Transcriber's Note:
1. Page scan source:
http://www.archive.org/details/hourwillcomeata00firgoog
2. Vol. I and II are reprinted here as Collection of German Authors,Vols. 37 and 38.
"All that Time brings, Time also sweeps away. Therefore have thefathers recorded the deeds of men for their grandchildren."
Goswin. Chronik von Marienberg. 13..
The heath or moorland plateau of Mals lies wide--spread, silent, anddeserted where the lofty head of the Grossortler towers up, andoverlooks it in eternal calm. It is five centuries ago--a mere momentin that world of everlasting snows; the keen autumn wind, as at thisday, is rushing through the grey halms of the charlock, woodrush andheathgrasses, that have caught a doubtful, golden gleam reflected fromthe glaciers which are bathed in the glow of the sinking sun; as atthis day, the gale packs the driving white clouds together in the stillhighland valley, as though to rest for the night. They heave and rollnoiselessly, spreading a white, misty sheet over the witheredheathgrass. The mirror-surface of the moorland tarn lies lead-colouredand dull, wrinkled by the night-breeze, and its icy waters trickle intiny rills over the bare plain and down to the valley. All is the sameas it is to this day! Only life is wanting, life warm and busy, whichin these days is stirring in the villages and homesteads that dot theplain, and that have brought the dead moorland into tilth andfertility. Profound silence reigns over the immeasurable level,throughout its length and breadth no living thing stirs; it is as ifthis were indeed the neutral space between Heaven and Hell--a vast,eternal void! Only the monotonous murmur of the Etsch--that cold arteryof the desolate heath--and the roar of the winds that sweep at nightacross the plateau; these are the eerie voices of this realm of death.
Woe to the lonely pilgrim who is wandering through the night in thisboundless desert, in storm and snow, in impenetrable darkness; he islost in nothingness, owned by neither Heaven nor Hell, and the earthknows him not! No ear can hear his cry for help, it is lost in vacancy;the raven and the wolf mark him down, but they tell no one of theirmute prey.
It is true that pitying love has penetrated even to this wilderness andrealm of death, and spreads her arms so fa