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.