The Beloved was Sophia; concerning whom he writes as follows:--
"Weissenfels, March 22d, 1797.
"It is for me a mournful duty to inform you that Sophia is no more. After unspeakable sufferings, borne with exemplary resignation, she died on the 10th of March, at half past nine in the morning. She was born on the 17th of March, 1783, and on the 15th of March, 1795, I gained from her the assurance, that she would be mine. She has suffered since the 7th of November, 1795. Eight days before her death I left her with the strongest conviction, that I should never see her again. I could not have endured to look impotently upon the terrible struggle of blooming youth down-stricken, the fearful anguish of the heavenly creature. Fate have I never feared. For three previous weeks I saw its menaces. It has become evening about me, whilst I was yet gazing into the morning-red. My sorrow is boundless, like my love. For three years had she been my hourly thought. She alone has bound me to life, to my country, and to my occupations. With her loss I am separated from everything, for I scarcely have myself any longer. But it has become evening, and it seems to me, as if I soon were about to depart, and so would I gladly be tranquil, and see around me only kind, friendly faces, and live entirely in her spirit, gentle and kindhearted, as she was.
"Cherished by me, as my own immortal Sophia, will be the friendship, the assiduity with which you strove to render her last days serene. Sophia still treasures your kindnesses with the warmest gratitude, and I have felt a silent impulse to express to you this gratitude, united with my own. You will pardon it to my love, when I tell you, that your attention to Sophia's wishes, and that half year's residence with her, now first has made you really dear to me.... I must cling to the past, as I have nothing more to expect from the future. Farewell, and be happier than
Your friend,
HARDENBERG."
But how soon does his grief become holy, and therefore a joy! The letter is chiefly valuable as an introduction to the third Hymn to the Night:--
"Once as I shed bitter tears, when my hope dissolved into pain flowed away, and I stood alone by the barren hillock, which hid in a dark, narrow space the form of my life; alone, as none had been before, driven by unspeakable anguish, powerless, nothing left but a thought of misery;--as I then looked about after aid, could neither move forward nor backward, but clung to a fleeting, extinguished life, with infinite longing,--then came from the blue distance, from the heights of my old blessedness, a breath as of twilight, and at once the tie of birth, the chain of Light, was rent asunder. Away flew the glory of earth, and with it my sorrow; the sadness rushed together into a new, unfathomable world; thou, Night's-inspiration, slumber of heaven, camest over me. Gently the scene rose aloft; above it floated my unfettered, new-born Spirit The hillock became a dust-cloud, and through it I saw the transfigured features of my Beloved. Eternity lay in her eyes; I grasped her hands, and the tears became a glittering, indissoluble tie. Thousands of years flew away in the distance, like tempest-clouds. Upon her neck I wept enrapturing tears at the thought of this new life.--It was the first and only dream, and since then do I feel an eternal, unchangeable faith in the heaven of Night, and its Sun my Beloved."
Such is the melting tenderness, which is a chief element of his poetry, such the cunning drug that embalms his genius!