isper, but with all the sense of gladness and ever bolder straying of
the enchanting dream. After a final climax the song ends in slow
vanishing echoes.

The poet Ritter is said to have added, after the production of the
music, the poem printed on the score, of which the following is a rather
literal translation:

In the miserable chamber,
Dim with flick'ring candlelight,
Lies a man on bed of sickness.
Fiercely but a moment past
Did he wage with Death the battle;
Worn he sinks back into sleep.
Save the clock's persistent ticking
Not a sound invades the room,
Where the gruesome quiet warns us
Of the neighborhood of Death.
O'er the pale, distended features
Plays a melancholy smile.
Is he dreaming at life's border
Of his childhood golden days?

But a paltry shrift of sleep
Death begrudges to his victim.
Cruelly he wakes and shakes him,
And the fight begins anew,--
Throb of life and power of death,
And the horror of the struggle.
Neither wins the victory.
Once again the stillness reigns.

Worn of battle, he relapses
Sleepless, as in fevered trance.
Now he sees before him passing
Of his life each single scene:
First the glow of childhood dawn,
Bright in purest innocence,
Then the bolder play of youth
Trying new discovered powers,
Till he joins the strife of men,
Burning with an eager passion
For the high rewards of life.--
To present in greater beauty
What his inner eye beholds,
This is all his highest purpose
That has guided his career.

Cold and scornful does the world
Pile the barriers to his striving.
Is he near his final goal,
Comes a thund'rous "Halt!" to meet him.
"Make the barrier a stepping,
Ever higher keep your path."
Thus he presses on and urges,
Never ceasing from his aim.--
What he ever sought of yore
With his spirit's deepeth longing,
Now he seeks in sweat of death,
Seeks--alas! and finds it never.
Though he grasps it clearer now,
Though it grows in living form,
He can never all achieve it,
Nor create it in his thought.
Then the final blow is sounded
From the hammer-stroke of Death,
Breaks the earthly frame asunder,
Seals the eye with final night.
But a mighty host of sounds
Greet him from the space of heaven
With the song he sought below: