The Utopian Communist: A Biography of Wilhelm Weitling

96 THE UTOPIAN COMMUNIST

The author also expressed the fear that the great new "system for
the testing of truth" which he had discovered (perhaps his univer­
sal language) might be lost to the world. Every stanza of the poem
revealed the increasingly neurotic state of the prisoner.
The poems entitled "The Christmas Tree" and "Do Not De­
spair," on the other hand, revealed a new optimism about the
prisoner's fate, referred to a mission still to be performed, and ap­
pealed to God for strength and for the sanctification of the New
Messiah through suffering. Two selections will suffice to illustrate
this characteristic theme. In the poem "The Night," written in
January, 1844, the last stanza contained these lines:

Ich will durch Kerkernacht, durch Dunkelheit und Tod,

Durch alle finst're Schattenbilder dringen,

Ein kühner Bräutigam, die stolze Braut erringen,

Hurrah! Du meiner Freiheit Morgenrot.

Finally, in "Exaltation," written toward the end of December,

1843, the prisoner definitely turned to God in prayer, and ap­

pealed for protection against the forces that threatened to engulf

him and for strength to bear his cross:

So hilf mir nun, O Gott, den Kampf bestehen!

Der Wahrheit Schätze soil ich dir bewahren,

Die lässt du nicht versinken in Gefahren,

In Kerkersnacht und Tod nicht untergehen!—

Ringt in Gethsemane ein Herz sich wund,

So stärkt dein Engel es, macht es gesund,

Und will ans Kreuz man einen Märt'rer schlagen,

So kommt ein Simon, es zum Berg zu tragen.

Increasingly conscious of the great truth he had to proclaim, the

excited prisoner in another poem cried out in morbid stanzas, with

frequent references to his mother,

Ruf mich noch nicht! O Mutter, lass mich hier,

Dies Feuer darf im Kerker nicht verlodern,