Classic Poem

Behold me, weary of the world!
Half blind and agèd, worn and spiritless,
I long for rest. As goes the stranger guest
Forth from the inn, thus shall my soul go forth.
Nor shall I quit the world reluctantly.
E'er since I nailed the theses on the door
In Wittenberg, life has been ceaseless storm.
But when I met the conclave of the emperor,
I was not awed by their august estate.
The full impact of strong insurgent truth
Beat on the gates of my poor utterance,
Dissolved the darkness with the word of light
And stirred the waters of a stagnant thought
To such effect that Europe was appalled.
In that great hour was focused in my voice
The light of centuries long passed away,
Blinded to darkness by that recreant power
That should have been truth's window.
The last prop
That buttressed up titanic mountain snows
I pushed away. Then came the grind and crash,
The thunder of the roaring avalanche.
Yet was there greater task for Luther set,
So I was held secure.

Then it was known
That every man may come priestless to God,
And read His word and hear and understand;
But how, unless the Scriptures were at hand
In German speech? This labour too was mine.
And now, the Bible's in our common tongue—
My gift to Germany. It cost me toil
That love alone could give. But human love
Is all divine when it gives all for love
And conquers all. My tree of life took root
The deeper, farther sunward grew, when it
By winds was buffeted. So was it in
The wildest storms I knew. My soul, set free
From superstition by the open word,
Found truth's emancipation dearer far
By contrast with the gloom.

When toil is past,
'Tis pleasure seeing seed transformed to fruit.
In this hard task, my life its highest word
Hath spoken, here I lay my love's best gift
Upon the altar of a nation's heart.
Our people were adrift with orders sealed,
And all the charted purpose of the King
Locked in a language none of them could know.
I spent my powers in the mighty task
And put that chart into the common speech,
So spake God's thought in strong, and vivid phrase
To human hearts that fain would know
The purport of the eternal Will.

This word
Shall lustre all the earth with truth and light,
Shall robe the sense and heart with pulsing song
Throughout these sunlit lands. Experience
Shall flame to this white torch or else expire.
To this great pattern let men fit their thought;
In this pure mirror let them perfect life.
Here is their chart.

To show the thought of God
In lofty phrase, doth, by so high a use,
Make common language fine. In this, God's word,
I give a nobler speech to Germany.
Oh, how this word shall forth on wings of flame!
These tongues of fire, in forms of Gutenberg,
Shall blaze through Germany their tracks of light,
And make this land the birthplace of the day;
For I have broken down a wall of night
So dense, so high, that for long centuries,
Its face beat back the morning.