ng,
Chased away the ugly spiders,
And whenever came a feast-day,
Hung it o'er with wreaths of ivy;
Sang to it the morning greeting,
Also sang the song of evening,
And he carved in wood the image
Of himself as his best offering.
But when sipping his reward then
From the big tun's mouth with kisses,
Forth he launched in flights of fancy.
Often at his feet I listened
To his odd and comic speeches:
'There above, they call me foolish,
Let them gossip, my dear fellow,
Gossip never doth annoy me.
Oh, the world has grown quite stupid!
How they grope, and how they stumble,
Over paths, to find what Truth is;
Still in fog they are enveloped.
To the first cause of all being
We must needs go back, and bring the
Last result of our researches
In a concrete form together.
Thus we comprehend the world well;
For this purpose I am drinking
Truly cosmogonically.
Mundane space to me is nothing
But a roomy vaulted cellar,
Where as first and central wine-tun,
Firmly stands the sun erected!
Next to him the rank and file of
Smaller casks, fixed stars and planets.
As the divers casks are holding
Wines of various sorts and flavours,
So comprise the heavenly bodies
Various spiritual natures.
Land-wine this--that Ruedesheimer;
But the earth-cask holds a mixture;
Fermentation has half clouded
And half volatilised the spirit
The antagony of matter
And of spirit is, by thinking,
Blended into higher union.
Thus soars my creative genius
Far on high, while I am drinking.
And when through my brain are rushing
Revelations from the wine-fumes,
And when then my feeble body
Tottering sinks down by the wine-tun,
'Tis the triumph of the spirit,
'Tis the act of self-deliverance
From the narrow bounds of being.
Thus my solitude doth teach me
Nature's everlasting system.
With mankind it would be better,
Had the great Germanic race but
Understood their high vocation,
And throughout the world had carried
High the standard of the wine-cask,
Made of drinking a devotion--
As the Persians worship fire!'
O Perkeo! better were it
Now with me, if to thy wisdom
I had nev