Hielt Ihn, dasz er nicht längst schon kam.
"Treib' Ihn von dir in unsern Arm,
Dasz er von deinem Hauch noch warm;
In schweren Wolken sammle ihn,
Und lasz Ihn so hernieder ziehn."
Among his promiscuous poems is a beautiful lyric, representing the triumph of Faith over Sorrow, under the symbol of a beautiful child bringing to him a wand, beneath whose touch the Queen of Serpents yields to him the "precious jewel."
The following is the first Hymn to the Night:
"What living, sense-endowed being loves not, before all the prodigies of the far extending space around him, the all-rejoicing light with its colors, its beams and billows, its mild omnipresence, as waking day? The restless giant-world of the stars, swimming with dancing motion in its azure flood. Inhales it as its life's inmost soul; the sparkling, ever-resting stone, the sensitive, imbibing plant, and the wild, burning, many-shaped animal, inhale it; but before all, the glorious stranger, with the speaking eyes, the uncertain gait, and the gently closed, melodious lips. Like a king of earthly nature, it summons each power to countless transformations, ratifies and dissolves treaties in infinite number, and suspends its heavenly image on every earthly being. Its presence alone reveals the wondrous splendor of creation's realms.
"I turn aside to the holy, ineffable, mysterious Night. Far away lies the world, sunk in a depth profound waste and lonely is its place. O'er the chords of the bosom waveth deep sadness. I will dissolve into dew drops, and mingle myself with the ashes. Distance of memory, wishes of youth, dreams of childhood, the short joys and vain hopes of a whole long life, flit by me in robes of gray, like evening clouds after sunset. In other spaces Light has pitched its merry tents. Will it never return to its children, who are waiting for it with the trusting faith of innocence?
"What swells now so forebodingly beneath the heart, and swallows up the soft air of sadness? Hast thou also a pleasure in us, sombre Night? What bringest thou beneath thy mantle, that with viewless power winds its way to my soul? A costly balsam is dripping from thy hand, from thy bunch of poppy. The drooping pinions of the mind thou bearest upward. Dimly and ineffably we feel ourselves moved; a solemn countenance do I see, in pleasing terror, that gently and full of devotion bendeth towards me, and showeth dear youth hid in the infinite locks of the mother. How poor and childish Light now appears to me! How welcome and blessed the farewell of day! Only for this, because Night alienates from thee thy servants, didst thou sow in the regions of space the luminous balls, to proclaim thy omnipotence, thy return, in the times of thy absence. More heavenly than yonder twinkling stars appear the infinite eyes that Night opens in us. Their sight extends farther than the palest of that numberless host; unbeholden to Light, they gaze through the depths of a loving spirit, which fills a loftier space with unspeakable rapture. Praised be the Queen of the world, the high announcer of holy spheres, the nurse of blessed love! She sends me thee, O dearly beloved, lovely sun of the Night. Now I awake, for I am Thine and Mine; thou hast announced to me Night as my life, thou hast made me a man. Consume my body with a spirit-glow, that in ether I may mingle more closely with thee, and be thou my bridal night forever."