To Hope

Is there a God? Will he someday fulfill

The promises for which longing cries out?

Will, before the court of the world,

This puzzle ever reveal itself?

Man must hope. He does not ask!

You, who so gladly celebrates on sacred nights

And gently and softly veils the grief

That torments a tender soul,

O Hope! Raised through you,

Let the sufferer feel that there above,

An angel counts his tears!

When, long hushed, beloved voices are silenced,

When, underneath dead branches

Memory sits desolate,

Then come closer to where your forsaken one mourns

And, looking around at midnight,

Supports himself against sunken urns.

And if he looks up to accuse Fate,

When, departing with his days,

The last rays set:

Then permit him to see, at the rim of this earthly dream,

The light of the cloud's hem

From the near-by sun!