These fruits are ripe, dipped in fire, Cooked and tested here on earth. - Friedrich Hölderlin

The God, when he draws near, will the heart stand fast.
But, oh my, shame! when of

My shame!

And let me say at once

That I approached to see the Heavenly,
And they cast me down, deep down
Below the living, into the dark cast down
The false priest that I am, to sing,
For those who have ears to hear, the warning song.
There

On this height I often stand, my Bellarmin! But a moment of reflection casts me down. I begin to think, and find myself as I was before, alone, with all the pains of mortality, and my heart’s sanctuary, the world's eternal oneness, is no more; nature’s arms are closed, and I stand before her like a stranger and cannot comprehend her.
Oh! had I never gone into your schools. It’s learning that lured me down into the pit, in my youthful folly I thought to find in it the proof of my pure joy, and it has ruined everything for me.
Amongst you I became so very rational, learnt to distinguish myself perfectly from what is around me, and now I’m set apart in the beautiful world, expelled from the garden of nature in which I grew and bloomed, and shrivel under the noonday sun.

"You wanted greater things
But love forces all of us down
And sorrow bows us still harder.
They bend us back where we began.

Are there not in the hallowed night
Also right things?
Things that are straight and true?

So I learned.
For never, as mortal teachers do,
Have you, my deities,
Upholders of all things
Led me with caution
On level pathways.

The gods say to humans,
"Taste everything
And learn by that nourishment
To give thanks for all things
And know what it is to be free to quit
And go where you like.