dead, I shall still live in your joy.” They lay down on the slope, from which the fair country was visible for many a league; and here Eckhart had to guard himself from speaking of his children; for they seemed as if coming towards him from the distant mountains, while he heard afar off a lovely sound.
“Comes it not like dreams
Stealing o’er the vales and streams?
Out of regions far from this,
Like the song of souls in bliss?”
This to the youths did Eckart say,
And caught the sound from far away;
And as the magic tones came nigher,
A wicked strange desire
Awakens in the breasts of these pure boys,
That drives them forth to seek for unknown joys.
“Come, let’s to the fields, to the meadows and mountains,
The forests invite us, the streams and the fountains;
Soft voices in secret for loitering chide us,
Away to the Garden of Pleasure they’ll guide us.”
The Player comes in foreign guise,
Appears before their wondering eyes;
And higher swells the music’s sound,
And brighter glows the emerald ground;
The flowers appear as drunk,
Twilight red has on them sunk;
And through the green grass play, with airy lightness,
Soft, fitful, blue and golden streaks of brightness.
Like a shadow, melts and flits away
All that bound men to this world of clay;
In Earth all toil and tumult cease,
Like one bright flower it blooms in peace;
The mountains rock in purple light,
The valleys shout as with delight;
All rush and whirl in the music’s noise,
And long to share of these offer’d joys;
The soul of man is allured to gladness,
And lies entranced in that blissful madness.
The Trusty Eckart felt it,
But wist not of the cause;
His heart the music melted,
He wondered what it was.
