleeting, extinguished life
+with an endless longing: then, out of the blue distances, from the hills
+of my ancient bliss, came a shiver of twilight, and at once snapped the
+bond of birth, the fetter of the Light. Away fled the glory of the world,
+and with it my mourning; the sadness flowed together into a new,
+unfathomable world. Thou, soul of the Night, heavenly Slumber, didst come
+upon me; the region gently upheaved itself, and over it hovered my
+unbound, new-born spirit. The hillock became a cloud of dust, and through
+the cloud I saw the glorified face of my beloved. In her eyes eternity
+reposed. I laid hold of her hands, and the tears became a sparkling chain
+that could not be broken. Into the distance swept by, like a tempest,
+thousands of years. On her neck I welcomed the new life with ecstatic
+tears. Never was such another dream; then first and ever since I hold fast
+an eternal, unchangeable faith in the heaven of the Night, and its sun,
+the Beloved.
+
+
+IV.
+
+Now I know when will come the last morning: when the light no more scares
+away the Night and Love, when sleep shall be without waking, and but one
+continuous dream. I feel in me a celestial exhaustion. Long and weariful
+was my pilgrimage to the holy grave, and crushing was the cross. The
+crystal wave, which, imperceptible to the ordinary sense, springs in the
+dark bosom of the hillock against whoose foot breaks the flood of the
+world, he who has tasted it, he who has stood on the mountain frontier of
+the world, and looked across into the new land, into the abode of the
+Night, verily he turns not again into the tumult of the world, into the
+land where dwells the Light in ceaseless unrest.
+
+On those heights he builds for himself tabernacles--tabernacles of peace;
+there longs and loves and gazes across, until the welcomest of all hours
+draws him down into the waters of the spring. Afloat above remains what is
+earthly, and is swept back in storms; but what became holy by the touch of
+Love, runs free through hidden ways to the region beyond, where, like
+odours, it mingles with love asleep. Still wakest thou, cheerful Light,
+the weary man to his labour, and into me pourest gladsome life; but thou
+wilest me not away from Memory’s mossgrown monument. Gladly will I bestir
+the deedy hands, everywhere behold where thou hast need of me; bepraise
+the rich pomp of thy splendour; pursue unwearied the lovely harmonies of
+thy skilled handicraft; gladly contemplate the thoughtful pace of thy
+mighty, radiant clock; explore the balance of the forces and the laws of
+the wondrous play of countless worlds and their seasons; but true to the
+Night remains my secret heart, and to creative Love, her daughter. Canst
+_thou_ show me a heart eternally true? Has thy sun friendly eyes that know
+me? Do thy stars lay hold of my longing hand? Do they return me the tender
+pressure and the caressing word? Was it thou didst bedeck them with
+colours and a flickering outline? Or was it _she_ who gave to thy jewels a
+higher, a dearer significance? What delight, what pleasure offers _thy_
+life, to outweigh the transports of Death? Wears not everything that
+inspirits us the livery of the Night? Thy mother, it is she who brings
+thee forth, and to her thou owest all thy glory. Thou wouldst vanish into
+thyself, thou wouldst dissipate in boundless space, if she did not hold
+thee fast, if she swaddled thee not, so that thou grewest warm, and,
+flaming, gavest birth to the universe. Verily I was before thou wast; the
+mother sent me with my sisters to inhabit thy world, to sanctify it with
+love that it might be an ever present memorial, to plant it with flowers
+unfading. As yet they have not ripened, these thoughts divine; as yet is
+there small trace of our coming apocalypse. One day thy clock will point
+to the end of Time, and then thou shalt be as one of us, and shalt, full
+of ardent longing, be extinguished and die. I feel in me the close of thy
+activity, I taste heavenly freedom, and happy restoration. With wild pangs
+I recognize thy distance from our home, thy feud with the ancient lordly
+Heaven. Thy rage and thy raving are in vain. Inconsumable stands the
+cross, victory-flag of our race.
+
+     Over I pilgrim
+     Where every pain
+     Zest only of pleasure
+     Shall one day remain.
+     Yet a few moments
+     Then free am I,
+     And intoxicated
+     In Love’s lap lie.
+     Life everlasting
+     Lifts, wave-like, at me:
+     I gaze from its summit
+     Down after thee.
+     Oh Sun, thou must vanish
+     Yon hillock beneath;
+     A shadow will bring thee
+     Thy cooling wreath.
+     Oh draw at my heart, love,
+     Draw till I’m gone;
+     That, fallen asleep, I
+     Still may love on!
+     I feel the flow of
+     Death’s youth-giving flood;
+     To balsam and aether, it
+     Changes my blood!
+     I live all the daytime
+     In faith and in might:
+     In holy rapture
+     I die every night.
+
+
+V.
+
+In ancient times an iron Fate lorded it, with dumb force, over the
+widespread families of men. A gloomy oppression swathed their anxious
+souls: the Earth was boundless, the abode of the gods and their home. From
+eternal ages stood its mysterious structure. Beyond the red hills of the
+morning, in the sacred bosom of the sea, dwelt the sun, the
+all-enkindling, live luminary. An aged giant upbore the happy world.
+Prisoned beneath mountains lay the first-born sons of mother Earth,
+helpless in their destroying fury against the new, glorious race of gods,
+and their kindred, glad-hearted men. Ocean’s dusky, green abyss was the
+lap of a goddess. In the crystal grottoes revelled a wanton folk. Rivers,
+trees, flowers, and beasts had human wits. Sweeter tasted the wine, poured
+out by youth impersonated; a god was in the grape-clusters; a loving,
+motherly goddess upgrew in the full golden sheaves; love’s sacred carousal
+was a sweet worship of the fairest of the goddesses. Life revelled through
+the centuries like one spring-time, an ever-variegated festival of the
+children of heaven and the dwellers on the earth. All races childlike
+adored the ethereal, thousandfold flame, as the one sublimest thing in the
+world.
+
+It was but a fancy, a horrible dream-shape--
+
+     That fearsome to the merry tables strode,
+     And wrapt the spirit in wild consternation.
+     The gods themselves here counsel knew nor showed
+     To fill the stifling heart with consolation.
+     Mysterious was the monster’s pathless road,
+     Whoose rage would heed no prayer and no oblation;
+     Twas Death who broke the banquet up with fears,
+     With anguish, with dire pain, and bitter tears.
+
+     Eternally from all things here disparted
+     That sway the heart with pleasure’s joyous flow,
+     Divided from the loved, whom, broken-hearted,
+     Vain longing tosses and unceasing woe--
+     In a dull dream to struggle, faint and thwarted,
+     Smeemed all was granted to the dead below!
+     Broke lay the merry wave of human glory
+     On Death’s inevitable promontory.
+
+     With daring flight, aloft Thought’s pinions sweep;
+     The horrid thing with beauty’s robe men cover:
+     A gentle youth puts out his torch, to sleep;
+     Sweet comes the end, like moaning lute of lover.
+     Cool shadow-floods o’er melting memory creep:
+     So sang the song, for Misery was the mover.
+     Still undeciphered lay the endless Night--
+     The solemn symbol of a far-off Might.
+
+The old world began to decline. The pleasure-garden of the young race
+withered away; up into opener regions and desolate, forsaking his
+childhood, struggled the growing man. The gods vanished with their
+retinue. Nature stood alone and lifeless. Dry Number and rigid Measure
+bound her with iron chains. As into dust and air the priceless blossoms of
+life fell away in words obscure. Gone was wonder-working Faith, and the
+all-transforming, all-uniting angel-comrade, the Imagination. A cold north
+wind blew unkindly over the torpid plain, and the wonderland first froze,
+then evaporated into aether. The far depths of heaven filled with flashing
+worlds. Into the deeper sanctuary, into the more exalted region of the
+mind, the soul of the world retired with all her powers, there to rule
+until the dawn should break of the glory universal. No longer was the
+Light the abode of the gods, and the heavenly token of their presence:
+they cast over them the veil of the Night. The Night became the mighty
+womb of revelations; into it the gods went back, and fell asleep, to go
+abroad in new and more glorious shapes over the transfigured world. Among
+the people which, untimely ripe, was become of all the most scornful and
+insolently hostile to the blessed innocence of youth, appeared the New
+World, in guise never seen before, in the song-favouring hut of poverty, a
+son of the first maid and mother, the eternal fruit of mysterious embrace.
+The forseeing, rich-blossoming wisdom of the East at once recognized the
+beginning of the new age; a star showed it the way to the lowly cradle of
+the king. In the name of the far-reaching future, they did him homage with
+lustre ond odour, the highest wonders of Nature. In solitude the heavenly
+heart unfolded itself to a flower-chalice of almighty love, upturned to
+the supreme face of the father, and resting on the bliss-boding bosom of
+the sweetly solemn mother. With deifying fervour the prophetic eye of the
+blooming child beheld the years to come, foresaw, untroubled over the
+earthly lot of his own days, the beloved offspring of his divine stem. Ere
+long the most childlike souls, by true love marvellously possessed,
+gathered about him. Like flowers sprang up a new strange life in his
+presence. Words inexhaustible and tidings the most joyful fell like sparks
+of a divine spirit from his friendly lips. From a far shore came a singer,
+born under the clear sky of Hellas, to Palestine, and gave up his whole
+heart to the marvellous child:--
+
+     The youth art thou who ages long hast stood
+     Upon our graves, lost in a maze of weening;
+     Sign in the darkness of God’s tidings good,
+     Whence hints of growth humanity is gleaning;
+     For that we long, on that we sweetly brood
+     Which erst in woe had lost all life and meaning;
+     In everlasting life death found its goal,
+     For thou art Death, and thou first mak’st us whole.
+
+Filled with joy, the singer went on to Indostan, his heart intoxicated
+with sweetest love, and poured it out in fiery songs under that tender
+sky, so that a thousand hearts bowed to him, and the good news sprang up
+with a thousand branches. Soon after the singer’s departure, his precious
+life was made a sacrifice for the deep fall of man. He died in his youth,
+torn away from his loved world, from his weeping mother, and his trembling
+friends. His lovely mouth emptied the dark cup of unspeakable wrongs. In
+horrible anguish the birth of the new world drew near. Hard he wrestled
+with the terrors of old Death; heavy lay the weight of the old world upon
+him. Yet once more he looked kindly at his mother; then came the releasing
+hand of the Love eternal, and he fell asleep. Only a few days hung a deep
+veil over the roaring sea, over the quaking land; countless tears wept his
+loved ones; the mystery was unsealed: heavenely spirits heaved the ancient
+stone from the gloomy grave. Angels sat by the sleeper, sweetly outbodied
+from his dreams; awaked in new Godlike glory, he clomb the apex of the
+new-born world, buried with his own hand the old corpse in the forsaken
+cavity, and with hand almighty laid upon it the stone which no power shall
+again upheave.
+
+Yet weep thy loved ones over thy grave tears of joy, tears of emotion,
+tears of endless thanksgiving; ever afresh, with joyous start, see thee
+rise again, and themselves with thee; behold thee weep with soft fervour
+on the blessed bosom of thy mother, walk in thoughtful communion with thy
+friends, uttering words plucked as from the tree of life; see thee hasten,
+full of longing, into thy father’s arms, bearing with thee youthful
+Humanity, and the inexhaustible cup of the golden Future. Soon the mother
+hastened after thee in heavenly triumph; she was the first with thee in
+the new home. Since then, long ages have flowed past, and in splendour
+ever increasing hath bestirred itself thy new creation, and thousands
+have, out of pangs and tortures, followed thee, filled with faith and
+longing and truth, and are walking about with thee and the heavenly virgin
+in the kingdom of Love, minister in the temple of heavenly Death, and are
+for ever thine.
+
+     Uplifted is the stone,
+     And all mankind is risen;
+     We all remain thine own,
+     And vanished is our prison.
+     All troubles flee away
+     Before thy golden cup;
+     For Earth nor Life can stay
+     When with our Lord we sup.
+
+     To the marriage Death doth call;
+     No virgin holdeth back;
+     The lamps burn lustrous all;
+     Of oil there is no lack.
+     Would thy far feet were waking
+     The echoes of our street!
+     And that the stars were making
+     Signal with voices sweet!
+
+     To thee, O mother maiden,
+     Ten thousand hearts aspire;
+     In this life, sorrow-laden,
+     Thee only they desire;
+     In thee they hope for healing;
+     In thee expect true rest,
+     When thou, their safety sealing,
+     Shalt clasp them to thy breast.
+
+     With disappointment burning
+     Who made in hell their bed,
+     At last from this world turning
+     To thee have looked and fled:
+     Helpful thou hast appeared
+     To us in many a pain:
+     Now to thy home we’re neared,
+     Not to go out again!
+
+     Now at no grave are weeping
+     Such as do love and pray;
+     The gift that Love is keeping
+     From none is taken away.
+     To soothe and quiet our longing
+     Night comes, and stills the smart;
+     Heaven’s children round us thronging
+     Now watch and ward our heart.
+
+     Courage! for life is striding
+     To endless life along;
+     The Sense, in love abiding,
+     Grows clearer and more strong.
+     One day the stars, down dripping,
+     Shall flow in golden wine:
+     We, of that nectar sipping,
+     As living stars shall shine!
+
+     Free, from the tomb emerges
+     Love, to die never more;
+     Fulfilled, life heaves and surges
+     A sea without a shore!
+     All night! all blissful leisure!
+     One jubilating ode!
+     And the sun of all our pleasure
+     The countenance of God!
+
+
+VI.
+
+LONGING AFTER DEATH.
+
+     Into the bosom of the earth!
+     Out of the Light’s dominions!
+     Death’s pains are but the bursting forth
+     Of glad Departure’s pinions!
+     Swift in the narrow little boat,
+     Swift to the heavenly shore we float!
+
+     Blest be the everlasting Night,
+     And blest the endless Slumber!
+     We are heated with the day too bright,
+     And withered up with cumber!
+     We’re weary of that life abroad:
+     Come, we will now go home to God!
+
+     Why longer in this world abide?
+     Why love and truth here cherish?
+     That which is old is set aside--For
+     us the new may perish!
+     Alone he stands and sore downcast
+     Who loves with pious warmth the Past.
+
+     The Past where yet the human spirit
+     In lofty flames did rise;
+     Where men the Father did inherit,
+     His countenance recognize;
+     And, in simplicity made ripe,
+     Many grew like their archetype.
+
+     The Past wherin, still rich in bloom,
+     Old stems did burgeon glorious;
+     And children, for the world to come,
+     Sought pain and death victorious;
+     And, though both life and pleasure spake,
+     Yet many a heart for love did break.
+
+     The Past, where to the glow of youth
+     God yet himself declared;
+     And early death, in loving truth
+     The young beheld, and dared--
+     Anguish and torture patient bore
+     To prove they loved him as of yore.
+
+     With anxious yearning now we see
+     That Past in darkness drenched;
+     With this world’s water never we
+     Shall find our hot thirst quenched:
+     To our old home we have to go
+     That blessed time again to know.
+
+     What yet doth hinder our return?
+     Long since repose our precious!
+     Their grave is of our life the bourn;
+     We shrink from times ungracious!
+     By not a hope are we decoyed:
+     The heart is full; the world is void!
+
+     Infinite and mysterious,
+     Thrills through me a sweet trembling,
+     As if from far there echoed thus
+     A sigh, our grief resembling:
+     The dear ones long as well as I,
+     And send to me their waiting sigh.
+
+     Down to the sweet bride, and away
+     To the beloved Jesus!
+     Courage! the evening shades grow gray,
+     Of all our griefs to ease us!
+     A dream will dash our chains apart,
+     And lay us on the Father’s heart.
+
+
+
+    SPIRITUAL SONGS.
+
+I.
+
+     Without thee, what were life or being!
+     Without thee, what had I not grown!
+     From fear and anguish vainly fleeing,
+     I in the world had stood alone;
+     For all I loved could trust no shelter;
+     The future a dim gulf had lain;
+     And when my heart in tears did welter,
+     To whom had I poured out my pain?
+
+     Consumed in love and longing lonely
+     Each day had worn the night’s dull face
+     With hot tears I had followed only
+     Afar life’s wildly rushing race.
+     No rest for me, tumultuous driven!
+     A hopeless sorrow by the hearth!--
+     Who, that had not a friend in heaven,
+     Could to the end hold out on earth?
+
+     But if his heart once Jesus bareth,
+     And I of him right sure can be,
+     How soon a living glory scareth
+     The bottomless obscurity!
+     Manhood in him first man attaineth;
+     His fate in Him transfigured glows;
+     On freezing Iceland India gaineth,
+     And round the loved one blooms and blows.
+
+     Life grows a twilight softly stealing;
+     The world speaks all of love and glee;
+     For every wound grows herb of healing,
+     And every heart beats full and free.
+     I, his ten thousand gifts receiving,
+     Humble like him, his knees embrace;
+     Sure that we share his presence living
+     When two are gathered in one place.
+
+     Forth, forth to all highways and hedges!
+     Compel the wanderers to come in;
+     Stretch out the hand that good will pledges,
+     And gladly call them to their kin.
+     See heaven high over earth up-dawning!
+     In faith we see it rise and spread:
+     To all with us one spirit owning--
+     To them with us ‘tis opened.
+
+     An ancient, heavy guilt-illusion
+     Haunted our hearts, a changeless doom;
+     Blindly we strayed in night’s confusion;
+     Gladness and grief alike consume.
+     Whate’er we did, some law was broken!
+     Mankind appeared God’s enemy;
+     And if we thought the heavens had spoken,
+     They spoke but death and misery.
+
+     The heart, of life the fountain swelling--
+     An evil creature lay therein;
+     If more light shone into our dwelling,
+     More unrest only did we win.
+     Down to the earth an iron fetter
+     Fast held us, trembling captive crew;
+     Fear of Law’s sword, grim Death the whetter,
+     Did swallow up hope’s residue.
+
+     Then came a saviour to deliver--
+     A Son of Man, in love and might!
+     A holy fire, of life all-giver,
+     He in our hearts has fanned alight.
+     Then first heaven opened--and, no fable,
+     Our own old fatherland we trod!
+     To hope and trust we straight were able,
+     And knew ourselves akin to God.
+
+     Then vanished Sin’s old spectre dismal;
+     Our every step grew glad and brave.
+     Best natal gift, in rite baptismal,
+     Their own faith men their children gave.
+     Holy in him, Life since hath floated,
+     A happy dream, through every heart;
+     We, to his love and joy devoted,
+     Scarce know the moment we depart.
+
+     Still standeth, in his wondrous glory,
+     The holy loved one with his own;
+     His crown of thorns, his faithful story
+     Still move our hearts, still make us groan.
+     Whoso from deadly sleep will waken,
+     And grasp his hand of sacrifice,
+     Into his heart with us is taken,
+     To ripen a fruit of Paradise.
+
+
+II.
