Or ’neath a marble tomb. 
Remember, ye who live,

Though frowns the fleeting day,
That to your friends ye give

What never will decay.

1827.*
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Religion and church.

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Thoughts on Jesus Christ’s descent into hell.

[The remarkable Poem of which this is a literal but faint representation, was written when Goethe was only sixteen years old.  It derives additional interest from the fact of its being the very earliest piece of his that is preserved.  The few other pieces included by Goethe under the title of Religion and Church are polemical, and devoid of interest to the English reader.]

What wondrous noise is heard around! 
Through heaven exulting voices sound,

A mighty army marches on
By thousand millions follow’d, lo,
To yon dark place makes haste to go

God’s Son, descending from His throne! 
He goes—­the tempests round Him break,

As Judge and Hero cometh He;
He goes—­the constellations quake,

The sun, the world quake fearfully.

I see Him in His victor-car,
On fiery axles borne afar,

Who on the cross for us expired. 
The triumph to yon realms He shows,—­
Remote from earth, where star ne’er glows,

The triumph He for us acquired. 
He cometh, Hell to extirpate,

Whom He, by dying, wellnigh kill’d;
He shall pronounce her fearful fate

Hark! now the curse is straight fulfill’d.

Hell sees the victor come at last,
She feels that now her reign is past,

She quakes and fears to meet His sight;
She knows His thunders’ terrors dread,
In vain she seeks to hide her head,

Attempts to fly, but vain is flight;
Vainly she hastes to ’scape pursuit

And to avoid her Judge’s eye;
The Lord’s fierce wrath restrains her foot

Like brazen chains,—­she cannot fly.

Here lies the Dragon, trampled down,
He lies, and feels God’s angry frown,

He feels, and grinneth hideously;
He feels Hell’s speechless agonies,
A thousand times he howls and sighs: 

“Oh, burning flames! quick, swallow me!”
There lies he in the fiery waves,

By torments rack’d and pangs infernal,
Instant annihilation craves,

And hears, those pangs will be eternal.

Those mighty squadrons, too, are here,
The partners of his cursed career,

Yet far less bad than he were they. 
Here lies the countless throng combined,
In black and fearful crowds entwined,

While round him fiery tempests play;
He sees how they the Judge avoid,

He sees the storm upon them feed,
Yet is not at the sight o’erjoy’d,

Because his pangs e’en theirs exceed.

The Son of Man in triumph passes
Down to Hell’s wild and black morasses,