Hymn to the Earth[;] [Imitated From Stolberg's Hymn and Die Erde] Hexametetrs

1. 1Earth! thou mother of numberless children, the nurse and the mother,
2. 2Hail! O Goddess, thrice hail! Blest be thou! and, blessing, I hymn thee!
3. 3Forth, ye sweet sounds! from my harp, and my voice shall float on your surges--
4. 4Soar thou aloft, O my soul! and bear up my song on thy pinions.

1. 5Travelling the vale with mine eyes--green meadows and lake with green island,
2. 6Dark in its basin of rock, and the bare stream flowing inbrightness,
3. 7Thrilled with thy beauty and love in the wooded slope of the mountain,
4. 8Here, great mother, I lie, thy child, with his head on thy bosom!
5. 9Playful the spirits of noon, that rushing soft through thy tresses,
6. 10Green-haired goddess! refresh me; and hark! as they hurry orlinger,
7. 11Fill the pause of my harp, or sustain it with musical murmurs.
8. 12Into my being thou murmurest joy, and tenderest sadness
9. 13Shedd'st thou, like dew, on my heart, till the joy and the heavenly sadness
10. 14Pour themselves forth from my heart in tears, and the hymn of thanksgiving.

1. 15Earth! thou mother of numberless children, the nurse and the mother,
2. 16Sister thou of the stars, and beloved by the Sun, the rejoicer!
3. 17Guardian and friend of the moon, O Earth, whom the comets forget not,
4. 18Yea, in the measureless distance wheel round and again they behold thee!
5. 19Fadeless and young (and what if the latest birth of creation?)
6. 20Bride and consort of Heaven, that looks down upon thee enamoured!
7. 21Say, mysterious Earth! O say, great mother and goddess,
8. 22Was it not well with thee then, when first thy lap was ungirdled,
9. 23Thy lap to the genial Heaven, the day that he wooed thee and won thee!
10. 24Fair was thy blush, the fairest and first of the blushes of morning!
11. 25Deep was the shudder, O Earth! the throe of thy self-retention:
12. 26Inly thou strovest to flee, and didst seek thyself at thy centre!
13. 27Mightier far was the joy of thy sudden resilience; and forthwith
14. 28Myriad myriads of lives teemed forth from the mighty embracement.
15. 29Thousand-fold tribes of dwellers, impelled by thousand-fold instincts,
16. 30Filled, as a dream, the wide waters; the rivers sang on their channels;
17. 31Laughed on their shores the hoarse seas; the yearning ocean swelled upward;
18. 32Young life lowed through the meadows, the woods, and the echoing mountains,
19. 33Wandered bleating in valleys, and warbled on blossoming branches.