+
+     Dawn, far eastward, on the mountain!
+     Gray old times are growing young:
+     From the flashing colour-fountain
+     I will quaff it deep and long!--
+     Granted boon to Longing’s long privation!
+     Sweet love in divine transfiguration!
+
+     Comes at last, our old Earth’s native,
+     All-Heaven’s one child, simple, kind!
+     Blows again, in song creative,
+     Round the earth a living wind;
+     Blows to clear new flames that rush together
+     Sparks extinguished long by earthly weather.
+
+     Everywhere, from graves upspringing,
+     Rises new-born life, new blood!
+     Endless peace up to us bringing,
+     Dives he underneath life’s flood;
+     Stands in midst, with full hands, eyes caressing--
+     Hardly waits the prayer to grant the blessing.
+
+     Let his mild looks of invading
+     Deep into thy spirit go;
+     By his blessedness unfading
+     Thou thy heart possessed shalt know.
+     Hearts of all men, spirits all, and senses
+     Mingle, and a new glad dance commences.
+
+     Grasp his hands with boldness yearning;
+     Stamp his face thy heart upon;
+     Turning toward him, ever turning,
+     Thou, the flower, must face thy sun.
+     Who to him his heart’s last fold unfoldeth,
+     True as wife’s his heart for ever holdeth.
+
+     Ours is now that Godhead’s splendour
+     At whose name we used to quake!
+     South and north, its breathings tender
+     Heavenly germs at once awake!
+     Let us then in God’s full garden labour,
+     And to every bud and bloom be neighbour!
+
+
+III.
+
+     Who in his chamber sitteth lonely,
+       And weepeth heavy, bitter tears;
+     To whom in doleful colours, only
+       Of want and woe, the world appears;
+
+     Who of the Past, gulf-like receding,
+       Would search with questing eyes the core,
+     Down into which a sweet woe, pleading,
+       Wiles him from all sides evermore--
+
+     As if a treasure past believing
+       Lay there below, for him high-piled,
+     After whose lock, with bosom heaving,
+       He breathless grasps in longing wild:
+
+     He sees the Future, waste and arid,
+       In hideous length before him stretch;
+     About he roams, alone and harried,
+       And seeks himself, poor restless wretch!--
+
+     I fall upon his bosom, tearful:
+       I once, like thee, with woe was wan;
+     But I grew well, am strong and cheerful,
+       And know the eternal rest of man.
+
+     Thou too must find the one consoler
+       Who inly loved, endured, and died--
+     Even for them that wrought his dolour
+       With thousand-fold rejoicing died.
+
+     He died--and yet, fresh each to-morrow,
+       His love and him thy heart doth hold;
+     Thou mayst, consoled for every sorrow,
+       Him in thy arms with ardour fold.
+
+     New blood shall from his heart be driven
+       Through thy dead bones like living wine;
+     And once thy heart to him is given,
+       Then is his heart for ever thine.
+
+     What thou didst lose, he keeps it for thee;
+       With him thy lost love thou shalt find;
+     And what his hand doth once restore thee,
+       That hand to thee will changeless bind.
+
+
+IV.
+
+     Of the thousand hours me meeting,
+     And with gladsome promise greeting,
+       One alone hath kept its faith--
+     One wherein--ah, sorely grieved!--
+     In my heart I first perceived
+       Who for us did die the death.
+
+     All to dust my world was beaten;
+     As a worm had through them eaten
+       Withered in me bud and flower;
+     All my life had sought or cherished
+     In the grave had sunk and perished;
+       Pain sat in my ruined bower.
+
+     While I thus, in silence sighing,
+     Ever wept, on Death still crying,
+       Still to sad delusions tied,
+     All at once the night was cloven,
+     From my grave the stone was hoven,
+       And my inner doors thrown wide.
+
+     Whom I saw, and who the other,
+     Ask me not, or friend or brother!--
+       Sight seen once, and evermore!
+     Lone in all life’s eves and morrows,
+     This hour only, like my sorrows,
+       Ever shines my eyes before.
+
+
+V.
+
+     If I him but have,[1]
+       If he be but mine,
+     If my heart, hence to the grave,
+       Ne’er forgets his love divine--
+     Know I nought of sadness,
+     Feel I nought but worship, love, and gladness.
+
+     [Footnote 1: Here I found the double or feminine rhyme
+     impossible without the loss of the far more precious
+     simplicity of the original, which could be retained only by
+     a literal translation.]
+
+     If I him but have,
+       Pleased from all I part;
+     Follow, on my pilgrim staff,
+       None but him, with honest heart;
+     Leave the rest, nought saying,
+     On broad, bright, and crowded highways straying.
+
+     If I him but have,
+        Glad to sleep I sink;
+     From his heart the flood he gave
+        Shall to mine be food and drink;
+     And, with sweet compelling,
+     Mine shall soften, deep throughout it welling.
+
+     If I him but have,
+        Mine the world I hail;
+     Happy, like a cherub grave
+        Holding back the Virgin’s veil:
+     I, deep sunk in gazing,
+     Hear no more the Earth or its poor praising.
+
+     Where I have but him
+       Is my fatherland;
+     Every gift a precious gem
+       Come to me from his own hand!
+     Brothers long deplored,
+     Lo, in his disciples, all restored!
+
+
+VI.
+
+     My faith to thee I break not,
+       If all should faithless be,
+     That gratitude forsake not
+       The world eternally.
+     For my sake Death did sting thee
+       With anguish keen and sore;
+     Therefore with joy I bring thee
+       This heart for evermore.
+
+     Oft weep I like a river
+       That thou art dead, and yet
+     So many of thine thee, Giver
+       Of life, life-long forget!
+     By love alone possessed,
+       Such great things thou hast done!
+     But thou art dead, O Blessed,
+       And no one thinks thereon!
+
+     Thou stand’st with love unshaken
+       Ever by every man;
+     And if by all forsaken,
+       Art still the faithful one.
+     Such love must win the wrestle;
+       At last thy love they’ll see,
+     Weep bitterly, and nestle
+       Like children to thy knee.
+
+     Thou with thy love hast found me!
+       O do not let me go!
+     Keep me where thou hast bound me
+       Till one with thee I grow.
+     My brothers yet will waken,
+       One look to heaven will dart--
+     Then sink down, love-o’ertaken,
+       And fall upon thy heart.
+
+
+VII.
+
+HYMN.
+
+     Few understand
+     The mystery of Love,
+     Know insatiableness,
+     And thirst eternal.
+     Of the Last Supper
+     The divine meaning
+     Is to the earthly senses a riddle;
+     But he that ever
+     From warm, beloved lips,
+     Drew breath of life;
+     In whom the holy glow
+     Ever melted the heart in trembling waves;
+     Whose eye ever opened so
+     As to fathom
+     The bottomless deeps of heaven--
+     Will eat of his body
+     And drink of his blood
+     Everlastingly.
+     Who of the earthly body
+     Has divined the lofty sense?
+     Who can say
+     That he understands the blood?
+     One day all is body,
+     _One_ body:
+     In heavenly blood
+     Swims the blissful two.
+
+     Oh that the ocean
+     Were even now flushing!
+     And in odorous flesh
+     The rock were upswelling!
+     Never endeth the sweet repast;
+     Never doth Love satisfy itself;
+     Never close enough, never enough its own,
+     Can it _have_ the beloved!
+     By ever tenderer lips
+     Transformed, the Partaken
+     Goes deeper, grows nearer.
+     Pleasure more ardent
+     Thrills through the soul;
+     Thirstier and hungrier
+     Becomes the heart;
+     And so endureth Love’s delight
+     From everlasting to everlasting.
+     Had the refraining
+     Tasted but once,
+     All had they left
+     To set themselves down with us
+     To the table of longing
+     Which will never be bare;
+     Then had they known Love’s
+     Infinite fullness,
+     And commended the sustenance
+     Of body and blood.
+
+
+VIII.
+
+     Weep I must--my heart runs over:
+     Would he once himself discover--
+       If but once, from far away!
+     Holy sorrow! still prevailing
+     Is my weeping, is my wailing:
+       Would that I were turned to clay!
+
+     Evermore I hear him crying
+     To his Father, see him dying:
+       Will this heart for ever beat!
+     Will my eyes in death close never?
+     Weeping all into a river
+       Were a bliss for me too sweet!
+
+     Hear I none but me bewailing?
+     Dies his name an echo failing?
+       Is the world at once struck dead?
+     Shall I from his eyes, ah! never
+     More drink love and life for ever?
+       Is he now for always dead?
+
+     _Dead?_ What means that sound of dolour?
+     Tell me, tell me thou, a scholar,
+       What it means, that word so grim.
+     He is silent; all turn from me!
+     No one on the earth will show me
+       Where my heart may look for him!
+
+     Earth no more, whate’er befall me,
+     Can to any gladness call me!
+       She is but one dream of woe!
+     I too am with him departed:
+     Would I lay with him, still-hearted,
+       In the region down below!
+
+     Hear, me, hear, his and my father!
+     My dead bones, I pray thee, gather
+       Unto his--and soon, I pray!
+     Grass his hillock soon will cover,
+     Soon the wind will wander over,
+       Soon his form will fade away.
+
+     If his love they once perceived,
+     Soon, soon all men had believed,
+       Letting all things else go by!
+     Lord of love him only owning,
+     All would weep with me bemoaning,
+       And in bitter woe would die!
+
+
+IX.
+
+     He lives! he’s risen from the dead!
+       To every man I shout;
+     His presence over us is spread,
+       Goes with us in and out.
+
+     To each I say it; each apace
+       His comrades telleth too--
+     That straight will dawn in every place
+       The heavenly kingdom new.
+
+     Now, to the new mind, first appears
+       The world a fatherland;
+     A new life men receive, with tears
+       Of rapture, from his hand.
+
+     Down into deepest gulfs of sea
+       Grim Death hath sunk away;
+     And now each man with holy glee,
+       Can face his coming day.
+
+     The darksome road that he hath gone
+       Leads out on heaven’s floor:
+     Who heeds the counsel of the Son
+       Enters the Father’s door.
+
+     Down here weeps no one any more
+       For friend that shuts his eyes;
+     For, soon or late, the parting sore
+       Will change to glad surprise.
+
+     And now to every friendly deed
+       Each heart will warmer glow;
+     For many a fold the fresh-sown seed
+       In lovelier fields will blow.
+
+     He lives--will sit beside our hearths,
+       The greatest with the least;
+     Therefore this day shall be our Earth’s
+       Glad Renovation-feast.
+
+
+X.
+
+     The times are all so wretched!
+       The heart so full of cares!
+     The future, far outstretched,
+       A spectral horror wears.
+
+     Wild terrors creep and hover
+       With foot so ghastly soft!
+     Our souls black midnights cover
+       With mountains piled aloft.
+
+     Firm props like reeds are waving;
+       For trust is left no stay;
+     Our thoughts, like whirlpool raving,
+       No more the will obey!
+
+     Frenzy, with eye resistless,
+       Decoys from Truth’s defence;
+     Life’s pulse is flagging listless,
+       And dull is every sense.
+
+     Who hath the cross upheaved
+       To shelter every soul?
+     Who lives, on high received,
+       To make the wounded whole?
+
+     Go to the tree of wonder;
+       Give silent longing room;
+     Issuing flames asunder
+       Thy bad dream will consume.
+
+     Draws thee an angel tender
+       In saftey to the strand:
+     Lo, at thy feet in splendour
+       Lies spread the Promised Land!
+
+
+XI.
+
+     I know not what were left to draw me,
+       Had I but him who is my bliss;
+     If still his eye with pleasure saw me,
+       And, dwelling with me, me would miss.
+
+     So many search, round all ways going,
+       With face distorted, anxious eye,
+     Who call themselves the wise and knowing,
+       Yet ever pass this treasure by!
+
+     One man believes that he has found it,
+       And what he has is nought but gold;
+     One takes the world by sailing round it:
+       The deed recorded, all is told!
+
+     One man runs well to gain the laurel;
+       Another, in Victory’s fane a niche:
+     By different Shows in bright apparel
+       All are befooled, not one made rich!
+
+     Hath He not then to you appeared?
+       Have ye forgot Him turning wan
+     Whose side for love of us was speared--
+       The scorned, rejected Son of Man?
+
+     Of Him have you not read the story--
+       Heard one poor word upon the wind?
+     What heavenly goodness was his glory,
+       Or what a gift he left behind?
+
+     How he descended from the Father,
+       Of loveliest mother infant grand?
+     What Word the nations from him gather?
+       How many bless his healing hand?
+
+     How, thereto urged by mere love, wholly
+       He gave himself to us away,
+     And down in earth, foundation lowly,
+       First stone of God’s new city, lay?
+
+     Can such news fail to touch us mortals?
+       Is not to know the man pure bliss?
+     Will you not open all your portals
+       To him who closed for you the abyss?
+
+     Will you not let the world go faring?
+       For Him your dearest wish deny?
+     To him alone your heart keep baring,
+       Who you has shown such favour high?
+
+     Hero of love, oh, take me, take me!
+       Thou art my life! my world! my gold!
+     Should every earthly thing forsake me,
+       I know who will me scatheless hold!
+
+     I see Thee my lost loves restoring!
+       True evermore to me thou art!
+     Low at thy feet heaven sinks adoring,
+       And yet thou dwellest in my heart!
+
+
+XII.
+
+     Earth’s Consolation, why so slow?
+     Thy inn is ready long ago;
+     Each lifts to thee his hungering eyes,
+     And open to thy blessing lies.
+
+     O Father, pour him forth with might;
+     Out of thine arms, oh yield him quite!
+     Shyness alone, sweet shame, I know,
+     Kept him from coming long ago!
+
+     Haste him from thine into our arm
+     To take him with thy breath yet warm;
+     Thick clouds around the baby wrap,
+     And let him down into our lap.
+
+     In the cool streams send him to us;
+     In flames let him glow tremulous;
+     In air and oil, in sound and dew,
+     Let him pierce all Earth’s structure through.
+
+     So shall the holy fight be fought,
+     So come the rage of hell to nought;
+     And, ever blooming, dawn again
+     The ancient Paradise of men.
+
+     Earth stirs once more, grows green and live;
+     Full of the Spirit, all things strive
+     To clasp with love the Saviour-guest,
+     And offer him the mother-breast.
+
+     Winter gives way; a year new-born
+     Stands at the manger’s alter-horn;
+     ‘Tis the first year of that new Earth
+     Claimed by the child in right of birth.
+
+     Our eyes they see the Saviour well,
+     Yet in them doth the Saviour dwell;
+     With flowers his head is wreathed about;
+     From every flower himself smiles out.
+
+     He is the star; he is the sun;
+     Life’s well that evermore will run;
+     From herb, stone, sea, and light’s expanse
+     Glimmers his childish countenance.
+
+     His childlike labour things to mend,
+     His ardent love will never end;
+     He nestles, with unconscious art,
+     Divinely fast to every heart.
+
+     To us a God, to himself a child,
+     He loves us all, self un-defiled;
+     Becomes our drink, becomes our food--
+     His dearest thanks, a heart that’s good.
+
+     The misery grows yet more and more;
+     A gloomy grief afflicts us sore:
+     Keep him no longer, Father, thus;
+     He will come home again with us!
+
+
+XIII.
+
+     When in hours of fear and failing,
+       All but quite our heart despairs;
+     When, with sickness driven to wailing.
+       Anguish at our bosom tears;
+     Then our loved ones we remember;
+       All their grief and trouble rue;
+     Clouds close in on our December
+       And no beam of hope shines through!
+
+     Oh but then God bends him o’er us!
+       Then his love comes very near!
+     Long we heavenward then--before us
+       Lo, his angel standing clear!
+     Life’s cup fresh to us he reaches;
+       Whispers comfort, courage new;
+     Nor in vain our prayer beseeches
+       Rest for our beloved ones too.
+
+
+XIV.
+
+     Who once hath seen thee, Mother fair,
+     Destruction him shall never snare;
+     His fear is, from thee to be parted;
+     He loves thee evermore, true-hearted;
+     Thy grace remembered is the source
+     Whereout springs hence his spirit’s highest force.
+
+     My heart is very true to thee;
+     My ever failing thou dost see:
+     Let me, sweet mother, yet essay thee--
+     Give me one happy sign, I pray thee.
+     My whole existence rests in thee:
+     One moment, only one, be thou with me.
+
+     I used to see thee in my dreams,
+     So fair, so full of tenderest beams!
+     The little God in thine arms lying
+     Took pity on his playmate crying:
+     But thou with high look me didst awe,
+     And into clouds of glory didst withdraw.
+
+     What have I done to thee, poor wretch?
+     To thee my longing arms I stretch!
+     Are not thy holy chapels ever
+     My resting-spots in life’s endeavour?
+     O Queen, of saints and angels blest,
+     This heart and life take up into thy rest!
+
+     Thou know’st that I, beloved Queen,
+     All thine and only thine have been!
+     Have I not now, years of long measure,
+     In silence learned thy grace to treasure?
+     While to myself yet scarce confest,
+     Even then I drew milk from thy holy breast.
+
+     Oh, countless times thou stood’st by me!
+     I, merry child, looked up to thee!
+     His hands thy little infant gave me
+     In sign that one day he would save me;
+     Thou smiledst, full of tenderness,
+     And then didst kiss me: oh the heavenly bliss!
+
+     Afar stands now that gladness brief;
+     Long have I companied with grief;
+     Restless I stray outside the garden!
+     Have I then sinned beyond thy pardon?
+     Childlike thy garment’s hem I pull:
+     Oh wake me from this dream so weariful!
+
+     If only children see thy face,
+     And, confident, may trust thy grace,
+     From age’s bonds, oh, me deliver,
+     And make me thine own child for ever!
+     The love and truth of childhood’s prime
+     Dwell in me yet from that same golden time.
+
+
+XV.
+
+     In countless pictures I behold thee,
+       O Mary, lovelily expressed,
+     But of them all none can unfold thee
+       As I have seen thee in my breast!
+     I only know the world’s loud splendour
+       Since then is like a dream o’erblown;
+     And that a heaven, for words too tender,
+       My quieted spirit fills alone.
+
+
+
+
+_A PARABLE_.
+
+Long ago, there lived far to the west a very young man, good, but
+extremely odd. He tormented himself continually about this nothing and
+that nothing, always walked in silence and straight before him, sat down
+alone when the others were at their sports and merry-makings, and brooded
+over strange things. Caves and woods were his dearest haunts; and there he
+talked on and on with beasts and birds, with trees and rocks--of course
+not one rational word, but mere idiotic stuff, to make one laugh to death.
