ghts the key,
When they will even kiss or sing
Beyond the sage's reckoning,
When life, to Freedom will attain,
And Freedom in creation reign,
When Light and Shade, no longer single,
In genuine splendor intermingle,
And one in tales and poems sees
The world's eternal histories,--
Then will our whole inverted being
Before a secret word be fleeing.

The gardener, who converses with Henry, is the same old man who had
formerly entertained Ofterdingen's father. The young girl, whose name
is Cyane, is not his child, but the daughter of the Count of
Hohenzollern. She came from the East; and though it was at an early
age, yet she can recollect her home. She has long lived a strange life
in the mountains, among which she was brought up by her deceased
mother. She has lost in early life a brother, and has narrowly escaped
death in a vaulted tomb; but an old physician rescued her in some
peculiar way. She is gentle, and kind, and very familiar with the
supernatural. She tells the poet her history as she had heard it once
from her mother. She sends him to a distant cloister, whose monks seem
to be a kind of spirit-colony; everything is like a mystic, magic
lodge. They are the priests of the holy fire in youthful minds. He
hears the distant chant of the brothers; in the church itself, he has a
vision. With an old monk Henry converses about death and magic, has
presentiment of death--and of the philosopher's stone; visits the
cloister-garden and the churchyard, concerning which latter I find the
following poem:--

Praise ye now our still carousals,
Gardens, chambers decked so gaily,
Household goods as for espousals,
Our possessions praise.
Mew guests are coming daily,
Some late, the others early;
On the spacious hearth forever
Glimmereth a new life-blaze.

Thousand vessels wrought with cunning,
Once bedewed with thousand tears,
Golden rings and spurs and sabres,
Are our treasury;
Many gems of costly mounting
Wist we of in dark recesses,
None can all our wealth be counting,
Counts he even ceaselessly.

Children of a time evanished,
Heroes from the hoary ages,
Starry spirits high excelling,
Wondrously combine,
Graceful women, solemn sages,
Life in all its motley stages,
In one circle here are dwelling,
In the olden wo