Schön bist du, Erde, schön in goldnen Sommerkleide, Doch schwüler wird die Luft. Die Kreaturen ächzen. Allvater lächelt. Schnell verrollt der Donner Rasen. Nun jubeln Wald und Flur. Die Dünste fliehn. Die Luft verklärt sich. Still und milde Wie strahlt in ihrem Strahl, wie funkelt Bach und Au! ferne Meer wie blau! Das Feld, das stille Dorf, den feierlichen Hain In seinen Mantel ein. Sie kommt, gewünscht dem Gram, sie kommt, ersehnt dem Müden In jede wunde Brust, und schleusst zu sanfter Ruh Es scheint der stille Mond in des Verlassnen Kammer Gott, Grab und Ewigkeit. Ja wahrlich, du bist schön, mein mütterlich Gefilde Der deiner Brust entquillt; willkommen einst mein Schlummer Und allen Jammer hüllt! Yes, truly thou art beautiful, thou art the faultless creation of eternal power and goodness, thou land of any pilgrimage, where I was born and educated, which was my cradle and my nurse, which during thirty springs crowned me with its roses, during thirty winters sparkled for me in crystal snow, and is once to entomb in its bosom this dust, now animated by the spirit of God. Beautiful art thou, O Earth! beautiful in thy golden garment of summer! My hymn praises thee, my joy honours thee! See how the yellow corn holds down its heavy heads, how the slender twig bends under its load, how the fat flocks skip on the luxuriant pastures, how the glow-worm slides through the high grass! Hark! how the warbling of the quail resounds among the wheat, and the whistle of the thrush deep in the wood. But the air is growing more sultry, animals mourn, languishing creation groans, the withered fields are thirsting. The Almighty beckons, and quickly a black thunder cloud ascends from the south and west; the violence of the storm is awakened; it lightens, the thunder rolls, the firm ground shakes, the wild ocean rages, the oak forest smokes and cracks, the concerts of the groves are silent, the shy courser flies, and both the hero and the coward turn pale. The Almighty smiles; and quickly the rattling of the thunder dwindles, the flame of the lightning vanishes, the desolating gale of the hurricane becomes a gentle breeze, the agitated sea is silent. Beautiful, oh Earth! is thy calm after the storm, beautiful and sublime! The threatening thunder becomes a favour, its roaring a tender blessing; the heavy clouds rustle, warm rains descend: all that was dry is watered, nature is refreshed, the forest and the plain rejoice. The vapours fly, the atmosphere is cleared; a calm and benign evening sun illumines the trickling fields; brooks and meadows sparkle in its beams: how dark the woods appear! how blue the distant sea! The sun sets, the west glows; the happy husbandman leaves his work; the flocks return home. The dusky evening spreads its gloomy mantle over the fields, the tranquil village, and the sacred grove. Night, sweet night, wished for by the afflicted, and desired by those who have toiled, comes and sheds comfort and peace in every wounded heart, and closes the moistened eyelids to soft repose and gladdening dreams. The silent moon peeps through the small window into the room of the unfortunate, and weeps with them. The wise man, watching, meditates in profound darkness upon God, the grave, and eternity. Yes, truly thou art beautiful, land of my birth, thou art the faultless masterpiece of eternal power and eternal goodness! thou art to me a blessing; thou fulfillest my wishes whilst I wander upon thee! Blessed is every joy, every sorrow, that comes from thy bosom, and welcome will be once my slumbering in thy quiet lap; it silences all troubles, and veils every grief! 918. Einer ew'gen Kroft unsträfliches Gebilde, faultless formation, or rather creation of an eternal power. Ew'gen is a contr. for ewigen, sec. 26. Kraft, sec. 875. Unsträflich, adj. that is not deserving of punishment; in which on fault can be found; faultless; irreprehensible; without a blemish. Unsträflich leben, to lead a blameless life. Das Gebilde, sub. neut. creation, formation; from bilden, reg. act. to form, to shape, to fashion. 919. Einstens is the same with einst, sec. 39. We also say dereinst, einsten, einstmals, and einsmals; but einst and dereinst are preferable, when you speak of the future. The author himself uses einst in the last line but two. Schön im goldnen Sommerkleide, beautiful in thy summer garment. 920. Das schlanke Reis, the slender twig. Das Reis, sub. neut. pl. die Reiser, a young shoot, scion, twig, or branch; but der Reis, sub. masc. rice. Ein Reisbündel is a bundle of small fire-wood; what the French call un fagot. Schlank, adj. slender, slim, thin, flexible, pliant ; ein schlanker Wuchs, a slender shape; ein schlankes Rohr, a flexible reed or cane. Anciently it was also employed for "plain, unsophisticated." Hence they still say in some parts of Germany, schlankweg, adv. in a plain homely way; without any ceremony. Sich beugt, bends; and lower down entfleucht, flies; schleusst zu, closes, locks; are the poetical antiquated forms of biegt, from biegen, to bend : entflieht from entflichen, to run off, to run away, to escape; and schliesst zu, from the sep. irr. comp. zuschliessen, to lock. See sections 594, 708, and 714. 