+He continued, however, always moody and serious, in spite of the utmost
+pains that the squirrel, the monkey, the parrot, and the bullfinch could
+take to divert him, and set him in the right way. The goose told stories,
+the brook jingled a ballad between, a great thick stone cut ridiculous
+capers, the rose stole lovingly about him from behind and crept through
+his locks, while the ivy stroked his troubled brow. But his melancholy and
+gravity were stubborn. His parents were much troubled, and did not know
+what to do. He was in good health, and ate well enough; they had never
+caused him any offence; and, until a few years ago, he had been the
+liveliest and merriest of them all, foremost in all their games, and a
+favourite with all the maidens. He was very handsome, looked like a
+picture, and danced like an angel. Amongst the maidens was one, a charming
+and beautiful creature, who looked like wax, had hair like golden silk,
+and cherry-red lips, was a doll for size, and had coal-black, yes,
+raven-black eyes. Whoever saw her was ready to swoon, she was so lovely.
+Now Rosebud, for that was her name, was heartily fond of the handsome
+Hyacinth, for that was his name, and he loved her fit to die. The other
+children knew nothing of it. A violet told them of it first. The little
+house-cats had been quite aware of it, for the houses of their parents lay
+near each other. So when Hyacinth stood at night by his window, and
+Rosebud at hers, and the cats ran past mouse-hunting, they saw the two
+standing there, and often laughed and tittered so loud that they heard it
+and were offended. The violet told it in confidence to the strawberry, and
+she told it to her friend, the raspberry, who never ceased rasping when
+Hyacinth came along; so that by and by the whole garden and wood were in
+the secret, and when Hyacinth went out, he heard on all sides the cry:
+“Little Rosy is my posy!” This vexed him; but the next moment he could not
+help laughing from the bottom of his heart, when the little lizard came
+slipping along, sat down on a warm stone, waggled his tail, and sang--
+
+     “Little Rosebud, good and wise,
+     All at once has lost her eyes:
+     Taking Hyacinth for her mother,
+     Round his neck her arms she flings;
+     Then perceiving ‘tis another--
+     Starts with terror?--no, but clings--
+     Think of that!--fast as before,
+     Only kissing all the more!”
+
+Alas, how soon was the grand time over! There came a man out of strange
+lands, who had travelled wondrous far and wide, had a long beard, deep
+eyes, frightful eyebrows, and a strange garment with many folds, and
+inwoven with curious figures. He seated himself before the house of
+Hyacinth’s parents. Hyacinth at once became very inquisitive, and sat down
+beside him, and brought him bread and wine. Then parted he his white
+beard, and told stories deep into the night; and Hyacinth never stirred or
+tired of listening. This much they learned afterward, that he talked a
+great deal about strange lands, unknown countries, and amazingly wonderful
+things; stopped there three days, and crept with Hyacinth down into deep
+shafts. Little Rosebud execrated the old sorcerer pretty thoroughly, for
+Hyacinth was altogether absorbed in his conversation, and paid no heed to
+anything else, hardly even to the swallowing of a mouthful of food. At
+length the man took his departure, but left with Hyacinth a little book
+which no man could read. Hyacinth gave him fruit, and bread, and wine to
+take with him, and accompanied him a long way. Then he came back sunk in
+thought, and thereafter took up a quite new mode of life. Rosebud was in a
+very sad way about him, for from that time forward he made little of her,
+and kept himself always to himself. But it came to pass that one day he
+came home, and was like one born again. He fell on his parents’ neck and
+wept. “I must away to a foreign land!” he said: “the strange old woman in
+the wood has told me what I must do to get well; she has thrown the book
+into the fire, and has made me come to you to ask your blessing. Perhaps I
+shall be back soon, perhaps never more. Say good-bye to Rosebud for me. I
+should have been glad to have a talk with her; I do not know what has come
+to me: I must go! When I would think to recall old times, immediately come
+thoughts more potent in between; my rest is gone, and my heart and love
+with it; and I must go find them! I would gladly tell you whither, but do
+not myself know; it is where dwells the mother of things, the virgin with
+the veil; for her my spirit is on fire. Farewell!” He tore himself from
+them, and went out. His parents lamented and shed tears. Rosebud kept her
+chamber, and wept bitterly.
+
+Hyacinth now ran, as fast as he could, through valleys and wildernesses,
+over mountains and streams, toward the land of mystery. Everywhere he
+inquired--of men and beasts, of rocks and trees,--after the sacred goddess
+Isis. Many laughed, many held their peace; nowhere did he get an answer.
+At first he passed through a rugged wild country; mists and clouds threw
+themselves in his way, but he rushed on impetuously. Then he came to
+boundless deserts of sand--mere glowing dust; and as he went his mood
+changed also; the time became tedious to him, and his inward unrest
+abated; he grew gentler, and the stormy impulse in him passed by degrees
+into a mild yet powerful attraction, wherein his whole spirit was
+dissolved. It seemed as if many years lay behind him.
+
+And now the country became again richer and more varied, the air soft and
+blue, the way smoother. Green bushes enticed him with their pleasant
+shadows, but he did not understand their speech; they seemed indeed not to
+speak, and yet they filled his heart with their green hues, and their
+cool, still presence. Ever higher in him waxed that same sweet longing,
+and ever broader and juicier grew the leaves, ever louder and more jocund
+the birds and beasts, balmier the fruits, darker the heavenly blue, warmer
+the air, and more ardent his love. The time went ever faster, as if it
+knew itself near the goal.
+
+One day he met a crystal rivulet, and a multitude of flowers, coming down
+into a valley between dark, columnar cliffs. They greeted him friendlily,
+with familiar words. “Dear country-folk,” said he, “where shall I find the
+sacred dwelling of Isis? Hereabouts it must be, and here, I guess, you are
+more at home than I.” “We also are but passing through,” replied the
+flowers; “a spirit-family is on its travels, and we are preparing for them
+their road and quarters. A little way back, however, we passed through a
+country where we heard her name mentioned. Only go up, where we came down,
+and thou wilt soon learn more.” The flowers and the brook smiled as they
+said it, offered him a cool draught, and went on their way. Hyacinth
+followed their counsel, kept asking, and came at last to that dwelling he
+had sought so long, which lay hid among palms and other rare plants. His
+heart beat with an infinite longing, and the sweetest apprehension
+thrilled him in this abode of the eternal seasons. Amid heavenly odours he
+fell asleep, for Dream alone could lead him into the holy of holies. In
+marvellous mode Dream conducted him through endless rooms full of strange
+things, by means of witching sounds and changeful harmonies. All seemed to
+him so familiar, and yet strange with an unknown splendour; then vanished
+the last film of the perishable as if melted into air, and he stood before
+the celestial virgin. Then he lifted the thin glistening veil, and--
+Rosebud sank into his arms. A far-off music surrounded the mysteries of
+love’s reunion and the outpouring of their longings, and shut out from the
+scene of their rapture everything alien to it.
+
+Hyacinth lived a long time after with Rosebud and his happy parents and
+old playmates; and numberless grandchildren thanked the wonderful old wise
+woman for her counsel and her uprousing; for in those days people had as
+many children as they pleased.
+
+
+
+
+FROM SCHILLER.
+
+     THE TRYST
+     HOPE
+     THE WORDS OF FAITH
+     THE WORDS OF VANITY
+     THE METAPHYSICIAN
+     THE PHILOSOPHERS
+     SAYINGS OF CONFUCIUS
+     KNOWLEDGE
+     MY FAITH
+     FRIEND AND FOE
+     EXPECTATION AND FULFILMENT
+     THE DIVER
+     KNIGHT TOGGENBURG
+     LONGING
+
+
+     _THE TRYST._
+
+       That was the sound of the wicket!
+       That was the latch as it rose!
+         No--the wind that through the thicket
+         Of the poplars whirring goes.
+
+     Put on thy beauty, foliage-vaulted roof,
+     Her to receive: with silent welcome grace her;
+     Ye branches build a shadowy room, eye-proof,
+     With lovely night and stillness to embrace her,
+     Ye airs caressing, wake, nor keep aloof,
+     In sport and gambol turning still to face her,
+     As, with its load of beauty, lightly borne,
+     Glides in the fairy foot, and dawns my morn.
+
+       What is that rustling the hedges?
+       She, with her hurrying pace?
+         No, a bird among the sedges,
+         Startled from its hiding-place!
+
+     Quench thy sunk torch, O Day! Steal out, appear,
+     Dim, ghostly Night, with dumbness us entrancing!
+     Spread thy rose-purple veil about us here;
+     Weave round us twigs, the mystery enhancing:
+     Love’s rapture flees the lurking listening ear--
+     Flies from the Day, so indiscreetly glancing;
+     Hesper alone--no tattling tell-tale he--
+     Far-gazing, still, her confidant may be.
+
+       That was a voice, but far distant,
+       Faint, like a whispering low!
+         No; the swan that draws persistent
+         Through the pond his circles slow!
+
+     About mine ears harmonious breathings flow;
+     The fountain falls in sweetly wavering rushes;
+     The flower beneath the west wind’s kiss bends slow;
+     Delight from each to every thing outgushes;
+     Grape-clusters beckon; peaches luring glow,
+     And hide half in their leaves, up-swelling luscious;
+     The air, which aromatic odours streak,
+     Drinks up the glow upon my burning cheek.
+
+       Hear I not echoing footfalls
+       Hither adown the pleach’d walk?
+         No; the over-ripened fruit falls,
+         Heavy-swollen, from off its stalk!
+
+     Day’s flaming eye at last is quenchéd quite;
+     In gentle death its colours all are paling;
+     Now boldly open in the fair twilight
+     The cups which in his blaze had long been quailing;
+     Slow lifts the moon her visage calmly bright;
+     Into great masses molten, earth sinks failing;
+     From every charm the zone drops unaware,
+     And shrouded beauty dawns upon me bare.
+
+       Yonder I see a white shimmer--
+       Silky--of robe or of shawl?
+         No; it is the column’s glimmer
+         ‘Gainst the clipt yews’ gloomy wall!
+
+     O longing heart, no more thyself befool,
+     Flouted by Fancy’s loveliness unreal!
+     The empty arm no burning heart will cool,
+     No shadow-joy hold place for Love’s Ideal!
+     O bring my live love all my heart to rule!
+     Give me her hand to hold, my every weal!
+     Or but the shadow of her mantle’s hem--
+     And straight my dreams shall live, and I in them!
+
+       And soft as, from hills rosy-golden
+       The dews of still gladness descend,
+         So had she drawn nigh unbeholden,
+         And wakened with kisses her friend.
+
+            *       *       *       *       *
+
+         _HOPE_.
+
+     Men talk with their lips and dream with their soul
+       Of better days hitherward pacing;
+     To a happy, a glorious, golden goal
+       See them go running and chasing!
+     The world grows old and to youth returns,
+     But still for the Better man’s bosom burns.
+
+     It is Hope leads him into life and its light;
+       She haunts the little one merry;
+     The youth is inspired by her magic might;
+       Her the graybeard cannot bury:
+     When he finds at the grave his ended scope,
+     On the grave itself he planteth Hope.
+
+     She was never begotten in Folly’s brain,
+       An empty illusion, to flatter;
+     In the Heart she cries, aloud and plain:
+       We are born to something better!
+     And that which the inner voice doth say
+     The hoping spirit will not betray.
+
+
+         _THE WORDS OF FAITH_.
+
+     Three words I will tell you, of meaning full:
+       The lips of the many shout them;
+     Yet were they born of no sect or school,
+       The heart only knows about them:
+         That man is of everything worth bereft
+         Who in those three words has no faith left:
+
+     _Man_ is born free--and is free alway
+       Even were he born in fetters!
+     Let not the mob’s cry lead you astray,
+       Or the misdeeds of frantic upsetters:
+         Fear not the slave when he breaks his bands;
+         Fear nothing from any free man’s hands.
+
+     And _Virtue_--it is no empty sound;
+       That a man can obey her, no folly;
+     Even if he stumble all over the ground
+       He yet can follow the Holy;
+         And what never wisdom of wise man knew
+         A child-like spirit can simply do.
+
+     And a _God_ there is--a steadfast Will,
+       However the human shrinketh!
+     High over space and time He still,
+       The live Thought, doth what He thinketh;
+         And though all things keep circling, to change confined,
+         He keeps, in all changes, a changeless mind.
+
+     These three words cherish--of meaning full:
+       From mouth to mouth send them faring;
+     For, although they spring from no sect or school,
+       Your hearts them witness are bearing;
+         And man is never of worth bereft
+         While yet he has faith in those three words left.
+
+     Three words there are of weighty sound,
+       And from good men’s lips they hail us;
+     But a tinkling cymbal, a drum’s rebound,
+       For help or for comfort they fail us!
+         His Life’s fruit away he forfeit flings
+         Who catches after those shadows of things;
+
+     Who still believes in a Golden Age,
+       Where the Right and the Good reign in splendour:
+     The Right and the Good war ever must wage--
+       Their foe will never surrender;
+         And chok’st thou him not in the upper air,
+         His strength he will still on the earth repair.
+
+     Who yet believes that Fortune, the jilt,
+       To the noble will bind herself ever:
+     Her love-looks follow the man of guilt;
+       The world to the good belongs never;
+         He is in it a stranger; he wanders away
+         Seeking a house that will not decay.
+
+     Who still believes that no human gaze
+       Truth ever her visage discloses:
+     Her veil no mortal hand shall raise;
+       Man only thinks and supposes:
+         Thou mayst prison the spirit in sounding form,
+         But the Fetterless walks away on the storm.
+
+     Then, noble spirit, from folly break free,
+       This heav’nly faith holding and handing:
+     What the ear never heard, what no eye can see,
+       Is the lovely, the true, notwithstanding;
+         Outside, the fool seeks for it evermore;
+         The wise man finds it with closed door!
+
+
+         THE METAPHYSICIAN.
+
+     “How far the world lies under me!
+     Scarce can I see the men below there crawling!
+     How high it bears me up, my lofty calling!
+     How near the heavenly canopy!”
+      Thus, from tower-roof where he doth clamber,
+     Calls out the slater; and with him the small big man,
+     Jack Metaphysicus, down in his writing-chamber!
+     Tell me, thou little great big man,--
+     The tower, whence thou so grandly all things hast inspected,
+     Of what is it?--Whereon is it erected?
+     How cam’st thou up thyself? Its heights so smooth and bare--
+     How serve they thee but thence into the vale to stare?
+
+
+         _THE PHILOSOPHERS_.
+
+     The principle whence everything
+       To life and shape ascended--
+     The pulley whereon Zeus the ring
+     Of Earth, which else in sherds would spring,
+       Has carefully suspended--
+     To genius I yield him a claim
+     Who fathoms for me what its name,
+       Save I withdraw its curtain:
+       It is--ten is not thirteen.
+
+     That snow makes cold, that fire burns,
+       That man on two feet goeth,
+     That in the heavens the sun sojourns--
+     This much the man who logic spurns
+       Through his own senses knoweth;
+     But metaphysics who has got,
+     Knows he that burneth, freezeth not;
+       Knows ‘tis the moist that wetteth,
+       And ‘tis the rough that fretteth.
+
+     Great Homer sings his epic high;
+       The hero fronts his dangers;
+     The brave his duty still doth ply--
+     And did it while, I won’t deny,
+       Philosophers were strangers:
+     But grant by heart and brain achiev’d
+     What Locke and Des Cartes ne’er conceiv’d--
+       By them yet, as behovéd,
+       It possible was provéd.
+
+     Strength for the Right is counted still;
+       Bold laughs the strong hyena;
+     Who rule not, servants’ parts must fill;
+     It goes quite tolerably ill
+       Upon this world’s arena;
+     But how it would be, if the plan
+     Of the universe now first began,
+       In many a moral system
+       All men may read who list ‘em.
+
+     “Man needs with man must linked be
+       To reach the goal of growing;
+     In the whole only worketh he;
+     Many drops go to make the sea;
+       Much water sets mills going.
+     Then with the wild wolves do not stand,
+     But knit the state’s enduring band:”
+        From doctor’s chair thus, tranquil,
+       Herr Pufendorf and swan-quill.
+
+     But since to all, what doctors say
+       Flies not as soon as spoken,
+     Nature will use her mother-way,
+     See that her chain fly not in tway,
+       The circle be not broken:
+     Meantime, until the world’s great round
+     Philosophy in one hath bound,
+       She keeps it on the move, sir,
+       By hunger and by love, sir.
+
+
+
+
+ _SAYINGS OF CONFUCIUS_.
+
+
+     I.
+
+     Threefold is of Time the tread:
+     Lingering comes the Future pacing hither;
+     Dartlike is the Now gone thither;
+     Stands the Past aye moveless, foot and head.
+
+        No impatience wings its idle
+     Tread of leisurely delay;
+     Fear or doubt it cannot bridle
+     Should it headlong run away;
+     No remorse, no incantation
+     Moves the standing from its station.
+
+        Wouldst thou end thy earthly journey
+     Wise and of good fortune full,
+     Make the Lingering thine attorney
+     Thee to counsel--not thy tool;
+     Not for friend the Flying take,
+     Nor thy foe the Standing make.
+
+
+     II.
+
+     Threefold is of Space the way:
+        On unresting, without stay,
+        Strives the Length into the distance;
+        Ceaseless pours the Breadth’s insistence
+        Bottomless the Depth goes down.
+
+     For a sign the three are sent thee:
+         _Onward_ must alone content thee--
+         Weary, thou must not stand still
+         Wouldst thou thy perfection fill!
+         Thou must spread thee wider, bigger,
+         Wouldst thou have the world take figure!
+         To the deep the man descendeth
+         Who existence comprehendeth.
+     Leads persistence to the goal;
+     Leads abundance to precision;
+     Dwells in the abyss the Vision.
+
+            *       *       *       *       *
+
+     _In the following epigrams I have altered the form,
+     which in the original is the elegiac distich_.
+
+
+         _KNOWLEDGE_.
+
+     To this man, ‘tis a goddess tall,
+       Who lifts a star-encircled head;
+     To that, a fine cow in a stall,
+       Which gives him butter to his bread.
+
+
+         _MY FAITH_.
+
+     Which religion I profess?
+       None of which you mention make.
+     Wherefore so?--And can’t you guess?
+       For Religion’s sake.
+
+
+         _FRIEND AND FOE_.
+
+     Dear is my friend, but my foe too
+       Is friendly to my good;
+     My friend the thing shows I _can_ do,
+       My foe, the thing I should.
+
+
+         _EXPECTATION AND FULFILMENT_.
+
+     Thousand-masted, mighty float,
+       Out to sea Youth’s navy goes:
+     Silent, in his one saved boat,
+       Age into the harbour rows.
+
+
+         _THE DIVER_
+
+     “Which of you, knight or squire, will dare
+       Plunge into yonder gulf?
+     A golden beaker I fling in it--there!
+       The black mouth swallows it like a wolf!
+     Who brings me the cup again, whoever,
+     It is his own--he may keep it for ever!”
