Classic Poem

O little man, what joy is yours
When through a wave you fall,
What yearning stirs your lively flesh,
To hear the wild bird's call;
How glad and moved your heart-strings are,
When twilight quickens with a star!

Upon a rushing horse to flee,
Your dancing blood delights,
With borrowed wings to fan the clouds,
And swagger in the heights,
And somersault through nothingness,
Brings you delirium, no less.

Yet, were you not a man but God,
The wave itself you'd be,
The wild bird and the evening star,
The wild steed's ecstasy;
You, you yourself would be the heights,
You, the invisible delights.

Sin and repentance now you know,
But then you would have known,
Deific darkness' primal pang
When from the Great Alone,
The riving light tore through its breast,
And Godhead's goodness shone exprest.