MORNING SONG
Nu rinder Solen op
From Eastern quarters now
The sun’s up-wandering,
His rays on the rock’s brow
And hill’s side squandering.
Be glad, my soul! and sing amidst thy pleasure,
Fly from the house of dust,
Up with thy thanks, and trust
To heaven’s azure!
O, countless as the grains
Of sand so tiny,
Measureless as the main’s
Deep waters briny,
God’s mercy is, which He upon me showereth.
Each morning in my shell,
A grace immeasurable
To me down-poureth.
Thou best dost understand,
Lord God! my needing;
And placed is in Thy hand
My fortune’s speeding,
And Thou foresee’st what is for me most fitting.
Be still, then, O my soul!
To manage in the whole
Thy God permitting.
May fruit the land array,
And corn for eating!
May truth e’er make its way,
With justice meeting!
Give thou to me my share with every other,
’Till down my staff I lay,
And from this world away
Wend to another!
FROM THE FRENCH
This world by fools is occupied,
And whom the sight of a fool displeases,
Within his chamber himself should hide,
And break his looking-glass to pieces.
THE MORNING WALK
To the beech grove with so sweet an air
It beckon’d me.
O, Earth! that never the cruel plough-share
Had furrow’d thee!
In their dark shelter the flowerets grew,
Bright to the eye,
And smil’d by my foot on the cloudlets blue,
Which deck’d the sky.
To the wood through a field I took my way;
There I could see
On the field an uppil’d stone-heap lay,
’Twixt hillocks three;