Thy soul grows silent, when its accents are
Disturbed, and low thy heart, when dark a burden
Has deeply covered it. Thy soul is proud.
When thou hast made it free of wants and wishes,
Then art thou rich.
Our life is seldom open,
For love and fear have shut it. When we lay
It open, there is nought to show in it,
But wounds and burning pain.
Mysterious is
Thy power, great as it may be, a trial
Of thine own will and of the curb upon
Thyself; mysterious to thyself, the more,
The greater it has grown, surrounded as
We are by fear and pain.
And when the soul
Lifts up her voice and speaks, then must she go
Against the will of people, not her own,
The will that is herself, the soul's own might.
When heaven asks, we work with joy, a dear
Beloved business put into our hands.
We dream at first to make it daintily,
Like Nature's work, so careful and so rich,
And then the dream becomes a wish, then changes
To action, to be called by us our own
Free will. And when we feel alleviated
Of suffering, we call it hope. In each
Hard battle of our life, free will is quite
The same, unbending and undone, and gave
Us never yet a ray of satisfaction,
Nor of real joy, the bleeding conqueror.
And hope is e'er the same. It dwelleth not
In hearts that are too great for hope, too great
For wishes, and that fearless never ask
Why will is but obedience, power worthless,
The greatest strength a reed, and thought an echo.
Great hearts are free of either want or wish;
They may be proud and richly clothe themselves
In lofty, burdenless, mysterious Silence.