921. Der Wachtel Schlag, the quail's warbling; the note. the music, the cadence of the quail. Der Schlag, es, e, sub. masc. a blow, has perhaps a still greater abundance of significations than the French, un coup. Here it means the music, the warbling; time in music; note. We say Schlag only of those birds which seem to have method or cadence in their song: der Schlag der Nachtigall, der Wachtel, des Finken, &c.; der Drossel Flöte, the thrush's whistle. Die Flöte, sub. fem. is a flute. We say die Flöte spielen, to play the flute; and auf der Flöte blasen, to blow on the flute. 922. Doch schwüler wird die Luft, but the air grows more sultry. Schwul, adj. sultry, close, choking. It is frequently used with the diphthong schwül, and in some parts of Germany they say schwülig, which is rather incorrect. Die welken Fluren lechzen, the withered plains are dried up. Lechzen, reg. neut. verb, conjugated with haben, to be extremely thirsty, to long for something to X drink; in speaking of the soil, to be so dried up as to crack. Lechzen is the frequentativum of an old verb lechen, from which the English leak and leaky is derived. 923. Allvater winkt, the Almighty beckons; der Allvater, sub. masc. the Father all; God, der Vater aller. 924. Klimmt schwarze Wetternacht herauf, ascends the black storm's night; the black or dark cloud of the hurricane. Heraufklimmen, irr. sep. comp. neut. verb, to climb up, to mount, to ascend. It follows the irr. of klimmen, and is conjugated with seyn. 925. Das Bodenfeste, is a poetical expression for der feste Boden, the firm soil, the firm ground, the land; in opposition to das wilde Weltmeer, the wild ocean. 926. Der Haingesang, the grove's song, the singing in the groves. Der Hain, es, e, sub. masc. the thicket, the grove. Originally it was synonymous with hag, a hedge, a forest inclosure, but it now applies, particularly in poetry, to every small forest or wood pleasantly situated. Connected with Freund, it is a poetical denomination of death. Freund Hain wird bald anklopfen, death will soon knock at our door. 927. Und held und Memmer'bleicht, and the hero and the coward turn pale. Der Held, sub. masc. a hero; die Heldinn, sub. fem. a heroine. Eine Memme, or more correctly Mämme (as it is evidently derived from Mamma, and was originally applied only to Jews, who call their mother Mämme, in derision of their supposed want of courage,) sub. fem. a coward, a being destitute of courage. It is a very low familiar expression, and can be excused here only as affording a strong poetical contrast, and denoting the great terror which the convulsions of nature cause in the strongest as in the weakest. In common life, the expression is generally strengthened by the adj. feige, timid, weak; and alt, old. We say, eine feige Mämme, eine alte Mämme; and it is often spelt, as here, Memme. Erbleicht, sec. 787. 928. The German language, being a primitive one, without any admixture of other idioms, has advantages which are wanting in the court language of the French. Its roots extend to the origin of the world, and may, with the Sanscrit, be considered as the first sounds of the human voice. Like the Greek, with which it seems to have sprung from the same soil, it can express the minutest variations of meaning by particles and prepositions super-added to both nouns and verbs, and point out the precise direction in which an action is performed by means of two short syllables, hin and her. It has a variety of diminutives, abounds in expletives, which give energy, fulness, and harmony to the thought, and is fond of elliptical expressions, which powerfully interest the understanding, by calling its faculties into action. Its grammatical forms and inflections being strongly marked, it freely indulges in inversions and above all, it has the important power of forming new expressive terms by the combinaton of words already known, so that these new creations are understood as it were by intuition, and often give the exact description or definition of the object which they are intended to denote. Its compound epithets vie in expressiveness and beauty with the Greek. It is continually improving by the development of its own inherent powers, and by the combination of its own primitive or radical words; thus the extension of its treasures creates no difficulty in storing them in the memory; and this renders the acquisition of the German infinitely more easy than that of languages in which the compound terms are borrowed from others, and have the appearance of distinct denominations. The principal difficulty in the study of the German arises from the attention which its grammatical forms and construction require, and not from the abundance of its words. We shall, therefore, recapitulate these forms before concluding this work. 929. For the present lesson we select a poetical Epistle of L. F. G. von Göckingk to his footman : Endlich muss ich doch es einmal sagen |