I’ve snuff’d at every smell that has birth
In this delightful kitchen of earth;
Each thing that the world contains that’s delicious
Have I enjoy’d like a hero ambitious;
I’ve drunk my coffee, and eaten with zest,
And many a charming doll caress’d,
Worn silken waistcoats and handsome coats,
And had my pockets well lined with notes;
The high horse, like Gellert the poet, I rode,
Had house and castle all à-la-mode.
On fortune’s verdant meadow I lay,
While on me the sun gleam’d brightly all day,
A wreath of laurel my brow embraced,
And through my brain sweet visions raced,
Sweet visions of endless May and flowers—
How happily fleeted then the hours,
So dim and hazy, so full of repose,—
My mouth was fill’d with whatever I chose,
And angels came, and out of their pockets
The champagne bottles flew like rockets,—
Bright visions were these,—soap-bubbles, alas!
They burst,—and I lie on the humid grass;
My limbs are now rheumatic and lame,
My inmost spirit is fill’d with shame.
Alas! each pleasure and gratification
I bought at the price of bitter vexation;
I’m steep’d in bitterness up to the chin,
The bugs have terribly bitten my skin;
Oppress’d by care and gloomy sorrow
I needs must lie, and I needs must borrow
From wealthy rascals, and slatterns vile,
I even believe that I begg’d for a while.
And now I would finish this wearisome race,
And find in the grave a resting-place.
Farewell! In yon heavens, good Christian brother,
Once more we may hope to meet with each other.
3. RESURRECTION.
The trumpet’s wild echo fills the skies
As though it summon’d to battle;
From out of their graves the dead arise,
Their limbs they wriggle and rattle.
Each thing that has legs prepares for the race,
The spectres white are all driven
To Jehoshaphat, the gathering-place,
Where judgment is now to be given.
There sits, as Head of the Court, the Lord,
By all his apostles surrounded;
Assessors are they,—each judgment, each word
On love and wisdom is founded.
No face is disguised in all that array
For every mask is seen falling
In the radiant light of the judgment day,
At the sound of the trumpet enthralling.
At Jehoshaphat, in the valley at last
The whole of the troop is united,
And since the defendants’ number’s so vast,
I’ve the summary only recited:
The goats to the left, and the sheep to the right,—
The parting is quickly effected;
For the pious good sheep heaven’s mansions of light,
And hell for the goats is selected.
4. THE DYING ONE.
Flying after bliss and light,
Thou return’st in piteous plight;
German truth and German shirt
Strangers draggle through the dirt.