Meter 13

In song will I again send forth the tidings,
How the Almighty, all things’ Ruler,
With bridle urgeth, bendeth at will
His creatures with might and due measure,
Marvellous well maketh them hold.
The Wielder of heaven hath welded together,
Wrapt all his creatures round and about,
Fixed with fetters, so that they fail ever
To find any road to wrest themselves free.
And yet every creature courseth along,
Onward bending, bound for its goal,
Seeking the kind that the King of angels,
The Father at first, firmly appointed.

So now all things are thitherward moving,
The spacious creation, save certain angels,
Save man also. Many, too many
Dwellers in the world war with their nature !
Though thou a she-lion should meet in the land,
A winsome creature wondrously tame,
Loving her master with lively affection,

And yet every day dreading him also,
If it befall that savour of blood
She ever tasteth, truly none needeth
Ever to hope that she will hold fast
To her tameness after ; well do I trow,
New as it is, no more she will heed it,
But her wild wont will soon remember,
The way of her fathers. Fierce she beginneth
To rend her fetters, to roar and growl,
And first she biteth, before all others,
Her own house-master, and hastily thereafter
Each single man that she may meet ;
Naught she leaveth that owneth life,
Nor beast nor man, mangling all she findeth.
Thus too the wood-birds, wondrous gentle,
Truly tame, if they come to the trees
In the heart of the holt, soon they heed not
Those that taught them, who long time before
Trained them and tamed them. Wild in the trees
Ever thereafter their ancient nature
They gladly follow, though fain would their teachers
With cunning tricks offer them tempting

Even the food that in former days
To tameness enticed ; the twigs so pleasant
Seem to their minds, the meat they heed not,
So winsome for them when woodland soundeth,

When they can hear the piping choir
Of other song-birds ; then do they send

Their own notes forth. All together
The sweet song raise ; the wood is ringing.
So too with each tree whose nature ’tis

That in the grove it groweth highest,
Though that thou bend a bough to the ground,
It upward leapeth when thou leavest
The wood to its will; it wendeth to its kind.
So too the sun when that it sinketh,
Noon long past ; the shining lamp
Hasteneth sinking, on his unseen journey
Ventureth by night ; then in the north-east
To men appeareth, to earth-dwellers bringeth,
Clear-bright morning, and o’er men mounteth,
Upward ever, until he cometh
To the topmost station where he highest standeth.
Thus every creature with all its might,
Through this wide world, wendeth and hasteneth
With all endeavour, eager to come
Once more to its kind as soon as it can.
On earth there now liveth no single creature
That craveth not one day to come
Back to its home whence it once hied.
Here no care racketh, here rest is eternal ;
Tis God Almighty, as all men know.
Over the earth now there liveth no creature
That spinneth not round and on itself turneth,
E’en as a wheel ; for it so whirleth
That at last it standeth in its ancient station ;
And ever as soon as it hath spun round,

When all its round is run to the end,
Then duly again it shall do what it did,
And be yet again what it was of yore.