LONDON:
PRINTED BY W. CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREETAND CHARING CROSS.
TRANSLATED BY JOHN KELLY
ALEXANDER STRAHAN, PUBLISHER
56, LUDGATE HILL, LONDON
1867
This volume contains a large selection from Paul Gerhardt's“Spiritual Songs.” Every piece included isgiven in full, and is rendered into the metre of theoriginal. A few of the following translations haveappeared at various times during the last three years indifferent periodicals. They have been revised for thisvolume. Several of the hymns have been beautifullytranslated by others; and had the Translator been compilinga volume composed of selections from variousauthors, this might have formed a strong reason fornot doing them again, but to have omitted them froma volume like the present would have been to give aselection from Gerhardt without some of his most celebratedproductions; besides, in the other collectionswhere they appear they are not all given in full, norare they always rendered into the metre of the original,[viii]save in those published with the music attached. Asfar as the Translator is aware, the greater number ofthe following songs have never appeared in an Englishdress before.
Every one who has reflected on the subject, or attemptedmetrical translation, knows that literality israrely attainable, that a certain measure of freedommust be used. The Translator has, however, strivento maintain fidelity to the sense of the original, andhas occasionally somewhat sacrificed euphony to fidelity.
It is not to be expected that the people's poet of onenation and of a former age will become, through translation,the people's poet of another nation in a latergeneration. Individual translations may win for themselvesa place side by side with the favourite songs ofnative growth. Instances of