+
+     Tis the king who speaks; and he flings from the brow
+       Of the cliff, that, rugged and steep,
+     Hangs out o’er the endless sea below,
+       The cup in the whirlpool’s howling heap:--
+     “Again I ask, what hero will follow?
+     What brave heart plunge into yon dark hollow?”
+
+     The knights and the squires, the king about,
+       Hear him, and dumbly stare
+     Into the wild sea’s tumbling rout;
+       But to win the beaker, they hardly care!
+     The king, for the third time, round him glaring--
+     “Not a soul of you has the daring?”
+
+     Speechless all, as before, they stand:
+       When a vassal bold, gentle, and gay,
+     Steps out from his comrades’ shrinking band,
+       Flinging his girdle and cloak away;
+     And all the women and men that surrounded
+     Gazed on the grand-looking youth, astounded.
+
+     And when he stepped to the rock’s rough brow
+       Looking down on the gulf so black,
+     The waters which it had swallowed, now
+       Charybdis bellowing rendered back;
+     And, with a roar as of distant thunder,
+     Foaming they burst from the dark lap under.
+
+     It wallows, seethes, hisses, in raging rout,
+       As when water wrestles with fire,
+     Till to heaven the yeasty tongues they spout;
+       And flood upon flood keeps mounting higher:
+     It will never its endless coil unravel,
+     As the sea with another sea were in travail!
+
+     But, at last, slow sinks the writhing spasm,
+       And, black through the foaming white,
+     Downward gapes a yawning chasm--
+       Bottomless, cloven to hell’s wide night;
+     And, sucked up, see the billows roaring
+     Down through the whirling funnel pouring!
+
+     Then in haste, ere the out-rage return again,
+       The youth to his God doth pray,
+     And--ascends a cry of horror and pain--
+       Already the vortex hath swept him away!
+     And o’er the bold swimmer, in darkness eternal,
+     Close the great jaws of the gulf infernal!
+
+     Then the water above grows smooth as glass,
+       While, below, dull roarings ply;
+     And, trembling, they hear the murmur pass--
+       “High-hearted youth, farewell! good-bye!”
+      And, hollower still, comes the howl affraying,
+     Till their hearts are sick with the frightful delaying.
+
+     If the crown itself thou in should fling,
+       And say, “Who back with it hies
+     Himself shall wear it, and shall be king,”
+        I should not covet the precious prize!
+     What Ocean hides in that howling hell of it,
+     Live soul will never come back to tell of it!
+
+     Ships many, caught in that whirling surge,
+       Shot sheer to their dismal doom:
+     Keel and mast only did ever emerge,
+       Shattered, from out the all-gulping tomb!--
+     Like the bluster of tempest, clearer and clearer,
+     Comes its roaring nearer and ever nearer!
+
+     It wallows, seethes, hisses, in raging rout,
+       As when water wrestles with fire,
+     Till to heaven the yeasty tongues they spout,
+       Wave upon wave’s back mounting higher;
+     And as with the rumble of distant thunder
+     Bellowing it bursts from the dark lap under.
+
+     And see, from its bosom, flowing dark,
+       Something heave up, swan-white!
+     An arm and a shining neck they mark,
+       And it rows with unrelaxing might!
+     It is he! and aloft in his left hand holden,
+     He swings, recovered, the beaker golden!
+
+     With long deep breaths his path he ploughed,
+       Glad greeting the heavenly day;
+     Jubilant shouted the gazing crowd,
+       “He lives! he is free! he has burst his way!
+     Out of the grave, the whirlpool uproarious,
+     The hero hath rescued his life victorious!”
+
+     He comes; they surround him with shouts of glee;
+       At the king’s feet he sinks on the sod,
+     And hands him the beaker upon his knee.
+       To his lovely daughter the king gives a nod:
+     She fills it brim-full of wine sparkling and raying;
+     And then to the monarch the youth turned, saying:
+
+     “Long live the king!--Ah, well doth he fare
+       Who breathes in this rosy light!
+     For frightful, yea, horrible is it down there;
+       And man ought not to tempt the heavenly Might,
+     Or long to see, with prying unwholesome,
+     What He graciously covers with darkness dolesome!
+
+     “It tore me down as on lightning’s wing--
+       When a shaft in a rock outpours,
+     Wild-rushing against me, a torrent spring:
+       Its conflict seized me with raging force
+     And like a top, with giddy twisting,
+     Spun me about: there was no resisting!
+
+     “Then God did show me, sore beseeching
+       In deepest, frightfullest need,
+     Up from the bottom a rock-ledge reaching--
+       At it I caught, and from death was freed!
+     And behold, on spiked corals the beaker suspended
+     Which had else to the very abyss descended!
+
+     “For below me it lay yet mountain-deep
+       The purply darksome maw!
+     And, though to the ear it was dead asleep,
+       The ghasted eye, down staring, saw
+     How, with dragons, lizards, salamanders, crawling,
+     The hell-jaws horrible were sprawling!
+
+     “Black-swarming, in medley miscreate,
+       In masses lumped hideously,
+     Wallowed the conger, the thorny skate,
+       The lobster’s grisly deformity;
+     And, baring its teeth with cruel sheen, a
+     Terrible shark, the sea’s hyena.
+
+     “So there I hung, and shuddering knew
+       That human help was none;
+     One thinking soul mid the horrid crew,
+       In the ghastly desert I was alone--
+     Deeper than human speech e’er sounded,
+     By the sad waste’s dismal monsters surrounded!
+
+     “Thus thought I, and shivered. Then a something crept near
+       Upon legs with a hundred joints!
+     It snaps at me suddenly: frantic with fear
+       I lost my grasp of the coral points:
+     Away the whirl in its raging tore me--
+     But it was my salvation, and upward bore me!”
+
+     The king at the tale is filled with amaze:--
+       “The beaker, well won, is thine;
+     And this ring I will give thee too,” he says,
+       “Precious with gems that are more than fine,
+     If thou dare it yet once, and bring me the story
+     Of what’s in the sea’s lowest repertory.”
+
+     His daughter she hears him with tender dismay,
+       And with sweet words suasive doth plead:
+     “Father, enough of this cruel play!
+       For you he has done an unheard-of deed!
+     If you may not master your heart’s desire,
+     ‘Tis the knights’ turn now to shame the squire!”
+
+     The king sudden snatches and hurls the cup
+       Into the swirling pool:--
+     “If thou bring me once more that beaker up,
+       Thou art best of my knights, the most worshipful!
+     And this very day to thy home thou shalt lead her
+     Who stands there--for thee such a pitiful pleader.”
+
+     A passion divine his being invades;
+       His eyes dart a lightning ray;
+     He sees of her blushes the changeful shades,
+       He sees her grow pallid and sink away!
+     Determination thorough him flashes,
+     And downward for life or for death he dashes!
+
+     They hear the dull roar: ‘tis returning again,
+       Announced by the thunderous brawl!
+     Downward they bend with loving strain:
+       They come! they are coming, the waters all!--
+     They rush up!--they rush down! they rush ever and ever:
+     The youth to the daylight rises never!
+
+
+         _KNIGHT TOGGENBURG_.
+
+     True love, knight, as to a brother,
+       Yield I you again;
+     Ask me not for any other,
+       For it gives me pain.
+     Calmly I behold you come in,
+       Calm behold you go;
+     Your sad eyes the weeping dumb in
+       I nor read nor know.
+
+     And he hears her uncomplaining,
+       Tears him free by force;
+     To his heart but once her straining,
+       Flings him on his horse;
+     Sends to all his vassals merry
+       In old Switzerland;
+     To the holy grave they hurry,
+       White-crossed pilgrim band.
+
+     Mighty deeds, the foe outbraving,
+       Works their hero-arm;
+     From their helms the plumes float waving
+       Mid the heathen swarm;
+     Still his “_Toggenburg_” upwaking
+       Frays the Mussulman;
+     But his heart its grievous aching
+       Quiet never can.
+
+     One whole year he did endure it,
+       Then his patience lost;
+     Peace, he never could secure it,
+       And forsakes the host;
+     Sees a ship by Joppa’s entry
+       At her cable saw;
+     Sails him home to that dear country
+       Where she breath doth draw.
+
+     At the gate, her castle under,
+       Pilgrim sad, he knocked;
+     Straight, as with a word of thunder
+       Was the gate unlocked:
+     “She you seek, with rites most solemn
+       Is betrothed to heaven;
+     Yesterday, beneath that column,
+       She to Christ was given.”
+
+     Then the halls he leaves for ever
+       Of his ancestors;
+     Shield or sword sets eyes on never,
+       Or his faithful horse.
+     Down from Toggenburg he fareth,
+       None to see or care;
+     On his noble limbs he weareth
+       Sackcloth made of hair:
+
+     And himself a hovel buildeth
+       That same cloister nigh,
+     Where the lime-tree thicket yieldeth
+       Cover whence to spy.
+     There, from morning’s earliest traces
+       Till red evening shone,
+     Thither turned his hoping face is,
+       There he sits alone.
+
+     On the walls so high above him,
+       His eyes waiting hang,
+     Waiting, though she would not love him,
+       For her lattice-clang--
+     Waiting till the loved should send her
+       Glance into the vale,
+     And, unthinking, toward it bend her
+       Visage, angel-pale.
+
+     Then he laid him, sadness scorning,
+       Comforted to sleep;
+     Quietly joyous till the morning
+       Out again should peep.
+     And so sat he, years a many,
+       Years without a pang,
+     Waiting without murmur any
+       Till her window rang--
+
+     For the lovely one to send her
+       Glance into the vale,
+     And, unseeing, toward him bend her
+       Angel visage pale.
+     And thus sat he, staring wanly,
+       His last morning there:
+     Toward her window still the manly
+       Silent face did stare.
+
+
+         _LONGING_.
+
+     Ah, from out this valley hollow,
+       By cold fogs always oppressed,
+     Could I but the outpath follow--
+       Ah, how were my spirit blest!
+     Hills I see there, glad dominions,
+       Ever young, and green for aye!
+     Had I wings, oh, had I pinions,
+       To the hills were I away!
+
+     Harmonies I hear there ringing,
+       Tones of sweetest heavenly rest;
+     And the gentle winds are bringing
+       Balmy odours to my breast!
+     Golden fruits peep out there, glowing
+       Through the leaves to Zephyr’s play;
+     And the flowers that there are blowing
+       Will become no winter’s prey!
+
+     Oh, what happy things are meeting
+       There, in endless sunshine free!
+     And the airs on those hills greeting,
+       How reviving must they be!
+     But me checks yon raving river
+       That betwixt doth chafe and roll;
+     And its dark waves rising ever
+       Strike a horror to my soul!
+
+     See a skiff on wild wave heaving!
+       But no sailor walks the mole.
+     Quick into it, firm believing,
+       For its sails they have a soul!
+     Thou must trust, nor wait to ponder:
+       God will give no pledge in hand;
+     Nought but miracle bears yonder
+       To the lovely wonderland!
+
+
+
+
+FROM GOETHE.
+
+     POEMS
+     LEGEND
+     THE CASTLE ON THE MOUNTAIN
+
+
+         POEMS.
+
+     Poems are painted window-panes:
+     Look from the square into the church--
+     Gloom and dusk are all your gains!
+     Sir Philistine is left in the lurch:
+     Outside he stands--spies nothing or use of it,
+     And nought is left him save the abuse of it.
+
+     But you, I pray you, just step in;
+     Make in the chapel your obeisance:
+     All at once ‘tis a radiant pleasaunce:
+     Device and story flash to presence;
+     A gracious splendour works to win.
+     This to God’s children is full measure:
+     It edifies and gives them pleasure.
+
+
+         _LEGEND_.
+
+     AFTER THE MANNER OF HANS SACHS.
+
+     While yet unknown, and very low,
+     Our Lord on earth went to and fro;
+     And some of his scholars his word so good
+     Very strangely misunderstood--
+     He much preferred to hold his court
+     In streets and places of resort,
+     Because under the heaven’s face
+     Words better and freer flow apace;
+     There he gave them the highest lore
+     Out of his holy mouth in store;
+     Wondrously, by parable and example,
+     Made every market-place a temple.
+
+     So faring, in his heart content,
+     Once with them to a town he went--
+     Saw something blinking on the way,
+     And there a broken horse-shoe lay!
+     He said thereon St. Peter to,
+     “Prithee now, pick up that shoe.”
+      St. Peter was not in fitting mood:
+     He had been dreaming all the road
+     Some stuff about ruling of the world,
+     Round which so many brains are twirled--
+     For in the head it seems so easy!
+     And with it his thoughts were often busy;
+     Therefore the finding was much too mean;
+     Crown and sceptre it should have been!
+     He was not one his back to bow
+     After half an iron-shoe!
+     Therefore aside his head he bended,
+     And that he had not heard pretended.
+
+     In his forbearance the Lord did stoop
+     And lift himself the horse-shoe up;
+     Then for the present he did wait.
+     But when they reach the city-gate,
+     He goes up to a blacksmith’s door,
+     Receives three pence the horse-shoe for;
+     And as they through the market fare,
+     Seeing for sale fine cherries there,
+     He buys of them so few or so many
+     As they will give for a three-penny;
+     Which he, thereon, after his way,
+     Up in his sleeve did quietly lay.
+
+     Now, from the other gate, they trod
+     Through fields and meads a housless road;
+     The path of trees was desolate,
+     The sun shone out, the heat was great;
+     So that one in a region such
+     For a drink of water had given much.
+     The Lord goes ever before them all,
+     And as by chance lets a cherry fall:
+     In a trice St. Peter was after it there
+     As if a golden apple it were!
+     Sweet to his palate was the berry.
+     Then by and by, another cherry
+     Down on the ground the Master sends,
+     For which St. Peter as quickly bends.
+     So, many a time, the Lord doth let
+     Him bend his back a cherry to get.
+     A long time thus He let him glean;
+     Then said the Lord, with look serene:
+     “If at the right time thou hadst bent,
+     Thou hadst found it more convenient!
+     Of little things who little doth make
+     For lesser things must trouble take.”
+
+
+         _THE CASTLE ON THE MOUNTAIN_.
+
+     Up there, upon yonder mountain,
+       Stands a castle old, in the gorse,
+     Where once, behind doors and portals,
+       Lurking lay knight and horse.
+
+     Burnt are the doors and the portals;
+       All round it is very still;
+     Its old walls, tumbled in ruins,
+       I scramble about at my will.
+
+     Close hereby lay a cellar
+       Full of wine that was old and rare;
+     But the cheery maid with the pitchers
+       No more comes down the stair;
+
+     No more in the hall, sedately
+       Sets the beaker before the guest;
+     No more at the festival stately,
+       The flagon fills for the priest;
+
+     No more to the page so thirsty
+       Gives a draught in the corridor;
+     And receives for the hurried favour
+       The hurried thanks no more.
+
+     For every rafter and ceiling
+       Long ago were to ashes burned,
+     And stair and passage and chapel
+       To rubbish and ruin turned.
+
+     Yet when, with flask and cittern,
+       On a day in the summer’s prime,
+     Up to the rocky summit
+       I watched my darling climb--
+
+     Out came the old joy reviving
+       On the face of the ancient rest,
+     And on went the old life driving,
+       In its lordliness and zest;
+
+     It seemed as for strangers distinguished
+       Their state-rooms they did prepare,
+     And out of that brave time, shadowy
+       Came stepping a youthful pair.
+
+     And the worthy priest in his chapel
+       Stood already in priestly dress,
+     And asked--Will you two take one another?
+       And smiling we answered--Yes;
+
+     And the hymns with deep pulsation
+       Stirred every heart at once;
+     And instead of the congregation
+       The echo yelled response.
+
+     And when, in the gathered evening,
+       Profound the stillness grew,
+     And the red-glowing sun at the broken
+       Gable came peering through,
+
+     Then damsel and page, in his rays, are
+       Grandees of the olden prime;
+     She tastes of his cup at her leisure,
+       And he to thank her takes time.
+
+
+
+
+FROM UHLAND.
+
+     THE LOST CHURCH
+     THE DREAM
+
+
+         THE LOST CHURCH.
+
+     In the far forest, overhead,
+       A bell is often heard obscurely;
+     How long since first, no one can tell--
+       Nor can report explain it surely:
+     From the lost church, the rumour hath,
+       Out on the winds the ringing goeth;
+     Once full of pilgrims was the path--
+       Now where to find it, no one knoweth.
+
+     Deep in the wood I lately went
+       Where no foot-trodden way is lying;
+     From times corrupt, on evil bent,
+       My heart to God went out in sighing:
+     There, in the wild wood’s deep repose,
+       I heard the ringing somewhat nearer;
+     The higher that my longing rose
+       Its peal grew fuller and came clearer.
+
+     My thoughts upon themselves did brood;
+       My sense was with the sound so busy
+     That I have never understood
+       How I did climb that steep so dizzy.
+     It seemed more than a hundred years
+       Had passed me over, dreaming, sighing--
+     When far above the clouds appears
+       An open space in sunlight lying.
+
+     Dark-blue the heavens above it bowed;
+       The sun was radiant, large, and glowing;
+     And, see, a minister’s structure proud
+       Stood in the rich light, golden showing.
+     The clouds around it, sunny-clear,
+       Seemed bearing it aloft like pinions;
+     Its spire-point seemed to disappear,
+       Slow vanishing in heaven’s dominions.
+
+     The bell’s clear tones, of rapture full,
+       Boomed in the tower and made it quiver;
+     No mortal hand that rope did pull--
+       A dumb storm made it swing and shiver.
+     It seemed to heave my throbbing breast,
+       That heavenly storm with torrent blended:
+     With wavering step, yet hopeful quest,
+       Into the church my way I wended.
+
+     What met me there as in I trode
+       With syllables cannot be painted;
+     Darksome yet clear, the windows glowed
+       With forms of all the martyrs sainted.
+     Then saw I, radiantly unfurled,
+       Form swell to life and break its barriers;
+     I looked abroad into a world
+       Of holy women and God’s warriors.
+
+     Down at the alter I kneeled soft,
+       With love and prayer my heart allegiant:
+     Upon the ceiling, far aloft,
+       Was painted Heaven’s resplendent pageant;
+     But when again I lift mine eyes,
+       Lo, the high vault has flown asunder!
+     The upward gate wide open lies,
+       And every veil unveils a wonder.
+
+     What gloriousness I then beheld
+       With silent worship, speechless wonder;
+     What blessed sounds upon me swelled,
+       Like organs’ and like trumpets’ thunder--
+     No human words could ever tell!--
+       But who for such is sighing sorest,
+     Let him give heed unto the bell
+       That dimly soundeth in the forest.
+
+
+         _THE DREAM_.
+
+     In a garden sweet went walking
+       Two lovers hand in hand;
+     Two pallid figures, low talking,
+       They sat in the flowery land.
+
+     They kissed on the cheek one another,
+       And they kissed upon the mouth;
+     They held in their arms each the other,
+       And back came their health and youth.
