Xii

Fatherlands! Air and earth and fire and water! Elements indestructible, beginning And end of life, first joy and last of mine! You I shall find again when I pass on

To the graves' calm. The people of the dreams Within me, airlike, unto air shall pass; My reason, fire-like, unto lasting fire; My passions' craze unto the billows' madness;

Even my dust-born body, unto dust; And I shall be again air, earth, fire, water; And from the air of dreams, and from the flames

Of thought, and from the flesh that shall be dust, And from the passions' sea, ever shall rise A breath of sound like a soft lyre's complaint.