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THE SPIRIT OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY.
• • •
- Thus, then, in my heart am I freed from fear,
- Sound in body and soul stand here,
- And may, instead of posture and prayer,
- Instead of losing my way in the air,
- Here on the earth, in her blue eyes see
- The deepest depths that exist for me.
- Nay, and why should I in the world suffer dread,
- I, who know the world from the foot to the head?
- ’T is a tame creature, is it not?
- When has it ever its bonds forgot?
- Yields to the yoke of all-ruling law,
- Crouches at my feet in awe.
• • •
- Within it a giant spirit doth dream.
- But his soul is a frozen lava stream;[1]
- From his narrow house he cannot away.
- Nor his iron chains escape for a day.
- Yet often he flutters his wings in his sleep.
- Mightily stirs in his dungeon-keep,
- Travails in dead and in living things
- To know his will and to free his wings.[2]
• • •
- His power, that fills the veins with ore.
- And renews in the spring the buds once more.
- Labors unceasing in darkness and night,
- In all nature’s nooks and crannies for light.
- Fears no pang in its fierce desire
- To live and to conquer and win its way higher.
- Organs and members it fashions anew,
- Lengthens or shortens, makes many or few.
- And wrestles and writhes in its search till it find
- The form that is worthiest of its mind.
- Struggling thus on life intent.
- Against a cruel environment.
- It triumphs at last, in one narrow space,
- And comes to itself in a dwarfish race.
- That, fair of form, of stature erect,
- Stands on earth as the giant’s elect,
