Page:The Spirit of Modern Philosophy (1892).djvu/213

Is called in our speech the son of man,

Outcome and crown of the spirit’s plan.

From iron slumber, from dreaming set free,

Now marvels the spirit who he may be.

Looks on himself with wondering gaze,

Measures his limbs in dim amaze,

Longs in terror once more to be hid

In nature’s slumber, of sentience rid.

But nay, his freedom is won for aye,

No more in nature’s peace may he lie;

In the vast dark world that is all his own,

He wanders his life’s narrow path alone.

Yes, he even fears, in his visions dim,

That the giant himself may be wroth with him.

And like Saturn of old, in godlike scorn,

Devour his children scarcely born;

Know not that he himself is the Sprite

That longingly toiled in the world’s dark night;

Peoples the void with the ghosts of his fear.

Yet could he say, the Giant’s peer: —

I am the God who nature’s bosom fills,

I am the life that in her heart’s blood thrills.^[1]

From the first quiver of her mystic power.

Until of life there came that primal hour,

When force new form and body power assumed.

And flowers the beauty showed that lay entombed, —

Yes, now, wherever light, as dawn begins,

A new created world from chaos wins, —

And in the thousand eyes that, from the sky,

Show night and day the heavenly mystery, —

Onwards, to where, in thought’s eternal truth

Nature’s deep self rewords itself in truth, —

There stirs one might, one pulse-beat all sufficing,

All power retaining, aye, — and sacrificing.”

1. “lch bin der Gott der sie im Busen trägt,
   Der Geist der sich in allem bewegt.”