Hymns To The Night, by German philosopher, author, and poet Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg (1772-1801), translated to English from the original German by George MacDonald, 1897.
3
Once when I was shedding
bitter tears, when, dissolved in pain, my hope was melting away, and I stood alone by the
barren mound which in its narrow dark bosom hid the vanished form of my life -- lonely as never yet was lonely man,
driven by
anxiety unspeakable -- powerless, and no longer anything 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 snapt the bond of
birth -- the chains 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, Night-inspiration, heavenly
Slumber, didst come upon me -- the region
gently upheaved itself; over it hovered my unbound, newborn spirit. The mound 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 bond 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. It was the first, the only dream -- and just since then I have held fast
an eternal, unchangeable faith in the heaven of the
Night, and its Light, the Beloved.
back more