"Her memory shall be my better
self, a sacred image in my heart before which a sanctuary lamp is ever
burning, and which will save me from the temptations of the Evil One."
And through the mouth of Heinrich of Ofterdingen he proclaims: "My
beloved is the abbreviation of the universe; the universe is the
elongation of my beloved." "Heaven has given you to me to worship. I
adore you, you are a saint, you are divine glory, you are eternal life!"

This sentimental worship of woman, combined with an all-transcending
insatiable sensuousness, produced the peculiar sexually-mystic
world-feeling which is so characteristic of him. Night deeply moves his
soul, longing, the memory of the beloved woman, adoration for the
Virgin, his fantastic conception of an incarnated universe are fused
into one great emotion:

Praise to the Queen of the World!
The lofty herald
Of the sacred world.
The patroness
Of rapturous love!
Thou art coming, beloved--
Night has descended--
My soul is ravished--
Over is this earthly journey
And thou art mine again.
I gaze into thy dark, deep eyes,
And see naught but love and happiness.
We sink down on the altar of the night,
The soft couch--
The veil falls,
And kindled by the rapturous embrace,
Glows the pure fire
Of the sweet sacrifice.

The climax and unique example of sensuousness, unsurpassed for its
symbols of the physical embrace, is the hymn: "Few know the Secret of
Love." It is too long to give in full. The following are a few stanzas:

Would that the ocean
Blushed!
And in fragrant flesh
Melted the rock!
Infinite is the sweet repast,
Never satisfied is love;
Nor close, nor fast enough
Can it hold the beloved.
By ever more tender lips
Transformed, the past ecstasy
Grows closer, more intimate.
Rapturous love
Thrills the soul;
Hungrier and thirstier
Grows the heart.
And thus the transports of love
Endure for ever.

Here the remotest limit has been reached--sensuousness seems to flow
into eternity, voluptuousness would shatter the world to pieces and
create a new relationship of things. Before this poem all ecstasies of
sensuousness masquerading as cosmic emotion are dull and timid. The
transcendent symbols of Catholicism are used to guide the insatiable
sensuous imagination to metaphysics. "Who can say that