The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 01. Коллектив авторов

        Called to a new employ in boundless space,

        The lonely monad quits its 'customed place

        And from life's weary round contented flees.

        No more of passionate striving, will perverse

        And hampering obligations, long a curse:

        Free self-abandonment at last gives peace.

        Soul of the world, come pierce our being through!

        Across the drift of things our way to hew

        Is our appointed task, our noblest war.

        Good spirits by our destined pathway still

        Lead gently on, best masters of our will,

        Toward that which made and makes all things that are.

        To shape for further ends what now has breath,

        Let nothing harden into ice and death,

        Works endless living action everywhere.

        What has not yet existed strives for birth—

        Toward purer suns, more glorious-colored earth:

        To rest in idle stillness naught may dare.

        All must move onward, help transform the mass,

        Assume a form, to yet another pass;

        'Tis but in seeming aught is fixed or still.

        In all things moves the eternal restless Thought;

        For all, when comes the hour, must fall to naught

        If to persist in being is its will.

        Within a gloomy charnel-house one day

        I viewed the countless skulls, so strangely mated,

        And of old times I thought that now were gray.

        Close packed they stand that once so fiercely hated,

        And hardy bones that to the death contended,

        Are lying crossed,—to lie forever, fated.

        What held those crooked shoulder-blades suspended?

        No one now asks; and limbs with vigor fired,

        The hand, the foot—their use in life is ended.

        Vainly ye sought the tomb for rest when tired;

        Peace in the grave may not be yours; ye're driven

        Back into daylight by a force inspired;

        But none can love the withered husk, though even

        A glorious noble kernel it contained.

        To me, an adept, was the writing given

        Which not to all its holy sense explained.

        When 'mid the crowd, their icy shadows flinging,

        I saw a form that glorious still remained,

        And even there, where mould and damp were clinging,

        Gave me a blest, a rapture-fraught emotion,

        As though from death a living fount were springing.

        What mystic joy I felt! What rapt devotion!

        That form, how pregnant with a godlike trace!

        A look, how did it whirl me toward that ocean

        Whose rolling billows mightier shapes embrace!

        Mysterious vessel! Oracle how dear!

        Even to grasp thee is my hand too base,

        Except to steal thee from thy prison here

        With pious purpose, and devoutly go

        Back to the air, free thoughts, and sunlight clear.

        What greater gain in life can man e'er know

        Than when God-Nature will to him explain

        How into Spirit steadfastness may flow,

        How steadfast, too, the Spirit-Born remain.

        No living atom comes at last to naught!

        Active in each is still the eternal Thought:

        Hold fast to Being if thou wouldst be blest.

        Being is without end; for changeless laws

        Bind that from which the All its glory draws

        Of living treasures endlessly possessed.

        Unto the wise of old this truth was known,

        Such wisdom knit their noble souls in one;

        Then hold thou still the lore of ancient days!

        To that high power thou ow'st it, son of man,

        By whose decree the earth its circuit ran

        And all the planets went their various ways.

        Then inward turn at once thy searching eyes;

        Thence shalt thou see the central truth arise

        From which no lofty soul goes e'er astray;

        There shalt thou miss no needful guiding sign—

        For conscience lives, and still its light divine

        Shall be the sun of all thy moral day.

        Next shalt thou trust thy senses' evidence,

        And