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• • •
 * Thus, then, in my heart am I freed from fear,
 * Sound in body and soul stand here,
 * And may, instead of posture and prayer,
 * Instead of losing my way in the air,
 * Here on the earth, in her blue eyes see
 * The deepest depths that exist for me.
 * Nay, and why should I in the world suffer dread,
 * I, who know the world from the foot to the head?
 * ’T is a tame creature, is it not?
 * When has it ever its bonds forgot?
 * Yields to the yoke of all-ruling law,
 * Crouches at my feet in awe.

• • •
 * Within it a giant spirit doth dream.
 * But his soul is a frozen lava stream;
 * From his narrow house he cannot away.
 * Nor his iron chains escape for a day.
 * Yet often he flutters his wings in his sleep.
 * Mightily stirs in his dungeon-keep,
 * Travails in dead and in living things
 * To know his will and to free his wings.

• • •
 * His power, that fills the veins with ore.
 * And renews in the spring the buds once more.
 * Labors unceasing in darkness and night,
 * In all nature’s nooks and crannies for light.
 * Fears no pang in its fierce desire
 * To live and to conquer and win its way higher.
 * Organs and members it fashions anew,
 * Lengthens or shortens, makes many or few.
 * And wrestles and writhes in its search till it find
 * The form that is worthiest of its mind.
 * Struggling thus on life intent.
 * Against a cruel environment.
 * It triumphs at last, in one narrow space,
 * And comes to itself in a dwarfish race.
 * That, fair of form, of stature erect,
 * Stands on earth as the giant’s elect,