Twelve of the Spiritual Songs of Novalis.

TRANSLATED BY GEORGE MAC DONALD.

FOR the right understanding of several passages in these 'Spiritual Songs,' I extract two or three sentences from the short account given by Tieck of the life of Novalis :

1797. The seventeenth of March was the birthday of his betrothed; and on the nineteenth, towards mid-day, she fell asleep in the arms of her sister and her governess.. . . The mourner shut himself up, and after three days and nights spent in weeping, set out for Arnstadt. . . . He remained many weeks in Thuringia, and came back to his duties comforted, and, in truth, transformed. 1799. He now composed some of his Spiritual Songs, which were to form part of a Christian hymn-book.'

I.

OH! what should I have been without thee?

Without thee, what my life be worth?

Dim fear and anguish round about me,

I had been lonely in the earth.

Love strong as death were weak as dying;,
The future dark, forlorn, and bare;
And when my heart was full of sighing,
To whom should I confide my care?

Still watch with love and sorrow keeping,
The day were but a longer night;
The race of life, I blind with weeping,
Were nothing but an aimless flight.
Abroad my inward tumult endless;

At home dull sorrow by the hearth.
Who that in heaven above is friendless
Could bear his burden on the earth?

But if his face He once unveileth,
And my sad eyes are sure of him,
A sudden, living light assaileth

The darkness bottomless and grim.
With him I first attain the Human;

Dark Fate through him transfigured glows;
And summer, bursting round the true man,
In icy regions blooms and blows.

Life is a love-hour, gently going;

The whole world breathes of loving joys;
For every wound a balm is growing;
And every heart beats like a boy's.
By all his thousand gifts securéd,
His humble child I ever am;

That he is with us well assured,
When two are gathered in his name.

Make haste; to all waysides repairing,
The weary wanderers bring in;
Stretch forth the hand to men wayfaring;
With welcome glad their presence win.
With us are heaven and earth united;
Yea, earth is heaven around us spread;
The eyes, by our one faith uplighted,
Behold its gates lift up their head.

A sin-delusion, ancient, dreary,
Clung to our spirits like a doom;

We groped, like blind men, all night weary;
Desires, regrets alike consume.

Each step we deemed another falling;
And held poor man God's enemy;
And if we thought the heaven was calling,
It spake but death and misery.

The heart, rich well of life outgoing,
An evil being dwelt therein;

And if new light increased our knowing,
New labour only did we win.

To earth an iron band securely

Held us, a trembling, captive crew; And fear of judgment, coming surely, Did swallow up hope's residue.

Then full of love and might, to win us,
A Son of man, a Saviour came;

A life-reviving fire within us,

His breath has blown into a flame.

Then saw we first heaven's gates fly open;
And knew our own old fatherland;
Now had we one to trust and hope in-
The children held the father's hand.

Sin haunts no more the path of pleasure,
But every step is now a joy.
With this faith, best of all his treasure,
The father first presents his boy.
By him made holy, life floats o'er us,
A blessed dream of hope and home;
With love and joy around, before us,

We hardly know when death is come.

Here stands, his hard-won glory keeping,
The holy, lovely, love-outworn;
We round him cannot keep from weeping,
We see his truth, and crown of thorn.
And every man is welcome surely,
Who grasps with us the loving hand
He, growing on his heart securely,
Ripens to fruit of Eden's land.

II.

Eastward far, the light is growing;
Grey old times will now be young;
From the fountain, flashing, glowing,

I will quaff it, deep and long;

;

Pledge redeemed to prayer in ancient story!

Love itself all clothed upon with glory!

Comes at last to earth before us,

Of all heaven the blessed Son;

Blowing in creative chorus,

Life-winds round the earth are gone,
To new, living, fiery splendours blowing,
Scattered sparks upgathered in their going.

He died; and yet thy days of gladness
Are shining with his love and him;
And in his arms, thy cup of sadness
Is filled with comfort to the brim.

He is the life; anew thou livest;

To thy dead bones come powers divine;
And if to him thy heart thou givest,
His too is then for ever thine.

He keeps the love thy heart deploreth;
To thy lost treasure he's the door;
And what his hand to thee restoreth,
Is thine henceforth for evermore.

IV.

Many joyous days have found me,
Setting gracious hours around me :
One alone has staid with me.
"Tis the happy, mournful morrow,
When my heart, with pangs of sorrow,
Saw him die to set it free.

All my former world was shattered;
All my aspiration scattered;

To my heart a worm had gone;
In a grave lay all my treasure,
All my longings, all my pleasure,
And I lived for pain alone.

While I thus, in silence pining,
Ever wept, my life resigning,
Saw but grief and vanity;
Suddenly, the gravestone hoary
Heaved from off me with a glory,
And the sky looked in on me.

Whom I saw, my heaven revealing,
Whom beside him, lowly kneeling,
Ask not.-Nothing else I see.
Sole in all life's many morrows,
This hour, open as my sorrows,
Shall be with me constantly.

If I him but have,

If he be but mine;

V.

If my heart hence to the grave
Ne'er forgets his love divine;

Know I nought of sadness;

Feel I nought but worship, love, and gladness.

If I him but have,

Glad with all I part;

Follow on my pilgrim staff,

Only him with constant heart;

Leave them, nothing saying,

On broad, bright, and crowded highways straying.