+
+     Two little bells rang shrilly--
+       And the lovely dream was dead!
+     She lay in the cloister chilly;
+       He afar on his dungeon-bed.
+
+
+
+
+FROM HEINE.
+
+     LIEDER, IV.
+     LYRISCHES INTERMEZZO, XXXVIII.
+         “           “     XLI.
+         “           “     XLV.
+         “           “     LXIV.
+     DIE HEIMKEHR, LX.
+           “       LXII.
+     DIE NORDSEE, FIRST CYCLE, XII.
+
+
+
+         LIEDER.
+
+     IV.
+
+     Thy little hand lay on my bosom, dear:
+     What a knocking in that little chamber!--dost hear?
+     There dwelleth a carpenter evil, and he
+     Is hard at work on a coffin for me.
+
+     He hammers and knocks by night and by day;
+     ‘Tis long since he drove all my sleep away:
+     Ah, haste thee, carpenter, busy keep,
+     That I the sooner may go to sleep!
+
+
+         LYRISCHES INTERMEZZO.
+
+     XXXVIII.
+
+     The phantoms of times forgotten
+       Arise from out their grave,
+     And show me how once in thy presence
+       I lived the life it gave.
+
+     In the day I wandered dreaming,
+       Through the streets with unsteady foot;
+     The people looked at me in wonder,
+       I was so mournful and mute.
+
+     At night, then it was better,
+       For empty was the town;
+     I and my shadow together
+       Walked speechless up and down.
+
+     My way, with echoing footstep,
+       Over the bridge I took;
+     The moon broke out of the waters,
+       And gave me a meaning look.
+
+     I stopped before thy dwelling,
+       And gazed, and gazed again--
+     Stood staring up at thy window,
+       My heart was in such pain.
+
+     I know that thou from thy window
+       Didst often look downward--and
+     Sawest me, there in the moonlight,
+       A motionless pillar stand.
+
+
+         LYRISCHES INTERMEZZO.
+
+     XLI.
+
+     I dreamt of the daughter of a king,
+       With white cheeks tear-bewetted;
+     We sat ‘neath the lime tree’s leavy ring,
+       In love’s embraces netted.
+
+     “I would not have thy father’s throne,
+       His crown or his golden sceptre;
+     I want my lovely princess alone--
+       From Fate that so long hath kept her.”
+
+     “That cannot be,” she said to me:
+       “I lie in the grave uncheerly;
+     And only at night I come to thee,
+       Because I love thee so dearly.”
+
+
+         LYRISCHES INTERMEZZO.
+
+     XLV.
+
+     In the sunny summer morning
+       Into the garden I come;
+     The flowers are whispering and talking,
+       But for me, I wander dumb.
+
+     The flowers are whispering and talking;
+       They pity my look so wan:
+     “Thou must not be cross with our sister,
+       Thou sorrowful, pale-faced man!”
+
+
+         LYRISCHES INTERMEZZO.
+
+     LXIV.
+
+     Night lay upon mine eyelids;
+       Upon my mouth lay lead;
+     With rigid brain and bosom,
+       I lay among the dead.
+
+     How long it was I know not
+       That sleep oblivion gave;
+     I wakened up, and, listening,
+       Heard a knocking at my grave.
+
+     “Tis time to rise up, Henry!
+       The eternal day draws on;
+     The dead are all arisen--
+       The eternal joy’s begun.”
+
+     “My love, I cannot raise me;
+       For I have lost my sight;
+     My eyes with bitter weeping
+       They are extinguished quite.”
+
+     “From thy dear eyelids, Henry,
+       I’ll kiss the night away;
+     Thou shalt behold the angels,
+       And Heaven’s superb display.”
+
+     “My love, I cannot raise me;
+       Still bleeds my bosom gored,
+     Where thou heart-deep didst stab me
+       With a keen-pointed word.”
+
+     “Soft I will lay it, Henry,
+       My hand soft on thy heart;
+     And that will stop its bleeding
+       And soothe at once the smart.”
+
+     “My love, I cannot raise me--
+       My head is bleeding too;
+     When thou wast stolen from me
+       I shot it through and through!”
+
+     “I with my tresses, Henry,
+       Will stop the fountain red;
+     Press back again the blood-stream,
+       And heal thy wounded head.”
+
+     She begged so sweetly, dearly,
+       I could no more say no;
+     I tried, I strove to raise me,
+       And to my darling go.
+
+     Then the wounds again burst open;
+       With torrent force outbrake
+     From head and breast the blood-stream,
+       And, lo, I came awake!
+
+
+         _DIE HEIMKEHR_.
+
+     LX.
+
+     They have company this evening,
+       And the house is full of light;
+     Up there at the shining window
+       Moves a shadowy form in white.
+
+     Thou seest me not--in the darkness
+       I stand here below, apart;
+     Yet less, ah less thou seest
+       Into my gloomy heart!
+
+     My gloomy heart it loves thee,
+       Loves thee in every spot:
+     It breaks, it bleeds, it shudders--But
+       into it thou seest not!
+
+
+     LXII.
+
+     Diamonds hast thou, and pearls,
+       And all by which men lay store;
+     And of eyes thou hast the fairest--
+       Darling, what wouldst thou more?
+
+     Upon thine eyes so lovely
+       Have I a whole army-corps
+     Of undying songs composed--
+       Dearest, what wouldst thou more?
+
+     And with thine eyes so lovely
+       Thou hast tortured me very sore,
+     And hast ruined me altogether--
+       Darling, what wouldst thou more?
+
+
+         _DIE NORDSEE_
+
+     FIRST CYCLE.
+
+     XII.
+
+     _PEACE_.
+
+     [Footnote: I have here used rimes although the original has none. With
+     notions of translating severer now than when, many years ago, I attempted
+     this poem, I should not now take such a liberty. In a few other points
+     also the translation is not quite close enough to please me; but it must
+     stand.]
+
+     High in heaven the sun was glowing,
+     White cloud-waves were round him flowing;
+     The sea was still and grey.
+     Thinking in dreams, by the helm I lay:
+     Half waking, half in slumber, then
+     Saw I Christ, the Saviour of men.
+     In undulating garments white
+     He walked in giant shape and height
+     Over land and sea.
+     High in the heaven up towered his head;
+     His hands in blessing forth he spread
+     Over land and sea.
+     And for a heart, in his breast
+     He bore the sun; there did it rest.
+     The red, flaming heart of the Lord
+     Out its gracious radiance poured,
+     Its fair and love-caressing light
+     With illuminating and warming might
+     Over land and sea.
+
+     Sounds of solemn bells that go
+     Through the air to and fro,
+     Drew, like swans in rosy traces,
+     With soft, solemn, stately graces,
+     The gliding ship to the green shore--
+     Peopled, for many a century hoar,
+     By men who dwell at rest in a mighty
+     Far-spreading and high-towered city.
+
+     Oh, wonder of peace, how still was the town!
+     The hollow tumult had all gone down
+     Of the babbling and stifling trades;
+     And through each clean and echoing street
+     Walked men and women, and youths and maids,
+     White clothes wearing,
+     Palm branches bearing;
+     And ever and always when two did meet,
+     They gazed with eyes that plain did tell
+     They understood each other well;
+     And trembling, in self-renouncement and love,
+     Each a kiss on the other’s forehead laid,
+     And looked up to the Saviour’s sunheart above,
+     Which, in joyful atoning, its red blood rayed
+     Down upon all; and the people said,
+     From hearts with threefold gladness blest,
+       Lauded be Jesus Christ!
+
+
+
+
+FROM VON SALIS-SEEWIS.
+
+     THE GRAVE.
+     PSYCHE’S MOURNING.
+
+
+         THE GRAVE.
+
+     The grave is deep and soundless,
+       Its brink is ghastly lone;
+     With veil all dark and boundless
+       It hides a land unknown.
+
+     The nightingale’s sweet closes
+       Down there come not at all;
+     And friendship’s withered roses
+       On the mossy hillock fall.
+
+     Their hands young brides forsaken
+       Wring bleeding there in vain;
+     The cries of orphans waken
+       No answer to their pain.
+
+     Yet nowhere else for mortals
+       Dwells their implored repose;
+     Through none but those dark portals
+       Home to his rest man goes.
+
+     The poor heart, here for ever
+       By storm on storm beat sore,
+     Its true peace gaineth never
+       But where it beats no more.
+
+
+         PSYCHES MOURNING.
+
+     Psyche moans, in deep-sunk, darksome prison,
+     For redemption; ah! for light she aches;
+     Fears, hopes, after every noise doth listen--
+     Whether Fate her bars of iron breaks.
+
+     Bound are Psyche’s pinions--airy, soaring;
+     Yet high-hearted is she, groaning low;
+     Knows that under clouds whence rain is pouring
+     Sprouts the palm that crowns the victor’s brow;
+
+     Knows among the thorns the rose yet reigneth;
+     Golden flowers spring from the desert grave
+     She her garland through denial gaineth,
+     And her strength is steeled by winds that rave.
+
+     ‘Tis through lack that she her blisses buyeth;
+     Sorrow’s dream comes true by longing long;
+     Lest light break the sleep wherein she lieth,
+     Round her tree of life the shadows throng.
+
+     Psyche’s wail is but a fluted sadness
+     Heard from willows the moon silvereth;
+     Psyche’s tears are dews of morning redness,
+     And her sighs the sweet night-violet’s breath!
+
+     Yews o’ershade the myrtle of her probation;
+     Much she loves for great has been her dole;
+     Love leads through the paths of separation,
+     Leads her to reunion’s joyous goal.
+
+     She endures; bravely bears every burden,
+     Dumb before the will of Fate bends low;
+     Lies her bliss the patient tranquil word in;
+     Her one cordial, feeling’s overflow!
+
+     Preconviction--ah! the call, the token,
+     Spreading wings the darksome sky to cleave!
+     ‘Tis but boding! ‘tis but knowledge broken!
+     Truth’s but what she truly doth believe!
+
+     Darkness hides the goal of Psyche’s mission;
+     For the eyes that tears so often gall
+     Reach not to the summit of completion
+     Where illusion’s vaporous veil doth fall!
+
+
+
+
+FROM CLAUDIUS.
+
+     THE MOTHER BY THE CRADLE
+     CONTENTMENT
+
+
+         _THE MOTHER BY THE CRADLE_.
+
+     Sleep, baby boy, sleep sweet, secure;
+       Thy father’s very miniature!
+     That art thou, though thy father goes
+     And says that thou hast not his nose.
+
+     This very moment here was he,
+       His face o’er thine did pose
+     And said--Much has he sure of me,
+       But no, ‘tis not my nose.
+
+     I think myself, it is too small,
+     But it is _his_ nose after all;
+     For if thy nose his nose be not,
+     Whence came the nose that thou hast got?
+
+     Sleep, boy! thy father only chose
+       To tease me--that’s his part!
+     Never you mind about his nose,
+       But see you have his heart.
+
+
+         _CONTENTMENT_.
+
+     I am content. In triumph’s tone
+       My song, let people know!
+     And many a mighty man, with throne
+       And sceptre, is not so.
+     And if he is, why then, I cry,
+     The man is just the same as I.
+
+     The Mogul’s gold, the Sultan’s show,
+       The hero’s bliss, who, vext
+     To find no other world below,
+       Up to the moon looked next--
+     I’d none of them; for things like that
+     Are only fit for laughing at.
+
+     My motto is--Content with this.
+       Gold--rank--I prize not such.
+     That which I have, my measure is;
+       Wise men desire not much.
+     Men wish and wish, and have their will,
+     And wish again, as hungry still.
+
+     And gold or honour, though it rings,
+       Is but a brittle glass;
+     Experience of changing things
+       Might teach a very ass!
+     Right often Many turns to None,
+     And honour has but a short run.
+
+     To do right, to be good and clear,
+       Is more than rank and gold;
+     Then art thou always of good cheer,
+       And blisses hast untold;
+     Then art thou with thyself at one,
+     And hatest no man, fearest none.
+
+     I am content. In triumph’s tone,
+       My song, let people know!
+     And many a mighty man, with throne
+       And sceptre, is not so.
+     And if he is, why then, I cry,
+     The man is just the same as I.
+
+
+
+
+FROM GENESTET.
+
+
+     THREE PAIRS AND ONE.
+
+     You have two ears--and but one mouth:
+       Let this, friend, be a token--
+     Much should be heard, and not so much
+               Be spoken.
+
+     You have two eyes--and but one mouth:
+       That is an indication--
+     Much must you see, but little serves
+               Relation.
+
+     You have two hands--and but one mouth:
+       Receive the hint you meet with--
+     For labour two, but only one
+               To eat with.
+
+
+
+
+FROM THE GERMAN
+
+
+     _SONG OF THE LONELY_.
+
+     Son, first-born, at home abiding!
+       All without is cold and bare:
+     Hide me from the tempest’s chiding
+       Warm beside the Father’s chair.
+
+     I am homesick, Lord of splendour!
+       Twilight fills my soul with fright:
+     Let thy countenance befriend her,
+       Shining from the halls of light.
+
+     I am homesick, loving Father!
+       Long years hath the pain increased:
+     Soon, oh soon! thy children gather
+       To the endless marriage-feast.
+
+
+
+
+FROM PETRARCH.
+
+
+     PART I. SONNET LIX.
+
+     I am so weary with the burden old
+     Of foregone faults, and power of custom base,
+     That much I fear to perish from the ways,
+     And fall into my enemy’s grim fold.
+     True, a high friend, to free me, not with gold,
+     Came, of ineffable and utmost grace--
+     Then straightway vanished from before my face,
+     So that in vain I strive him to behold.
+     But his voice yet comes echoing below:
+     O ye that labour, the way open lies!
+     Come unto me lest some one shut the gate!
+     --What heavenly grace--what love will--or what fate--
+     The pinions of a dove on me bestow
+     That I may rest, and from the earth arise?
+
+
+     PART II. SONNET LXXV.
+
+     The elect angels and the souls in bliss,
+     The citizens of heaven, when, that first day,
+     My lady passed from me and went their way,
+     Of marvel and pity full, did round her press.
+     “What light is this, and what new loveliness?”
+      They said among them; “for such sweet display
+     Did never mount, that from the earth did stray
+     To this high dwelling, all this age, we guess!”[1]
+     She, well content her lodging chang’d to find,
+     Shows perfect, by her peers most perfect placed;
+     And now and then half turning looks behind
+     To see if I walk in the way she traced:
+     Hence I lift heavenward all my heart and mind
+     Because I hear her pray me to make haste.
+
+     [Footnote 1: Pure English of Petrarch’s time.]
+
+
+
+
+MILTON’S ITALIAN POEMS.
+
+     The Italian scholar will understand that the retention of the feminine
+     rimes in translation from this language is an impossibility.
+
+
+     I.
+
+     O Lady fair, whose honoured name doth grace
+     Green vale and noble ford of Rheno’s stream--
+     Of all worth void the man I surely deem
+     Whom thy fair soul enamoureth not apace,
+     When softly self-revealed to time and space
+     By actions sweet with which thy will doth teem,
+     And fair gifts that Love’s bow and arrows seem--
+     But are the flowers that crown thy perfect race.
+     When thou dost lightsome talk or gladsome sing,--
+     A power to draw the hill-trees, rooted hard--
+     The doors of eyes and ears let that man keep
+     Who knows himself unworthy thy regard!
+     Grace from above alone him help can bring
+     That Passion in his heart strike not too deep.
+
+
+     II.
+
+     As in the twilight brown, on hillside bare,
+     Useth to go the little shepherd maid,
+     Watering some strange fair plant, poorly displayed,
+     Ill thriving in unwonted soil and air
+     Far from its native springtime’s genial care;
+     So on my ready tongue hath Love assayed
+     In a strange speech to wake new flower and blade,
+     While I of thee, proud yet so debonair,
+     Sing songs whose sense is to my people lost--
+     Yield the fair Thames, and the fair Arno gain.
+     Love willed it so, and I, at others’ cost,
+     Already knew Love never willed in vain:
+     Would my heart slow and bosom hard were found
+     To him who plants from heaven so fair a ground!
+
+
+     III.
+
+     CANZONE.
+
+     Ladies, and youths that in their favour bask,
+     With mocking smiles come round me: Prithee, why,
+     Why dost thou with an unknown language cope,
+     Love-riming? Whence thy courage for the task?
+     Tell us--so never frustrate be thy hope,
+     And the best thought still to thy thinking fly!
+     Thus me they mock: Thee other streams, they cry,
+     Thee other shores, another sea demands
+     Upon whose verdant strands
+     Are budding, even this moment, for thy hair
+     Immortal guerdon, bays that will not die:
+     An over-burden on thy back why bear?--
+     Song, I will tell thee; thou for me reply:
+     My lady saith--and her word is my heart--
+     This is Love’s mother-tongue, and fits his part.
+
+
+     IV.
+
+     Diodati--and I muse to tell the tale--
+     This stubborn I, that Love was wont despise
+     And make a laughter of his snares, unwise,
+     Am fallen--where honest feet will sometimes fail.
+     Not golden tresses, not a cheek vermeil,
+     Dazzle me thus; but, in a new-world guise,
+     A foreign Fair my heart beatifies--
+     With mien where high-souled modesty I hail;
+     Eyes softly splendent with a darkness dear;
+     A speech that more than one tongue vassal hath;
+     A voice that in the middle hemisphere
+     Might make the tired moon wander from her path;
+     While from her eyes such gracious flashes shoot
+     That stopping hard my ears were little boot.
+
+
+     V.
+
+     Certes, my lady sweet, your blessed eyes--
+     It cannot be but that they are my sun;
+     As strong they smite me as he smites upon
+     The man whose way o’er Libyan desert lies,
+     The while a vapour hot doth me surprise
+     From that side springing where my pain doth won:
+     Perchance accustomed lovers--I am none
+     And know not--in their speech call such things sighs:
+     A part shut in, sore vexed, itself conceals,
+     And shakes my bosom; part, undisciplined,
+     Breaks forth, and all around to ice congeals;
+     But that which to mine eyes the way doth find,
+     Makes all my nights in silent showers abound,
+     Until my dawn[1] returns, with roses crowned.
+
+     [Footnote 1: _Alba_--where I suspect a hint at the lady’s name.]
+
+
+     VI.
+
+     A modest youth, in love a simpleton,
+     When to escape myself I seek and shift,
+     Lady, I of my heart the humble gift
+     Vow unto thee. In trials many a one,
+     True, brave, I’ve found it, firm to things begun;
+     By gracious, prudent, worthy thoughts uplift.
+     When roars the great world, in the thunder-rift,
+     Its own self, armour adamant, it will don,
+     From chance and envy as securely barred,
+     From fears and hopes that still the crowd abuse,
+     As inward gifts and high worth coveting,
+     And the resounding lyre, and every Muse:
+     There only wilt thou find it not so hard
+     Where Love hath fixed his ever cureless sting.
