Imitated from Schiller

Never, believe me, Appear the Immortals, Never alone: Scarce had I welcomed the Sorrow-beguiler, Iacchus! but in came Boy Cupid the Smiler; Lo! Phoebus the Glorious descends from his throne! They advance, they float in, the Olympians all! With Divinities fills my Terrestrial hall!

How shall I yield you Due entertainment, Celestial quire? Me rather, bright guests! with your wings of upbuoyance Bear aloft to your homes, to your banquets of joyance, That the roofs of Olympus may echo my lyre! Hah! we mount! on their pinions they waft up my soul! O give me the nectar! O fill me the bowl!

Give him the nectar! Pour out for the poet, Hebe! pour free! Quicken his eyes with celestial dew, That Styx the detested no more he may view, And like one of us Gods may conceit him to be! Thanks, Hebe! I quaff it! Io Pæan, I cry! The wine of the Immortals Forbids me to die!

? 1799.

TRANSLATION OF A PASSAGE IN OTTFRIED’S METRICAL PARAPHRASE OF THE GOSPEL

She gave with joy her virgin breast; She hid it not, she bared the breast Which suckled that divinest babe! Blessed, blessed were the breasts Which the Saviour infant kiss’d; And blessed, blessed was the mother Who wrapp’d his limbs in swaddling clothes, Singing placed him on her lap, Hung o’er him with her looks of love, And soothed him with a lulling motion. Blessed! for she shelter’d him From the damp and chilling air; Blessed, blessed! for she lay With such a bade in one blest bed, Close as babes and mothers lie! Blessed, blessed evermore, With her virgin lips she kiss’d, With her arms, and to her breast, She embraced the babe divine, Her babe divine the virgin mother! There lives not on this ring of earth A mortal that can sing her praise. Mighty mother, virgin pure, In the darkness and the night For us she bore the heavenly Lord!

? 1799.