"Thou hast made me endless, such is thy pleasure. This frail vessel thou emptiest again and again, and fillest it ever with fresh life./This little flute of a reed thou hast carried over hills and dales, and hast breathed through it melodies eternally new."
These are the opening lines, and their significance cannot be overstated. Throughout the rest of this long work, the subsequent verses adhere to the simplicity of language expressed here. This is poetry intended for the common people. The language is stripped down to an almost primitive level while still maintaining a poetic loftiness. For instance, instead of "vessel" the simplest choice would have been ship, but vessel has a poetic context to it that allows broader implication than ship. These opening words situate the premise of the poem which is the speaker engaging in discourse with God. Thus, the self-awareness of being a "frail vessel" an a "little flute" is an expression of the speaker's distance from God.
"I came out alone on my way to my tryst. But who is this that follows me in the silent dark?/I move aside to avoid his presence but I escape him not./He makes the dust rise from the earth with his swagger; he adds his loud voice to every word that I utter./He is my own little self, my lord, he knows no shame; but I am ashamed to come to thy door in his company."
This work has often been compared to the "Song of Solomon." Like that book of the Bible, the language is easily misinterpreted as romantic or even erotic. The use of the word "tryst" in the English translation certain is heavy with the connotation of a secret romantic rendezvous. But like the earlier work, it is the romance between a human and his God. This quote is stanza 30 in its entirety, and it stands in contrast to the opening words. The speaker is admitting that the frail and little person so distance from God has a dark side. This inner self may swagger, but he is also charactered as "little" and it is significant that his presence stimulates both open expressions of pride and shame over those very demonstrations. A mixture of emotions that also sounds like an actual romantic relationship.
"On the seashore of endless worlds children meet. Tempest roams in the pathless sky, ships get wrecked in the trackless water, death is abroad and children play. On the seashore of endless worlds is the great meeting of children."
Stanza 60 actually looks out of place compared to most others. It is constructed of five paragraphs that are blocked together to look more like prose than verse. It is also repetitive. This is the final paragraph of the stanza and is very similar to the opening paragraph. It stands in stark contrast to the darkness of stanza 30 as it focuses on imagery of children playing not just in innocence, but ignorance. For instance, they are oblivious to the storms moving across the sky and the tragic loss of life in shipwrecks. The entire stanza is focused on imagery painting the children playing while paying no attention to experiences ranging from the songs of "death-dealing waves" to searching for hidden treasure. This quote also demonstrates the breadth of content covered in the speaker's discourse.
