Prayer and Meditation

All the thoughts of the heart I unwaveringly and anxiously unite into one, as I can attest that I have been thinking of them for a long time, with songs with faithful courage the pure, the good. I thank you, you senses, for the friendly teaching that I care for you, that I diligently nourish the ardor and that I desire to praise my darling's honor in new ways.

Yes, I long for the sublime, the beautiful. O say, whoever describes the hours of salvation, if they were overcome by tender instinct, mine would and would remain! How she lifts me from suffering to joy, to paradise love, sweetness! The owl sits in the elm tree and howls and howls in the elm tree. The world has room for both of us! Why does the owl howl in the elm tree from dying and from dying? And across the way the nightingale, across the way the nightingale whistles.

Alas, love is gone! What is it that the nightingale whistles so sweetly about love and about love? On the right a bright love song, on the left a shrill dying song! Ah, is there nothing left when love is gone, for nothing but a dying song is hardly far away?

Swiss Alps Wedding Ceremony

Love is a flowering blessing that rests holy in the soul, not a little rose that you pluck from the path for your hiking hat. If you guarded the May of the soul, you do not lament the flight of dreams, the bud that you once glowed is resplendent as a living fruit of life.

It completely fills the heart with tenderness. It's her, she's standing in front of me. What a feeling! Is it straying that draws me to you? Rage? is it a heightened sense that only grasps the highest, purest truth? Yes, it is the feeling that alone on this earth can make me happy. That alone made me so miserable when I resisted it and wanted to banish it from my heart.