No More Learning

CREEDS

Lutheran, Popish, Calvinistic, all these creeds and doctrines three
Extant are; but still the doubt is, where Christianity may be.


THE RESTLESS HEART

A millstone and the human heart are driven ever round;
If they have nothing else to grind, they must themselves be ground.


CHRISTIAN LOVE

Whilom Love was like a tire, and warmth and comfort it bespoke;
But, alas! it now is quenched, and only bites us, like the smoke.


ART AND TACT

Intelligence and courtesy not always are combined;
Often in a wooden house a golden room we find.


RETRIBUTION

Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small;
Though with patience he stands waiting, with exactness grinds he all.


TRUTH

When by night the frogs are croaking, kindle but a torch's fire,
Ha! how soon they all are silent! Thus Truth silences the liar.


RHYMES

If perhaps these rhymes of mine should sound not well in strangers' ears,
They have only to bethink them that it happens so with theirs;
For so long as words, like mortals, call a fatherland their own,
They will be most highly valued where they are best and longest known.


SILENT LOVE

Who love would seek,
Let him love evermore
And seldom speak;
For in love's domain
Silence must reign;
Or it brings the heart
Smart
And pain.



BLESSED ARE THE DEAD

BY SIMON DACH

Oh, how blest are ye whose toils are ended!
Who, through death, have unto God ascended!
Ye have arisen
From the cares which keep us still in prison.

We are still as in a dungeon living,
Still oppressed with sorrow and misgiving;
Our undertakings
Are but toils, and troubles, and heart-breakings.
Ye meanwhile, are in your chambers sleeping,
Quiet, and set free from all our weeping;
No cross nor trial
Hinders your enjoyments with denial.

Christ has wiped away your tears for ever;
Ye have that for which we still endeavor.
To you are chanted
Songs which yet no mortal ear have haunted.

Ah! who would not, then, depart with gladness,
To inherit heaven for earthly sadness?
Who here would languish
Longer in bewailing and in anguish?

Come, O Christ, and loose the chains that bind us!
Lead us forth, and cast this world behind us!
With Thee, the Anointed,
Finds the soul its joy and rest appointed.




WANDERER'S NIGHT-SONGS

BY JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

I

Thou that from the heavens art,
Every pain and sorrow stillest,
And the doubly wretched heart
Doubly with refreshment fillest,
I am weary with contending!
Why this rapture and unrest?
Peace descending
Come, ah, come into my breast!


II

O'er all the hill-tops
Is quiet now,
In all the tree-tops
Hearest thou
Hardly a breath;
The birds are asleep in the trees:
Wait; soon like these
Thou too shalt rest.



REMORSE

BY AUGUST VON PLATEN

How I started up in the night, in the night,
Drawn on without rest or reprieval!
The streets, with their watchmen, were lost to my sight,
As I wandered so light
In the night, in the night,
Through the gate with the arch mediaeval.

The mill-brook rushed from the rocky height,
I leaned o'er the bridge in my yearning;
Deep under me watched I the waves in their flight,
As they glided so light
In the night, in the night,
Yet backward not one was returning.