+
+
+
+
+LUTHER’S SONG-BOOK.
+
+
+     DAME MUSIC.
+
+     Of all the joys earth possesses,
+     None the gladness fine surpasses
+     Which I give you with my singing,
+     And with much harmonious ringing.
+
+       An evil spirit cannot dwell
+     Where companions are singing well;
+     Here strife, wrath, envy, hate, are not;
+     Every heartache must leave the spot:
+     Greed, care, all things that hard oppress
+     Troop off with great unwillingness.
+
+       Also each man is free to this--
+     For such a joy no trespass is,
+     God himself pleasing better far
+     Than all the joys on earth that are;
+     It breaks the toils by Satan spun,
+     And many a murder keeps undone.
+
+       Of this, King David is the proof,
+     Who often Saul did hold aloof,
+     All with his harping sweet and well,
+     That he not into murder fell.
+
+       For God’s own truth, in word and will
+     It makes the heart ready and still;
+     That knew Elisha well, I wot,
+     When he the Spirit by harping got.
+
+       The best time of the year is mine,
+     When all the little birds sing fine,
+     Fill heaven and earth full of their strain:
+     Much good singing is going then;
+     The nightingale the lead she takes,
+     And everything right merry makes
+     With her gladsome lovely song,
+     For which great thanks to her belong.
+
+       But more to our dear Lord God, much,
+     Who has created the bird such,
+     A songstress of the true right sort,
+     A mistress of the music-art:
+     She sings and springs, both nights and days,
+     To him, not weary of his praise.
+     Him lauding come my songs as well,
+     My everlasting thanks to tell.
+
+
+
+
+     LUTHER’S SONG-BOOK.
+
+
+        I. ADVENT
+
+       II. CHRISTMAS
+
+      III. EPIPHANY
+
+       IV. EASTER
+
+        V. PENTECOST
+
+       VI. THE TRINITY
+
+      VII. THE CHURCH AND WORD OF GOD
+
+     VIII. GRACE
+
+       IX. THE COMMANDMENTS
+
+        X. THE CREED
+
+       XI. PRAYER
+
+      XII. BAPTISM
+
+     XIII. REPENTANCE
+
+      XIV. THE LORD’S SUPPER
+
+       XV. DEATH
+
+      XVI. THE PRAISE OF GOD
+
+           OF LIFE AT COURT
+
+
+
+         I.  ADVENT.
+
+     Come, saviour of nations wild,
+     Of the maiden owned the child
+     That may wonder all the earth
+     God should grant it such a birth.
+
+     Not of man’s flesh or man’s blood
+     Only of the Spirit of God
+     Is God’s Word a man become,
+     And blooms the fruit of woman’s womb.
+
+     Maiden, she was found with child,
+     Nor was chastity defiled;
+     Many a virtue from her shone:
+     God was there upon his throne.
+
+     From that chamber of content,
+     Royal palace pure, he went;
+     God by kind, in human grace
+     Forth he comes to run his race.
+
+     From the Father came his road,
+     And returns again to God;
+     Unto hell it did go down,
+     Up then to the Father’s throne.
+
+     Thou, the Father’s form express,
+     Get thee victory in the flesh,
+     That thy godlike power in us
+     Make sick flesh victorious.
+
+     Shines thy manger bright and fair;
+     Sets the night a new star there:
+     Darkness thence must keep away;
+     Faith dwells ever in the day.
+
+     Honour unto God be done;
+     Honour to his only son;
+     Honour to the Holy Ghost,
+     Now, and ever, ending not. Amen.
+
+
+
+         II.  CHRISTMAS.
+
+     I.
+
+     Jesus we now must laud and sing,
+     The maiden Mary’s son and king,
+     Far as the blessed sun doth shine,
+     And reaches to earth’s utmost line.[1]
+
+     [Footnote 1: Luther’s own construction.]
+
+     The blessed maker of all we view
+     On him a servant’s body drew,
+     The flesh to save at flesh’s cost,
+     Else his creation had been lost.
+
+     From heaven high the Godlike grace
+     In the chaste mother found a place;
+     A secret pledge a maiden bore--
+     A thing to earth unknown before.
+
+     The tender heart, house modest, low,
+     Straightway a temple of God did grow:
+     Whom never man hath touched or known
+     By God’s word she with child is grown.
+
+     The noble mother hath brought forth
+     Whom Gabriel promised to the earth;
+     Him John did greet in joyous way
+     While in his mother’s womb he lay.
+
+     Right poorly lies in hay the boy;
+     Th’ hard manger him did not annoy;
+     A little milk made him content
+     Away who no bird hungry sent.
+
+     Therefore the heavenly choir is loud;
+     The angels sing their praise to God,
+     And tell poor men their flocks who keep
+     He’s come who made and keeps their sheep.
+
+     Praise, honour, thanks, to thee be said,
+     Christ Jesus, born of holy maid!
+     With God the Father and Holy Ghost,
+     Now and for ever, ending not. Amen!
+
+
+     II.
+
+     A Song of Praise for the Birth of our Lord Jesus Christ.
+
+     Praised be thou, O Jesus Christ,
+     That a man on earth thou liest!
+     Born of a maiden--it is true--
+     In this exults the heavenly crew.
+         Kyrioleis.[2]
+     [Footnote 2: (Greek) kurie elxaeson: _Lord, have mercy_.]
+
+     The Father’s only son begot
+     In the manger has his cot,
+     In our poor dying flesh and blood
+     Doth mask itself the eternal Good.
+         Kyrioleis.
+
+     Whom all the world could not enwrap
+     Lieth he in Mary’s lap;
+     A little child he now is grown
+     Who everything upholds alone.
+         Kyrioleis.
+
+     In him the eternal light breaks through,
+     Gives the world a glory new;
+     A great light shines amid the night,
+     And makes us children of the light.
+         Kyrioleis.
+
+     The Father’s son, so _God_ his name,
+     A guest into this world he came;
+     And leads us from the vale of tears:
+     He in his palace make us heirs.
+         Kyrioleis.
+
+     Poor to the earth he cometh thus,
+     Pity so to take on us;
+     And makes us rich in heaven above,
+     And like the angels of his love.
+         Kyrioleis.
+
+     All this for us hath Jesus done,
+     And his great love to us hath shown:
+     Let Christendom rejoice therefore,
+     And give him thanks for evermore!
+         Kyrioleis.
+
+
+     III
+
+     A SONG OF THE LITTLE CHILD JESUS, FOR CHILDREN AT CHRISTMAS.
+     TAKEN OUT OF THE SECOND CHAPTER OF THE GOSPEL OF ST. LUKE.
+
+     From heaven high I come to you,
+     I bring a story good and new:
+     Of goodly news so much I bring,
+     Of it I must both speak and sing.
+
+     To you a child is come this morn,
+     A child of chosen maiden born,
+     A little babe so sweet and mild
+     Your joy and bliss shall be that child.
+
+     ‘Tis the Lord Christ, our very God.
+     He will you ease of all your load;
+     He’ll be himself your Saviour sure
+     And from all sinning make you pure.
+
+     He brings you all the news so glad
+     Which God the Father ready had--
+     That you shall in his heavenly house
+     Live now and evermore with us.
+
+     Take heed then to the token sure--
+     The crib, the swaddling clothes so poor:
+     The infant you shall find laid there
+     Who all the world doth hold and bear.
+
+     Hence let us all be gladsome then,
+     And with the shepherd-folk go in
+     To see what God to us hath given
+     With his dear honoured Son from heaven.
+
+     Take note, my heart; see there! look low:
+     What lies then in the manger so?
+     Whose is the lovely little child?
+     It is the darling Jesus-child.
+
+     Hail, noble guest in humble guise,
+     Poor sinners who didst not despise,
+     And com’st to me in misery!
+     My thoughts must all be thanks to thee!
+
+     Ah Lord! the maker of us all!
+     How hast thou grown so poor and small
+     That there thou liest on withered grass,
+     The supper of the ox and ass!
+
+     Were the world wider many fold,
+     And decked with gems and cloth of gold,
+     ‘T were far too mean and narrow all
+     To be for thee a cradle small!
+
+     The silk and velvet that are thine
+     Are rough hay, linen not too fine;
+     Thereon thou, king so rich and great,
+     Liest as if in heavenly state.
+
+     And this hath therefore pleased thee,
+     To make this truth right plain to me,
+     That all the world’s power, honour, wealth
+     Are nothing to thy heart or health.
+
+     Ah, little Christ! my heart’s poor shed
+     Would make thee a soft, little bed:
+     Rest there as in a lowly shrine,
+     And make that heart for ever thine,
+
+     That so I always gladsome be,
+     Ready to dance, and sing to thee
+     The lullaby thou lovest best,
+     With sweetest hymn for dearest guest.
+
+     Glory to God on highest throne
+     Who gave to us his only Own!
+     For this the angel troop sings in
+     A New Year with gladsome din.
+
+
+     IV.
+
+     ANOTHER CHRIST-SONG.
+
+     From heaven the angel-troop come near
+     And to the shepherds plain appear:
+     A tender little child, they cry,
+     In a rough manger lies hard by,
+
+     In Bethlehem, David’s town of old,
+     As Prophet Micah has foretold;
+     ‘Tis the Lord Jesus Christ, I wis,
+     Who of you all the saviour is.
+
+     And ye may well break out in mirth
+     That God is one with you henceforth;
+     For he is born your flesh and blood--
+     Your brother is the eternal Good.
+
+     He will nor can from you go hence;
+     Put you in him your confidence.
+     However many you assail,
+     Defy them--He can never fail!
+
+     What can death do to you, or sin?
+     The true God is to you come in.
+     Let hell and Satan raging go--
+     The Son of God’s your comrade now!
+
+     At last you must approval win,
+     For you are now become God’s kin:
+     For this go thanking God alway,
+     Happy and patient every day. Amen.
+
+
+
+         III.  EPIPHANY.
+
+     Herod, why dreadest thou a foe
+     Because the Christ comes born below?
+     He seeks no mortal kingdom thus,
+     But brings his kingdom down to us.
+
+     After the star the wise men go:
+     That light the true light them did show;
+     They signify with presents three
+     This child--God, Man, and King to be.
+
+     In Jordan baptism he did take,
+     This Lamb of God, for our poor sake;
+     Thus he who never did a sin
+     Hath washed us clean both out and in.
+
+     A miracle straightway befell:
+     Six pots of stone--they saw, who tell--
+     Of water full, which, changing, heard
+     And turned to red wine at his word.
+
+     Praise, honour, thanks to thee be said,
+     Jesus, born of the holy maid!
+     With the Father and the Holy Ghost,
+     Now, and henceforward, evermore. Amen.
+
+
+
+         IV.  EASTER.
+
+     I.
+
+     Death held our Lord in prison
+     For sin that did undo us;
+     But he hath up arisen
+     And brought our life back to us.
+     Therefore must we gladsome be,
+     Praise our God, and thankful be,
+     And sing out halleluja! Halleluja!
+
+     No man yet Death overcame--
+     All sons of men were helpless;
+     Sin for this was all to blame,
+     For no one yet was guiltless.
+     So Death came that early hour,
+     Over us took up the power,
+     Us held in’s kingdom captive. Halleluja!
+
+     Jesus Christ, God’s only Son,
+     Into our place descending,
+     Away with all our sins hath done,
+     And therewith from Death rending
+     Right and might, made him a jape,
+     Left him nothing but Death’s shape:
+     His ancient sting--he has lost it: Halleluja!
+
+     That was a right wondrous strife
+     When Death in Life’s grip wallowed:
+     Off victorious came Life,
+     Death he hath upswallowed.
+     Scripture itself has told us that--
+     How one Death the other ate:[3]
+     Now is Death become a laughter. Halleluja!
+
+     [Footnote 3: Certain eastern tales of rival enchanters seem to have been
+     present to Luther’s mind when he thought of our Lord as the Death of Evil
+     devouring the Death of Good. I have translated very closely.]
+
+     Here is the true Easter-lamb,
+     That God said must be shared,
+     Which up on the cross’s stem
+     In Love’s fire is prepared.
+     His blood on our door-post lies;
+     Faith holds that before Death’s eyes:
+     The destroyer dares not touch us: Halleluja!
+
+     So we keep high feast of grace!
+     Hearty the joy and glee is
+     That shines on us from his face:
+     The sun himself, ah! he is,
+     Who, by his brightness divine,
+     Through and through makes our hearts shine:
+     The night of our sins is over. Halleluja!
+
+     We eat--and well so we fare--
+     True Easter cakes sans leaven;
+     For th’ old leaven shall not share
+     In the new word from heaven.
+     Christ himself will be the food,
+     He alone fill us with good:
+     Faith will live on nothing other. Halleluja!
+
+
+     II.  A SONG OF PRAISE FOR EASTER.
+
+     Jesus Christ, our Saviour true
+     He who Death overthrew,
+     Is up arisen,
+     And sin hath put in prison.
+             Kyrieeleison.
+
+     Born whom Mary sinless hath,
+     Bore he for us God’s wrath,
+     Hath reconciled us:
+     Favour God doth now yield us.
+             Kyrieeleison.
+
+     Death and sin, and life and grace,
+     All to his hands we trace:
+     He can deliver
+     All who seek the life-giver.
+             Kyrieeleison.
+
+
+
+         V.  PENTECOST.
+
+     I.
+
+     Come, God, Creator, Holy Ghost,
+     Visit the heart of all thy men;
+     Fill them with grace the way thou know’st:
+     What was thine, make so again;
+
+     Our Comforter to soothe or chide;
+     The blessed gift of highest God!
+     A ghostly chrism to us applied,
+     Live streams--fire--love spread abroad!
+
+     O kindle in our minds a light;
+     Give in our hearts love’s glowing gift;
+     Our weak flesh, known to thee aright,
+     With thy strength and grace uplift.
+
+     In giving gifts thou art sevenfold--
+     The finger thou on God’s right hand!
+     His word by thee right soon is told
+     With clov’n tongues in every land.
+
+     Drive far the cunning of the foe;
+     Thy grace bring peace and make us whole,
+     That we glad after thee may go,
+     And shun that which hurts the soul.
+
+     Teach us to know the Father right,
+     And Jesus Christ, his son, that so
+     We may with faith be filled quite,
+     Spirit of both, thee to know!
+
+     Praise God the Father, and the Son
+     Who from the dead arose in power;
+     Like praise to the Consoling One,
+     Evermore and every hour! Amen.
+
+
+     II.
+
+     Come, Holy Spirit, Lord and God,
+     Fill full with thine own gracious good
+     Thy faithful ones’ heart, mind, desire!
+     Light in them of thy love the fire.
+     O Lord, through thy light, flashing fast,
+     Into the faith thou gathered hast
+     People of all tongues under heaven:
+     That to thy glory, Lord, be given!
+             Halleluja! Halleluja!
+
+     Thou holy light, retreat from strife,
+     Cause shine on us the word of life,
+     That we the truth of God gather,
+     Call him heartily our Father.
+     O Lord, protect us from strange lore,
+     That we for teachers seek no more,
+     But with true faith Jesus solely,
+     And him with all our might trust wholly:
+             Halleluja! Halleluja!
+
+     Thou holy fire, thou comfort sweet,
+     Now help us; with good cheer us meet;
+     That in thy service nought shake us,
+     Trouble never leave thee make us.
+     O Lord, by thy might us prepare,
+     And make the weak flesh strong to bear,
+     That we strive[4] like knights campaigning,
+     Through death and life to thee straining:
+             Halleluja! Halleluja!
+
+     [Footnote 4: The Scotch _warsle_ would be perfect.]
+
+
+     III.
+
+     A SONG OF PRAISE.
+
+     Now let us pray the Holy Ghost,
+     Of all things, for the true faith most,
+     In that to preserve us when we are dying,
+     And going home out of this vale of crying:
+             Kyrioleis.
+
+     Thou noble light, shine as thou hast shone;
+     Teach us to know Jesus Christ alone,
+     That we the true Saviour hold by the hand
+     Who us has brought to the real fatherland:
+             Kyrioleis.
+
+     Thou sweet Love, grant us thy favour, that so
+     We feel of thy love the inward glow,
+     That we from our hearts may love each the other,
+     Dwelling in peace, of one mind together:
+             Kyrioleis.
+
+     Comfort highest, in danger or blame
+     Help us to fear neither death nor shame;
+     Nor let weak senses with fears confuse us
+     When the enemy comes to accuse us:
+             Kyrioleis.
+
+
+
+         VI.  THE TRINITY.
+
+     I.
+
+     God, the Father, with us be,
+     Let us not fall to badness;
+     Make us from all sinning free,
+     And help us die in gladness.
+     ‘Gainst the devil well us ware,
+     And keep our faith from failing,
+     Our hope in thee from quailing.
+     Our hearts upon thee staying,
+     Make us wholly trust thy care!
+     Us, with good Christians sharing,
+     Save from the devil snaring,
+     Him with God’s weapons daring.
+     Amen! well now may we fare!
+     Now sing we Halleluja!
+
+     Jesus, Master, with us be,
+     Let us not fall to badness; &c.
+
+     Holy Spirit, with us be,
+     Let us not fall to badness; &c.
+
+
+     II.
+
+     Thou who art three in unity,
+     A true God from eternity,
+     The sun’s daylight withdraws his shine:
+     Lighten us with thy light divine.
+
+     At morn we praise thee with the day,
+     At evening, too, to thee we pray;
+     Our poor song glorifieth thee
+     Now, ever, and eternally.
+
+     God, Father, always be adored!
+     God, Son, thou art our only Lord!
+     Thee Comforter, the Holy Ghost,
+     We praise now and for evermore! Amen.
+
+
+
+         VII.  THE CHURCH AND WORD OF GOD.
+
+     I.
+
+     THE TWELFTH PSALM.
+
+     Ah God, from heaven look down and view;
+     Let it thy pity waken;
+     Behold thy saints how very few!
+     We wretches are forsaken.
+     Thy word they grant nor true nor right,
+     And faith is thus extinguished quite
+     Among the sons of Adam.
+
+     They teach a cunning false and fine--
+     In their own wits they found it;
+     Their heart in one doth not combine,
+     Nor on God’s word they ground it;
+     One chooses this, the other that;
+     Endless division they are at,
+     And yet they keep smooth faces.
+
+     God will outroot the teachers all
+     Who with false shows present us;
+     Besides, their proud tongues loudly call--
+     Tush! tush!--who can prevent us?
+     We have the right and might in full;
+     And what we say, that is the rule;
+     Who dares to give us lessons!
+
+     Therefore saith God: I must be up;
+     My poor ones ill are faring;
+     Their sighs crowd up to Zion’s top.
+     My ear their cry is hearing.
+     My wholesome word shall speedily
+     With comfort fill them, fresh and free,
+     And strength be to the needy.
