European Elegies/Summer/Her faith
80.HER FAITH
She lifts her eyes to the eternal stars,Sincerely hoping down each fleeting doubt,And still believing, against every fact,That hidden in the sky's vast sterile tractA living Spirit guards the worlds throughout.
She feels at every moment an abyssGaping beneath her as she works and prays—A black abyss of gloom, a heaven of bliss,A hell of shuddering, a gulf of grace—And treads life's common pavement all her daysWith a hushed reverence in her dreaming face.
From the Danish of Johannes Joergenson.