er flowing
To the ocean of all living,
In the One profound;
And from out His heart while rushing,
To our circle backward going,
Spirit of the loftiest striving
Dips within our eddying round.

All your golden chains be shaking
Bright with emeralds and rubies,
Flash and clang together making,
Shake with joyous note.
From the damp recesses waking,
From the sepulchres and ruins,
On your cheeks the flush of heaven,
To the realm of Fable float.

O could men, who soon will follow
To the spirit-land, be dreaming
That we dwell in all their joyance,
All the bliss they taste,
They would burn with glad upbuoyance
To desert the life so hollow,--
O, the hours away are streaming,
Come, beloved, hither haste.

Aid to fetter the Earth-spirit,
Learn to know the sense of dying,
And the word of life discover;
Hither turn at last.
Soon will all thy power be over,
Borrowed light away be flying,
Soon art fettered, O Earth-spirit,
And thy time of empire past.

This poem was perhaps a prologue to a second chapter. Now an entirely
new period of the work would have opened; the highest life proceeding
from the stillest death; he has lived among the dead and conversed with
them. Now the book would have become nearly dramatic, the epic tone, as
it were, uniting together and simply explaining the single scenes.
Henry suddenly finds himself in Italy, distracted, rent with wars; he
sees himself the leader of an army. All the elements of war play in
poetic colors. With an irregular band, he attacks a hostile city; here
appears in episode the love of a noble of Pisa for a Florentine maiden.
War-songs--"a great war, like a duel, noble, philosophical, human
throughout. Spirit of the old chivalry; the tournament. Spirit of
bacchanalian sadness.[4] Men must fall by each other,--nobler than to
fall by fate. They seek death.--Honor, fame, is the warrior's joy and
life. The warrior lives in death and like a shade. Desire for death is
the warrior-spirit. Upon the earth is war at home; it must be upon
earth."--In Pisa Henry finds the Son of Frederick the Second, who
becomes his confidential friend. He also travels to Loretto. Several
songs were to follow here.

The poet is cast away on the shores of Greece by a tempest. The old
world with its heroes and treasures of ar