+
+     Silver that seven times is tried
+     With fire, is found the purer;
+     God’s word the same test must abide--
+     It still comes out the surer.
+     It shall by crosses proved be;
+     Men shall its power and glory see
+     Shine strong upon the nations.
+
+     God will its purity defend
+     From this ill generation.
+     Let us ourselves to thee commend
+     Lest we fall from our station;
+     The godless rout is all around
+     Where these rude wanton ones are found
+     Against thy folk exalted.
+
+
+     II.
+
+     THE FOURTEENTH PSALM.
+
+     Although the fools say with their mouth:
+     Great God, we magnify him;
+     Their heart cares nothing for the truth,
+     In action they deny him.
+     Their being is corrupted quite;
+     To God it is a horrid sight;
+     Not one of them works goodness.
+
+     From heaven God downward cast his eye
+     Upon men’s sons so many;
+     He set himself to look and spy
+     If he could find out any
+     Who their own reason up had stirred
+     Earnestly to obey God’s word,
+     After his will enquiring.
+
+     Upon the right path there was none;
+     From it they all were straying;
+     Each followed fancies of his own,
+     Them to ill deeds bewraying.
+     Not one of them did good even once,
+     Though many, fooled by arrogance,
+     Thought God with them well pleased.
+
+     How long by lies will they be led
+     Who vain attempts redouble!
+     They eat my people up as bread,
+     And live upon their trouble!
+     In God stands not their confidence;
+     From ill they ask not his defence:
+     They would themselves look after.
+
+     Therefore their heart is never still
+     But always full of fearing.
+     Dwell with the good the Father will,
+     Those who have ears for hearing.
+     But ye despise the poor man’s ways,
+     And scorn at everything he says
+     Concerning God his comfort.
+
+     Who will to Israel, poor flock--
+     To Zion send salvation?
+     God will take pity on his folk,
+     And free his captive nation;
+     That will he do through Christ his Son--
+     And then is Jacob’s weeping done,
+     And Isr’el filled with gladness. Amen.
+
+
+     III.
+
+     THE FOURTY-SIXTH PSALM.
+
+     Our God he is a castle strong,
+     A good mail-coat and weapon;
+     He sets us free from every wrong
+     That wickedness would heap on.
+     The ancient wicked foe
+     He means earnest now;
+     Force and cunning sly
+     His horrid policy,--
+     On earth there’s no one like him!
+
+     Our strength is vain; do what we can
+     Our hopes are soon dejected;
+     But He fights for us, the right man,
+     By God himself elected.
+     Ask’st thou who is this?
+     Jesus Christ it is;
+     He is the Lord of Hosts
+     In whom his people boasts;
+     And he must win the battle.
+
+     And did the world with devils swarm
+     All gaping to devour us,
+     We fear not from them the least harm;
+     Success lies sure before us.
+     This world’s prince accurst,
+     Let him rage his worst,
+     Only roars about;
+     His doom it is gone out,
+     A word can overthrow him.
+
+     The Word they’ll have to let it bide,
+     Nor there claim any merit;
+     He is with us, and on our side
+     With his own gifts and spirit!
+     Let them take our life,
+     Goods, name, child, and wife--
+     Everything may go:
+     To them it is no gain;
+     The kingdom ours remaineth.
+
+
+     IV.
+
+     THE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FOURTH PSALM.
+
+     Were God not with us all the time--
+     Israel may loud declare it--
+     Were God not with us all the time,
+     We must have now despaired;
+     For we are such a little flock
+     Despised by such a crowd of folk,
+     Who all do set upon us!
+
+     ‘Gainst us so angry is their mood,
+     If God had given them tether
+     Us they had swallowed where we stood,
+     Body and soul together.
+     We should have been drowned all, like those
+     O’er whom the waters great did close,
+     And swept them off relentless.
+
+     Thank God! their throat who did not let
+     Us swallow when it gaped;
+     As from a snare a bird doth flit
+     So is our soul escaped.
+     The snare’s in two, and we are through:
+     The name of God it standeth true,
+     The God of earth and heaven. Amen.
+
+
+     V.
+
+     A CHILDREN’S SONG, TO SING AGAINST THE TWO ARCHENEMIES OF CHRIST AND HIS
+     HOLY CHURCH, THE POPE AND THE TURKS.
+
+     Lord, keep us by thy word in hope,
+     And check the murder of Turk and Pope,
+     Who Jesus Christ, thine only Son,
+     Would fain from off thy throne cast down.
+
+     Proof of thy strength, Lord Christ, afford,
+     For thou of all the lords art Lord;
+     Thy own poor Christendom defend,
+     That it may praise thee without end.
+
+     God Holy Ghost, who Comfort art,
+     Give to thy folk on earth one heart;
+     Stand by us breathing our last breath;
+     Into life lead us out of death.
+
+
+     VI.
+
+     A SONG OF THE HOLY CHRISTIAN CHURCH, FROM THE TWELFTH CHAPTER OF THE
+     APOCALYPSE.
+
+     Her, the worthy maid, my heart doth hold,
+     And I shall not forget her.
+     Praise, honour, virtue of her are told;
+     Than all I love her better.
+           I seek her good,
+           And if I should
+           Right evil fare,
+           I do not care:
+     With that she’ll make me merry!
+     With love and truth that never tire
+     Glad she will make me very,
+     And do all my desire.
+
+     She wears a crown of pure gold, where
+     Twelve stars their rays are twining;
+     Her raiment like the sun is fair,
+     And bright from far is shining.
+           Her feet the moon
+           Are set upon;
+           She is the bride
+           By Jesus’ side!
+     She hath sorrow, must be mother
+     To her fair child, the noble Son,
+     Of all men lord and brother,
+     Her king, her crowned one.
+
+     That makes the old dragon ramp and roar;
+     The child he tries to swallow;
+     His rage is rage and nothing more!
+     No hurt that rage will follow.
+           The child up high
+           Into the sky
+           Away is heft,
+           And he is left
+     On earth, all mad with murder.
+     The mother all alone is she,
+     But God will watch and ward her,
+     And her true Father be.
+
+
+     VII.
+
+     A SONG CONCERNING THE TWO MARTYRS OF CHRIST, BURNT AT BRUSSELS BY THE
+     SOPHISTS OF LOUBAINE, WHICH TOOK PLACE IN THE YEAR 1523.
+
+     A new song here shall be begun--
+     The Lord God help our singing!--
+     Of what our God himself hath done,
+     Praise, honour to him bringing:
+     At Brussels in the Netherlands,
+     By two young boys, He gracious
+     Displays the wonders of his hands,
+     Giving them gifts right precious,
+     And richly them adorning.
+
+     The first right fitly John was named,
+     So rich he in God’s favour;
+     His brother, Henry--one unblamed,
+     Whose salt had lost no savour.
+     From this world they are gone away,
+     The diadem they’ve gained!
+     Honest, like God’s good children, they
+     For his word life disdained,
+     And have become his martyrs.
+
+     The ancient foe on them laid hold,
+     With terrors did enwrap them;
+     To lie against God’s word them told,
+     With cunning would entrap them:
+     From Louvaine too, to see the game
+     And in his crust nets take them,
+     Many a sophist gathered came:
+     The Spirit fools did make them--
+     Their cunning could gain nothing.
+
+     Oh! they sung sweet, and they sung sour;
+     Oh! they tried every double;
+     The boys they stood firm as a tower,
+     And mocked the sophists’ trouble.
+     The serpent old it filled with hate
+     To be thuswise defeated
+     By two such youngsters--he, so great!--
+     His wrath sevenfold was heated,
+     And he resolved to burn them.
+
+     Their cloister-garments off they tore,
+     Undid their consecrations;
+     All this the boys were ready for,
+     And said Amen with patience.
+     To God their Father they gave thanks
+     That they would soon be rescued
+     From Satan’s scoffs and mumming pranks,
+     Whereby with false pretences
+     The world he so befooleth.
+
+     Then gracious God did grant to them
+     To pass true priesthood’s border,
+     And offer up themselves to him,
+     Thus entering Christ’s own order;
+     So to the world to die outright,
+     With falsehood make a schism;
+     And coming to heaven pure and white
+     Give monkery the besom,
+     And leave behind men’s prattle.
+
+     They wrote for them a paper small:
+     At their request they read it;
+     They showed them every point there, all
+     To which themselves gave credit.
+     There was an error great indeed!
+     In God we should trust solely:
+     To cheat and lie, man maketh speed;
+     We should distrust him wholly:
+     For that they burn to ashes.
+
+     Two awful fires they kindled then,
+     The boys they carried to them;
+     Great wonder seizes every man
+     That with contempt they view them.
+     With joy themselves they yielded quite,
+     With singing and God-praising:
+     The sophists had small appetite
+     For these new things so dazing
+     Which God was thus revealing.
+
+     They now repent the deed of blame,
+     Would gladly gloze it over;
+     They dare not glory in their shame;
+     The facts almost they cover.
+     In their hearts gnaweth infamy--
+     They to their friends deplore it:
+     The Spirit cannot silent be;
+     Good Abel’s blood out-poured
+     Must still old Cain discover!
+
+     To spread, their ashes will not cease;
+     Into all lands they scatter;
+     Stream, hole, ditch, grave will them release;
+     All winds shall tell the matter.
+     Them whom from life their murderous hand
+     Drove down to silence triple,
+     They hear them now in every land,
+     In tongues of every people,
+     Go about gladly singing.
+
+     Still their foul lies they will not leave,
+     But trim and dress the murther;
+     The fable false which out they give
+     Shows conscience grinds them further.
+     God’s holy ones, even after death,
+     They still go on belying;
+     They say that with their latest breath
+     The boys, in act of dying,
+     Repented and recanted!
+
+     Let them lie on for evermore--
+     Nothing by that they’re gaining;
+     For us, we thank our God therefore:
+     His word is yet remaining!
+     Even at the door is summer nigh,
+     The winter hard is ended,
+     The tender flowers come out to spy:
+     His hand when once extended
+     Stays not till it has finished. Amen.
+
+
+         VIII.  GRACE.
+
+     I.
+
+     THE SIXTY-SEVENTH PSALM.
+
+     Would that the Lord would grant us grace,
+     And in his volume write us!
+     With its clear shining let his face
+     To life eternal light us;
+     That we may know his work at length,
+     And what men him have faith in;
+     And Jesus Christ our health and strength
+     Be known to all the heathen,
+     And unto God convert them.
+
+     God then will thank, and thee will praise
+     The heathen with glad voices;
+     Let all the world for joy upraise
+     A song with mighty noises,
+     Because thou art earth’s judge, O Lord,
+     Nor leav’st the righteous quailing;
+     Thy word it is both bed and board,
+     And for all folk availing
+     In the right path to keep them.
+
+     Let them thank God, and thee adore,
+     Thy folk of deeds of grace full.
+     The land grows fruitful more and more;
+     Thy word it is successful.
+     Bless us the Father and the Son,
+     And bless us, God, the Holy Ghost,
+     To whom by all be honour done!
+     Before him fear the human host!
+     Now heartily say Amen.
+
+
+     II.
+
+     THE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-EIGHTH PSALM.
+
+     Happy who in God’s fear doth stay,
+     And in it goeth on his way;
+     Thine own hand thee shall find thy food,
+     So liv’st thou right, and all is good.
+
+     So shall thy wife be, in thy house,
+     Like vine with clusters plenteous,
+     Thy children sit thy table round
+     Like olive plants all fresh and sound.
+
+     See, such rich blessing hangs him on
+     Whom God’s fear maketh live a man;
+     From him the old curse away is worn
+     To which the sons of men are born.
+
+     From Zion God will prosper thee;
+     Thou shalt behold continually
+     Jerusalem’s now happy case
+     So pleasing to the God of grace.
+
+     He will thy days prolong for thee,
+     With goodness ever nigh thee be
+     That thou with thy sons’ sons may’st dwell,
+     And there be peace in Israel.
+
+
+     III.
+
+     A SONG OF THANKSGIVING FOR THE BENEFITS MOST GREAT WHICH GOD HATH SHOWN TO
+     US IN CHRIST.
+
+     Dear Christians, let us now rejoice,
+     And dance in joyous measure;
+     That, of good cheer, and with one voice,
+     We sing in love and pleasure
+     Of what to us our God hath shown,
+     And the sweet wonder he hath done:
+     Full dearly hath he bought it!
+
+     Forlorn and lost in death I lay
+     A captive to the devil;
+     My sin lay heavy, night and day,
+     For I was born in evil.
+     I fell but deeper for my strife
+     There was no good in all my life,
+     For sin had all-possessed me.
+
+     My good works they were worthless quite,
+     A mock was all my merit;
+     My free will hates God’s judging light,
+     To all good dead and buried.
+     Me to despair my anguish drove,
+     Down unto death my soul did shove:
+     I must be plunged in hell-fire!
+
+     Then God was sorry on his throne
+     To see such torment rend me;
+     His tender mercy he thought on,
+     And his good help would send me.
+     He turned to me his father-heart:
+     Ah, then was His no easy part;
+     His very best it cost him!
+
+     To his dear son he said: Go down;
+     Things go in piteous fashion;
+     Go thou, my heart’s exalted crown,
+     Be the poor man’s salvation.
+     Lift him from out sin’s scorn and scathe;
+     Strangle for him that cruel Death,
+     And take him to live with thee.
+
+     The son he heard obediently;
+     And, by a maiden mother,
+     Pure, tender--down he came to me,
+     For he must be my brother!
+     Concealed he brought his strength enorm,
+     And went about in my poor form,
+     Meaning to catch the devil.
+
+     He said unto me: Hold by me,
+     Thy matters I will settle;
+     I give myself all up for thee,
+     And I will fight thy battle.
+     For I am thine, and thou art mine,
+     And my house also shall be thine;
+     The enemy shall not part us.
+
+     Like water he will shed my blood,
+     Of life my heart bereaving;
+     All this I suffer for thy good--
+     That hold with firm believing;
+     My Life shall swallow up that Death;
+     My innocence bears thy sins, He saith,
+     So henceforth thou art happy.
+
+     To heaven unto my Father high,
+     From this life I am going;
+     But there thy master still am I,
+     My spirit on thee bestowing,
+     Whose comfort shall thy trouble quell,
+     And teach thy heart to know me well,
+     Thee into all truth guiding.
+
+     What I have done, what I have said,
+     Thou must go doing, teaching;
+     That so the kingdom of God may spread,
+     To His praise all men reaching.
+     But take heed what men bid thee do--
+     That will corrupt the treasure true:
+     With this last word I leave thee. Amen.
+
+
+
+         IX.  THE COMMANDMENTS.
+
+     I.
+
+     These are the holy ten commands
+     Which came to us from God’s own hands
+     By Moses, who thus did his will
+     On the top of Sinai’s hill.
+           Kyrioleis.
+
+     I am the Lord thy God alone;
+     Of Gods besides thou shalt have none;
+     Thou shalt thyself trust all to me,
+     And love me right heartily.
+           Kyrioleis.
+
+     Thou shalt not speak like idle word
+     The name of God who is thy Lord;
+     As right or good thou shalt not praise
+     Except what God does and says.
+           Kyrioleis.
+
+     Thou shalt keep holy the seventh day,
+     That rest thou and thy household may;
+     From thine own work thou must keep free,
+     That God his work have in thee.
+           Kyrioleis.
+
+     Honour thou shall and shalt obey
+     Thy father and thy mother alway;
+     To serve them ready be thy hand
+     That thou live long in the land.
+           Kyrioleis.
+
+     In anger hot thou shalt not kill,
+     Nor hate, nor take revenge for ill;
+     Be patient and of gentle mood,
+     And ev’n to thy foe do good.
+           Kyrioleis.
+
+     Thy marriage-bond thou shalt keep clean,
+     That to no other thy heart lean;
+     Thy life thou must keep pure and free,
+     Temperate, with fine chastity.
+           Kyrioleis.
+
+     Money or goods steal not, nor yet
+     Traffic in others’ blood and sweat;
+     But open wide thy kindly hand
+     To the poor man in thy land.
+           Kyrioleis.
+
+     Evil reports thou shalt not bear,
+     Nor ‘gainst thy neighbour falsely swear;
+     His innocence thou shalt defend,
+     And hide his shame from foe or friend.
+           Kyrioleis.
+
+     Thy neighbour’s wife or house to win
+     Thou shalt not seek--or aught therein;
+     But wish all good to him may be,
+     As thy own heart doth to thee.
+           Kyrioleis.
+
+     To us come these commands, that so
+     Thou, son of man, thy sins mayst know,
+     And with this lesson thy heart fill,
+     That man must live for God’s will.
+           Kyrioleis.
+
+     May Christ our Lord help us in this,
+     For he our mediator is;
+     Our own work is a hopeless thing,
+     Wrath alone all it can bring.
+           Kyrioleis.
+
+
+     II.
+
+     Oh man, wouldst thou live blissfully,
+     And dwell with God eternally,
+     Thou shalt observe the ten commands,
+     Written by God with his hands:
+           Kyrioleis.
+
+     Thy God and Lord I am alway;
+     No other God shall make thee stray;
+     Thy heart must ever trust in me;
+     Mine own kingdom shalt thou be:
+           Kyrioleis.
+
+     My name to honour thou shalt heed,
+     And call on me in time of need.
+     Thou shalt keep whole the sabbath day,
+     That so in thee I work may:
+           Kyrioleis.
+
+     To thy father and mother thou
+     Shalt, next me, in obedience bow;
+     None kill, nor yield to anger wild;
+     And keep thy marriage undefiled:
+           Kyrioleis.
+
+     From any one thou shalt not steal;
+     Falsely with others never deal;
+     Thy neighbour’s wife thou shalt not eye:
+     Let his be his welcomely!
+           Kyrioleis.
+
+
+         X.  THE CREED.
+
+     In one true God we all believe,
+     Maker of the earth and heaven;
+     Who, us as children to receive,
+     Hath himself as father given.
+     Now and henceforth he will feed us;
+     Soul and body, will be round us;
+     ‘Gainst mischances all will heed us;
+     Nought shall come on us to wound us.
+     He watches for us, cares, defends;
+     And everything to his might bends.
+
+     And we believe in Jesus Christ,
+     His son, our Lord. Evermore he
+     Sits beside the Father high’st,
+     Equal God in might and glory.
+     He of Mary, the young maiden,
+     Verily was born true human
+     By the Holy Ghost. Grief-laden
+     For our sakes, lost man and woman,
+     He on the cross expired in faith,
+     And rose again, through God, from death.
+
+     We believe in the Holy Ghost
+     With the Father and the Saviour,
+     In whom the fearful learn to boast,
+     Who the meek doth crown with favour.
+     Christendom, in earth and heaven,
+     Of one heart and mind he keepeth.
