The book he was holding was Christophe's. His eyes fell on an old canticle the words of which Christophe had taken from a simple, pious poet of the seventeenth century, and had modernized them. The Christliches Wanderlied (The Christian Wanderer's Song) of Paul Gerhardt.
_Hoff! O du arme Seele,
Hoff! und sei unverzagt.
Enwarte nur der Zeit,
So wirst du schon erblicken
Die Sonne der schönsten Freud._
Hope, oh! thou wretched soul,
Hope, hope and be valiant!
* * * * *
Only wait then, wait,
And surely thou shalt see
The sun of lovely Joy.
Old Schulz knew the ingenuous words, but never had they so spoken to him, never so nearly…. It was not the tranquil piety, soothing and lulling the soul by its monotony. It was a soul like his own. It was his own soul, but younger and stronger, suffering, striving to hope, striving to see, and seeing, Joy. His hands trembled, great tears trickled down his cheeks. He read on:
Auf! Auf! gieb deinem Schmerze
Und Sorgen gute Nacht!
Lass fahren was das Herze
Betrübt und traurig macht!
Up! Up! and give thy sorrow
And all thy cares good-night;
And all that grieves and saddens
Thy heart be put to flight.
Christophe brought to these thoughts a boyish and valiant ardor, and the heroic laughter in it showed forth in the last naïve and confident verses: