"LA RISURREZIONE."
"Viva l'eterno Dio: sconfilto e vinto
D'Averno il crudo regnator sen giace:
L'empio pur sente il fiero braccio avvinte.
E l'aspra morte abbassa it ciglio, e tace.
Cade all'uom la catena onde fu cinto
Per fallo antico di pensiero audace:
Iddio, dell'nom vendicatore ha vinto!
Il ciel canta vittoria, e annunzia pace.
Io veggo gia sovra l'eterea mole
Erger di Croce trionfale insegna,
Primo terror d'ogni tartarea trama.
E veggo in alto soglio il sommo Sole,
Che a regnare in eterno ov'egli regna
I redenti mortali aspetta, e chiama."
In Teutonic language, which finds in the highest imaginings only the
symbol and apotheosis of human worth and endeavour; which believes,
indeed, that by man came and comes the resurrection from the dead; and
which regards that life as the most priceless page in human history,
to be for ever applied and interpreted by sympathy at will; and first
becoming truly divine when we regard it as truly human--in Teutonic
thought and dialect, we will conclude with this eloquent and intrinsic
application to the greatest of Beethoven's symphonies:--"Nohl names
the work the musical Faust of the moral will and its conflicts; a work
whose progress shows that there is something greater than Fate,
namely, Man, who, descending into the abysses of his own self, fetches
counsel and power wherewith to battle with life; and then, re-inforced
through his conviction of indestructible oneness with the god-like,
celebrates, with dythyrambic victory, the triumph of the eternal Good,
and of his own inner Freedom."