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.
4
Now I know when will come the last
morning -- when the Light no more scares away 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 mound against whose 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 -- truly
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 fragrances, it mingles with love asleep.
Still wakest thou, cheerful
Light, that weary man to his labor -- and into me pourest joyous life -- but thou wilest me not
away from Memory's moss-grown monument. Gladly will I stir busy hands, everywhere behold where thou hast need of
me -- praise the lustre of thy splendor -- pursue unwearied the lovely
harmonies of thy skilled handicraft -- gladly
contemplate the clever pace of thy mighty, luminous 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? and return me the
tender pressure and the caressing
word? was it thou did adorn them with
colors and a flickering outline -- or was it she who gave to thy jewels a higher, a dearer weight? What delight, what
pleasure offers thy life, to outweigh the transports of Death? Wears not
everything that inspires us the color of the
Night? She sustains thee mother-like, and to her thou owest all thy glory. Thou wouldst vanish into thyself -- in
boundless space thou wouldst dissolve, if she did not hold thee fast, if she swaddled thee not, so that thou grewest
warm, and flaming, begot the
universe. Truly I was, before thou wast -- the mother sent me with my brothers and sisters
to inhabit thy world, to hallow 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 revelation -- 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 -- heavenly
freedom, and blessed return. With wild pangs I
recognize thy distance from our home, thy resistance against the ancient, glorious heaven. Thy
rage and thy raving are in vain. Unscorchable stands the cross -- victory-banner of our breed.
Over I
journey
And for each pain
A pleasant sting only
Shall one day remain.
Yet in 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.
Your lustre must vanish
Yon mound underneath --
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
ether
Transform my blood --
I live all the daytime
In faith and in might
And in
holy fire
I die every night.
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