+     Here all sins shall be forgiven;
+     Wake too shall the flesh that sleepeth;
+     After these sufferings there shall be
+     Life to all eternity. Amen.
+
+
+
+         XI.  PRAYER.
+
+     I.
+
+     THE LORD’S PRAYER, BRIEFLY AND PLAINLY SET FORTH, AND TURNED INTO METRE.
+
+     Our Father in the heaven who art,
+     Who tellest all of us, in heart
+     Brothers to be, and on thee call,
+     And wilt have prayer from us all--
+     Grant, not from mouth alone it flow;
+     From deepest heart oh let it go!
+
+     Hallowed be thy name, O Lord;
+     Amongst us oh keep pure thy word,
+     That we too may live holily,
+     And in thy true name worthily!
+     Defend us, Lord, from lying lore;
+     Thy poor misguided folk restore.
+
+     Thy kingdom come now here below!
+     And after there on ever go!
+     The Holy Ghost his temple hold
+     In us with graces manifold!
+     The devil’s wrath and greatness strong
+     Crush, that he do thy church no wrong.
+
+     Thy will be done the same, Lord God,
+     On earth as in thy high abode!
+     In pain give patience for relief,
+     Obedience in love and grief;
+     All flesh and blood keep off and check
+     That ‘gainst thy will makes a stiff neck.
+
+     Give us this day our daily bread,
+     And all that doth the body stead;
+     From strife and war, Lord, keep us free,
+     From sickness and from scarcity;
+     That we in happy peace may rest,
+     By care and greed all undistrest.
+
+     Forgive, Lord, all our trespasses,
+     That they to us have no access;
+     As to our debtors we gladly let
+     Pass every wrong and every debt.
+     To serve make us all ready be
+     In honest love and unity.
+
+     Into temptation lead us not.
+     When th’ evil spirit makes battle hot
+     Upon the left and the right hand,
+     Help us with vigour to withstand
+     Firm in the faith, armed ‘gainst a host
+     Through comfort of the Holy Ghost.
+
+     From all that’s evil free thy sons--
+     The time, the days are wicked ones.
+     Deliver us from endless death;
+     Comfort us in our latest breath;
+     Grant us also a blessed end:
+     Our spirit take into thy hand.
+
+     Amen! that is, let this come true!
+     Strengthen our faith ever anew,
+     That we may never be in doubt
+     Of that we here have prayed about.
+     In thy name, trusting in thy word,
+     We say a soft Amen, O Lord.
+
+
+     II.
+
+     THE LITANY.
+
+             1. Chorus: Kyrie,           2. Chorus: Eleison.
+             1. Christe,                 2. Eleison.
+             1. Kyrie,                   2. Eleison.
+             1. O Christ,                2. Hear us!
+     1. Lord God, the Father in heaven,
+     1. Lord God, the Son, Saviour of the world,
+     1. Lord God, the Holy Ghost,
+     2. Have pity upon us.
+     1. Be gracious unto us.
+     2. Spare us, dear Lord God.
+     1. Be gracious unto us.
+     2. Help us, dear Lord God.
+     1. From all sins,
+        From all error,
+        From all evil,
+     2. Defend us, dear Lord God.
+     1. From the deceit and wiles of the devil,
+        From violent, sudden death,
+        From pestilence and famine,
+        From war and bloodshed,
+        From uproar and discord,
+        From fire and flood,
+        From hail and tempest,
+        From the eternal death,
+     2. Defend us, dear Lord God.
+     1. Through thy holy birth,
+        Through thy death-struggle and bloody sweat,
+        Through thy cross and death,
+     2. Help us, dear Lord God.
+     1. Through thy holy resurrection and ascension,
+        In our final distress,
+        At the last judgement,
+     2. Help us, dear Lord God.
+     1. We poor sinners pray
+     2. That thou wouldst hear us, dear Lord God!
+     1. And thy holy Church govern and lead.
+        All bishops, parsons, and clerks, keep in the wholesome word and holy
+     life.
+        All factions and offences prevent.
+        All that wander and all that are led astray, bring back.
+        Tread Satan under our feet.
+        Into thy harvest send forth true labourers.
+        Give to the word thy spirit and power.
+        All that are troubled and faint-hearted help and comfort them.
+        To all kings and princes give peace and concord.
+        To our emperor grant constant victory over his enemies.
+        Our governors, and all their mighty ones, guide and defend.
+        Our council, school, and congregation, bless and protect.
+        To all in distress and on a journey, appear with help.
+        To all that are with child and that give suck, grant happy result and
+     good success.
+        All children and sick persons foster and tend.
+        All prisoners loose and unburden.
+        All widows and orphans defend and provide for.
+        Take pity upon all men.
+        Our enemies, persecutors, and slanderers, forgive and convert.
+        The fruits of the earth give and preserve;
+        And graciously hear us.
+     2. Hear us, dear Lord God.
+     1. O Jesus Christ, God’s Son,
+     2. Have pity upon us.
+     1. O thou Lamb of God, that bearest the sins of the world,
+     2. Have pity upon us.
+     1. O thou Lamb of God, that bearest the sins of the world,
+     2. Have pity upon us.
+     1. O thou Lamb of God, that bearest the sins of the world,
+     2. Grant us lasting peace.
+            1. Christ,                 2. Hear us.
+            1. Lord,                   2. Have pity,
+            1. Christ,                 2. Have pity,
+               1. 2. Lord, have pity. Amen.
+
+
+     III.
+
+     Peach to us in thy mercy grant;
+       In our times, Lord, it settle;
+     Sure there is not another one
+       Able to fight our battle
+         Except thee, our Lord God, only.
+
+
+
+         XII.  _BAPTISM_.
+
+     A SPIRITUAL SONG, CONCERNING OUR HOLY BAPTISM, WHEREIN IS BRIEFLY
+     CONTAINED WHAT IT IS, WHO HAS INSTITUTED IT, WHERETO IT SERVES, &C.
+
+     To Jordan when our Lord had gone,
+     His Father’s pleasure willing,
+     He took his baptism of St. John,
+     His work and charge fulfilling;
+     Therein he did appoint a bath
+     To wash us from defilement,
+     And there to drown that cruel Death
+     In his blood of assoilment:
+     ‘Twas no less than a new life.
+
+     Let all then hear and right receive
+     The baptism of the Father;
+     And learn what Christians must believe,
+     Shunning where heretics gather.
+     Water indeed, not water mere
+     Therein can work his pleasure:
+     His holy Word is also there
+     With Spirit rich, unmeasured:
+     He is the one baptizer.
+
+     This clearly showed He by his word
+     Of open recognition;
+     The Father’s voice men plainly heard
+     At Jordan claim his mission.
+     God said, This is my own dear Son
+     In whom I am well contented;
+     To you I send him, every one--
+     That all may hear I have sent him,
+     And follow what he teaches.
+
+     Also God’s Son himself here stands
+     In human presentation;
+     On him the Holy Ghost descends
+     In dove-like shape and fashion,
+     That not a doubt should ever rise
+     That, when we are baptized,
+     All the three Persons do baptize;
+     And they be recognized
+     Themselves come to dwell with us.
+
+     Christ to his scholars says: Go forth,
+     Give to all men acquaintance
+     That lost in sin lies the whole earth,
+     And must turn to repentance.
+     Believe, and be baptized, and then
+     Each man is blest for ever;
+     From that hour he’s a new-born man,
+     And thenceforth, dying never,
+     The kingdom shall inherit.
+
+     But who in this grace puts no faith
+     Abides in sin, life misses;
+     He is condemned to endless death
+     Deep down in hell’s abysses.
+     Nothing avails his righteousness,
+     And lost are all his merits;
+     Sin original holds its place--
+     The sin which he inherits;
+     And help himself he cannot.
+
+     The eye but water doth behold
+     As from man’s hand it floweth;
+     But inward faith the power untold
+     Of Jesus Christ’s blood knoweth:
+     Faith sees therein a red flood roll,
+     With Christ’s blood dyed and blended,
+     Which hurt of every kind makes whole,
+     Whether from Adam heired
+     Or by ourselves committed.
+
+
+
+         XIII.  _REPENTANCE_.
+
+     THE HUNDRED AND THIRTIETH PSALM.
+
+     From trouble deep I cry to thee;
+     Lord God, hear thou my crying;
+     Thy gracious ear oh turn to me,
+     Open it to thy sighing.
+     For if thou mean’st to look upon
+     The wrong and evil that is done,
+     Who, Lord, can stand before thee?
+
+     With thee availeth nought but grace
+     To cover trespass mortal;
+     Our good deeds cannot show their face,
+     In best life they come short all.
+     Before thee no one glory can,
+     And so must tremble every man,
+     And live by thy grace only.
+
+     Hope therefore in my God will I,
+     On my deserts nought founding;
+     Upon him shall my heart rely,
+     All on his goodness grounding.
+     What his true word doth promise me
+     My comfort shall and refuge be;
+     That will I always wait for.
+
+     And if it last into the night,
+     And last again till morning,
+     Yet shall my heart hope in God’s might,
+     Despair and foresight scorning.
+     Thus Israel must keep his post,
+     For he was born of the Holy Ghost,
+     And for his God must tarry.
+
+     Although our sin be great; God’s grace
+     Is greater to relieve us;
+     His hand from helping nothing stays,
+     Howe’er the hurt be grievous.
+     The shepherd good alone is He,
+     Who will at last set Israel free,
+     From all and every trespass.
+
+
+
+         XIV.  _THE LORD’S SUPPER_.
+
+     I.
+
+     A SONG OF ST. JOHN HUSS, IMPROVED BY DR. MARTIN LUTHER.
+
+     Christ Jesus, our Redeemer born,
+     Who from us did God’s anger turn
+     Through his sufferings sore and main
+     Help he us all out of hell-pain!
+
+     That we never should forget it,
+     Gave he us his flesh, to eat it,
+     Hid in poor bread, gift divine,
+     And, to drink, his blood in the wine.
+
+     Who will draw near to that table,
+     Must take heed, all he is able!
+     Who unworthy thither goes,
+     Thence death instead of life he sows.
+
+     God the Father praise thou duly,
+     That he thee would feed so truly,
+     And for ill deeds by thee done
+     Up unto death has given his son.
+
+     Have this faith, and do not waver,
+     ‘Tis a food for every craver
+     Who, his heart with sin opprest,
+     Can no more for its anguish rest.
+
+     Such kindness and such grace to get
+     Seeks a heart with labour great.
+     Is it well with thee? take care
+     Lest at last thou shouldst evil fare.
+
+     He doth say, Come hither, O ye
+     Poor, that I may pity show ye:
+     From the leech the sound will start,
+     And make a mockery of his art.
+
+     Hadst thou any skill to offer
+     Why for thee should I then suffer?
+     Table this is not for thee
+     If saviour thou thine own canst be.
+
+     If such faith thy heart possesses
+     And the same thy mouth confesses,
+     Fit guest then thou art indeed
+     And so this food thy soul will feed.
+
+     But bear fruit, or lose thy labour:
+     Take thou heed thou love thy neighbour,
+     That thou food to him mayst be
+     As thy God makes himself to thee.
+
+
+     II.
+
+     A SONG OF PRAISE.
+
+     Let God be blest, be praised, and be thanked,
+     Who to us himself hath granted
+     This his own flesh and blood to feed and save us!
+     May we take right what he gave us:
+       Lord, be merciful to us.
+     By thy holy body dead in shame,
+     Lord, which from thy mother, Mary, came,
+     And by thy holy blood
+     Ease us, Lord, from all our load:
+       Lord, be merciful to us.
+
+     The holy body is for us laid lowly
+     Down in death, that we live holy;
+     No greater goodness he to us could render
+     Than make us mind his love tender.
+       Lord, be merciful to us.
+     Lord, thy love so great was, it hath driven
+     Thee to death, and us great gifts hath given
+     Our old debt it has paid,
+     And God has gracious made:
+       Lord, be merciful to us.
+
+     God on us all his blessing free bestow now
+     That we in his ways may go now,
+     Right-hearted love and brother-truth ensuing,
+     Never the Lord’s supper ruing!
+       Lord, be merciful to us.
+     Let thy good Ghost us not forsake,
+     Let him make us the just way take
+     That thy poor Christendom
+     Into peace and union come!
+       Lord, be merciful to us.
+
+
+
+         XV.  _DEATH_.
+
+     I.
+
+     In the midst of life, we are
+     Aye in Death’s embraces.
+     Who is there who help us can
+     And in safety place us?
+     Lord, thou art he, thou only.
+     From our ill deeds we sorrowing turn
+     That have made thy anger burn.
+     Holy, holy Lord God,
+     Holy, mighty Lord God,
+     Holy Saviour with the tender heart,
+     Everlasting God,
+     Let us not be swallowed
+     In the misery of death:
+       Lord, have mercy upon us.
+
+     In the midst of death, behold
+     Hell’s jaws gaping at us!
+     Who will from such dire distress
+     Free and scathless set us?
+     Lord, that dost thou, thou only:
+     It fills thy tender heart with woe
+     We should sin and suffer so.
+     Holy, holy Lord God,
+     Holy, mighty Lord God,
+     Holy Saviour with the tender heart,
+     Everlasting God,
+     Let us not be gasted
+     By hell’s hollows all aglow:
+       Lord, have mercy upon us.
+
+     When amidst the pains of hell
+     Us our sins are baiting;
+     Whither shall we flee away
+     Where relief is waiting?
+     To thee, Lord Christ, thee only
+     Who didst outpour thy precious blood
+     For our sins sufficing good:
+     Holy, holy Lord God,
+     Holy, mighty Lord God,
+     Holy Saviour with the tender heart,
+     Everlasting God,
+     Let us not fall from thee,
+     From comfort of the right faith:
+       Lord, have mercy upon us.
+
+
+     II.
+
+     SIMEON THE PATRIARCH’S SONG OF PRAISE.
+
+     In peace and joy I now depart,
+     For God hath willed it.
+     Comforted is my mind and heart,
+     For he hath stilled it;
+     As my God did promise me,
+     Death is grown only slumber.
+
+     That shows that Christ is God’s own Son,
+     And our saviour so,
+     Whom thou, O Lord, to me hast shown,
+     Making me know
+     Him the Life eternal,
+     And health in pain and dying.
+
+     In the fore-front thou hast him placed,
+     In him delighted;
+     The whole world to his kingdom blest
+     Hast invited
+     Through thy precious wholesome word
+     In every place resounding.
+
+     He is the health and happy light
+     Of the heathen,
+     To ope their eyes, and give them sight
+     Thee to see then.
+     He to thy people, Isr’el,
+     Is glory, honour, pleasure.
+
+
+
+         XVI.  _THE PRAISE OF GOD_.
+
+     I.
+
+     Unto the seer, Isaiah, it was given
+     That, in the spirit, he saw the Lord of heaven
+     Up on a lofty throne, in radiance bright;
+     The skirt of his garment filled the temple quite;
+     Two seraphs at his side were standing there;
+     Six wings, he saw, each one of them did wear:
+     Two over their bright visages did meet,
+     With two of them they covered up their feet,
+     And with the other twain abroad did fly.
+     Each to the other called with a great cry,
+     Holy is God, the Lord of Zebaoth!
+     Holy is God, the Lord of Zebaoth!
+     Holy is God, the Lord of Zebaoth!
+     His glory great the whole world filled hath.
+     At the loud cry the beams and threshold shook,
+     And the whole house was full of cloud and smoke.
+
+
+     II.
+
+     THE SONG OF PRAISE “TE TEUM LAUDAMUS,” TURNED INTO GERMAN BY DR. MART.
+     LUTHER.
+
+     _The first Choir._--Lord God, thee praise do we.
+     _The second Choir._--Lord, we give thanks to thee.
+
+         1. Thee, Father, eternal God,
+         2. Earth praises, far and broad.
+         1. All angels and heaven’s host,
+         2. All that in thy service boast,
+         1. The cherubim and seraphim
+         2.  Sing thee ever with lofty hymn:
+         1.  Holy is our Lord God!
+         2.  Holy is our Lord God!
+
+     _Both Choirs._--Holy is our God, the Lord of Sabaoth.
+
+         1. Thy godlike might and lordship go
+         2. Wide over heaven and earth below.
+         1. To thee the holy twelve do call,
+         2. And thy beloved prophets all:
+         1. The precious martyrs, with one voice,
+         2. Praise thee, O Lord, with mighty noise.
+         1. From all thy worthy Christendom
+         2. To thee each day thy praises come;
+         1. To Thee, the Father, on highest throne,
+         2. Thy true and only-begotten Son;
+         1. The holy Comforter always,
+         2. With service true they thank and praise.
+         1. Thou, king of glory, Christ, alone
+         2. Art the Father’s eternal Son;
+         1. Didst not the virgin’s womb despise,
+         2. That so the human race might rise;
+         1. Thou on the might of Death didst tread,
+         2. And Christians all to heaven dost lead.
+         1. Thou sittest now at God’s right hand,
+         2. With glory of all i’ th’ heavenly land;
+         1. The hour shall come when thou shalt yet
+         2. To judge the dead and living sit;
+         1. Now to thy servants help afford,
+         2. Ransomed with thy dear blood, O Lord;
+         1. Let us in heaven have our dole,
+         2. And with the holy be always whole.
+         1. Thy folk, Lord Christ, help and advance,
+         2. And bless thine own inheritance;
+         1. Them watch and ward, Lord, every day,
+         2. And lift them always up, we pray.
+         1. Daily, Lord God, we honour thee,
+         2. And praise thy name continually.
+         1. O God of truth, keep us this day
+         2. From every sin and evil way.
+         1. Be gracious to us, Lord, we plead--
+         2. Be gracious to us in every need.
+         1. Show unto us thy pitying grace,
+         2. For all our hope in thee we place.
+         1. Dear Lord, our hope is in thy name;
+         2. Let us be never put to shame. Amen.
+
+
+
+         _OF LIFE AT COURT_.
+
+     _To the tune_--Ein Lappisch Mann: _A Silly Man_.
+
+     Who number one
+     Keeps in the van,
+     And gently can
+     His hoop drive on
+     And fawn and fan,
+     And every man
+     Counts dust and bran--
+     Is now the cock to crow to Pan.
+
+     Who has in sight
+     To live upright,
+     Keep honour bright,
+     And be true quite--
+     In vain shall fight
+     And lose his might,
+     Shall meet with slight
+     And scorn and spite,
+     And serve the rest, unhappy wight.
+
+     By flattery’s rod
+     There’s many a lad
+     Great wealth has had,
+     And praises glad;
+     Down in the mud
+     He’ll others tread
+     And honour wed:
+     So goes the world heels over head!
+
+     Whatever man
+     Has no such plan,
+     From court must run;
+     Such never won
+     But scoff and ban.
+     Who flatter can,
+     And sting and tan--
+     He is at court the best o’ the clan!
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Rampolli, by George MacDonald
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