Classic Poem

All that is beautiful dies, that the spirit shall gain no contentment
In its debased human state: longings shall thus here below
Man's bosom forever consume, like the lamp in a dark night-time dungeon,
Which, at the dread dead of night, a mark on the light of the sky.
Man! it is not what you own, but what you long for and crave for,
This is your treasure most dear, this is your value most high,
The glorious you can but own by suffering great deprivation:
Man's fall is stricture, longing its heavenmost flight.
All that is beautiful dies, the world of symbols knows change,
And in different signs the One expresses itself.
Delve in the world's annals: there centuries lie in succession,
Like strata washed ashore, deposit and trace of the spirit.
The globe itself is a ruin, and, like mould that now crumbles on walls,
Out of the granite's great rifts sprouts what will later be spring.
One single thing can stand firm through the rise and the fall of the ages,
One single thing ever was, is and will be as before:
Eternal life is its name, which, like blood from the heart, flows
Through all nature, flows outwards and later returns;
So too the soul shows itself, its mien always changing
Its features uncountable, constantly one and the same.
Therefore this only exists, in which the One can reside,
The idea only, as shield, repels all that passes away.
In your life's work of art this is why you present the idea,
Attune to your own nature, that nature eternal as God,
You are otherwise lost, like bubbles that burst on the sea:
The sea still remains, but its bubble, its bright-coloured child?
Should though the idea transfuse your deep, signifi cant life,
You are immortal - in God as God is in you.
Exceptional natures withdraw now their summit from time,
Like mountain peaks, seen far beyond the flood's surface.
Of old it was otherwise, otherwise will it be later,
The future a mere repetition of a time long since past.
Yes! there once was an age when, childlike, all nature expressed
With imprint most faithful the eternal traits of the father,
When as yet, like ripening fruit, it had not left the bough
And in its bold fall become free though ephemeral.
As yet behind the eclipse of the past the golden sphere rolls,
As yet it keeps poetry still in its most rhythmical bands;
All longings swarm thither, like castaways, who from the rocks,
Naked, in direst distress, see far off the bay that they crave.
Was is the plaintive myth, will be the joyous prediction,
Myth and religion, fond memory and much desired hope,
Poles of time are they, vainly and constantly seeking each other,
Until they melt into One, there where time is no more. -
Self-seeking Present, rooted but in the moment,
World-life for you can but stand in its midwinter solstice;
Necessity you do defy and freedom's sceptre do flaunt?
Free in defection are you, your freedom the choice of a yoke.
Know then that selfdom is raging rebellion in nature,
And sin that is monstrous freedom's gargantuan child;
Selfdom the son's great revolt against what life him has granted,
Only the death of the Son can ever atone for the crime -
So may you die, nature, like fever's groundless delusion,
And cured from you, slowly, with passage of time,
May life that now is engendered strive for the world's blessed heart,
And in unity's lap, atoned for, may consciousness die.