In the mournful month of November ’twas,
The winter days had returnèd,
The wind from the trees the foliage tore,
When I tow’rds Germany journied.
And when at length to the frontier I came
I felt a mightier throbbing
Within my breast, tears fill’d my eyes,
And I wellnigh broke into sobbing.
And when I the German language heard,
Strange feelings each other succeeding,
I felt precisely as though my heart
Right pleasantly were bleeding.
A little maiden sang to the harp;
Real feeling her song was conveying,
Though false was her voice, and yet I felt
Deep moved at hearing her playing.
She sang of love, and she sang of love’s woes,
Of sacrifices, and meeting
Again on high, in yon better world
Where vanish our sorrows so fleeting.
She sang of this earthly valley of tears,
Of joys which so soon have vanish’d,
Of yonder, where revels the glorified soul
In eternal bliss, grief being banish’d.
The song of renunciation she sang,
The heavenly eiapopeia,
Wherewith the people, the booby throng,
Are hush’d when they soothing require.
I know the tune, and I know the text,
I know the people who wrote it;
I know that in secret they drink but wine,
And in public a wickedness vote it.
A song, friends, that’s new, and a better one, too,
Shall be now for your benefit given!
Our object is, that here on earth
We may mount to the realms of heaven.
On earth we fain would happy be,
Nor starve for the sake of the stronger;
The idle stomach shall gorge itself
With the fruit of hard labour no longer.