3: Du liebe Unschuld du, wie schlecht wirst du geachtt!

Du liebe Unschuld du, wie schlecht wirst du geachtt!--(Goed. 3.)

Appeared in the Crü. Praxis, 1656, p. 650.

English Version:

1. By J. Kelly, under the heading, "Under the vexations of the wicked prosperous world," the first stanza as follows:

This translation is somewhat labored as is especially evident in line 4 above for the German:

Goedeke in his note to this hymn points out that from the use of the Alexandrine verse, the freedom from biblical phraseology and from the generality of the expressions it is probable that this is one of Gerhardt's earliest poems composed at a time when he patterned his writings after the model of Opitz.