Commentary

This "Christliches Freudenlied" has an especial interest, for it seems to have been the hymn that was most comforting to Gerhardt. We know that in his last moments he repeated stanza VIII:

It was fitting that one whose hymns are so replete with expressions of earthly and the far greater heavenly joys should go to his final rest comforted by the full realization of their meaning.

The translator in the 1754 edition of the Moravian Hymn Book has with a few characteristic exceptions treated the peculiar rhythm and metre skillfully. Although the line

(line 2) would not be acceptable to-day, still our attention is forcibly drawn to the rhythm and note of genuine in the reproduction of our poet's last words:

John Kelly in his Paul Gerhardt's Spiritual Songs although he does not retain much of the lyric of the original translates the poem with scrupulous faithfulness. His stanza 8 suffers greatly by comparison with that of the Moravian version-given above.