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In the Forest Cathedral more
forests, trees, spring, people, walking, cathedrals, crepuscular rays, rays, komorebi, shivelight
We see a forest with tall straight trunks topped by spreading branches forming almost a vaulted ceiling. The sun’s rays slant down from the left side, and a number of people are walking singly or in pairs. There is a broken tree-stump, hollow, in the foreground.
Under the picture there is a poem, in German, which might be translated as follows:
Im Waldesdom, or, In the forest cathedral.
High where green arches worship
The living columns’ rows,
It resounds like organ tones,
Growing and swelling to a mighty roar
And floating away in gentle, beautiful,
unreverent melodies.
The halls of his most beautiful cathedral
The Eternal One himself built,
Where a thousand songs resound for him,
Sweet clouds of incense drift,
And to all his worshippers,
Heaven looks down gently.
The poem in German, Im Waldesdom.
Hoch, wo grüne Bogen Frönen
Der lebend’gen Säulen Reih’n,
Hallt es wie von Orgeltönen,
Wächst und schwillt zu mächt’gem Dröhnen
Und verschwebt in leifen, schönen,
Undachtsernsten Melodei’n.
Seines schönsten Domes Hallen
Hat der Ew’ge selbst erbaut,
Wo ihm tausend Lieder schallen,
Süsse Weihrauchdüste wallen,
Und zu seinen Betern allen
Mild herab der Himmel schaut.
The poem is credited to Leonie Meyerhof (1858 – 1933). The artist and engraver are not credited. The section of the book in which this page appears is entitled Frühling, or, Spring.
The crepuscular rays, as these diagonal sun-rays are called, ought really to be parallel, but sometimes look as if they fan out because of an optical illusion of perspective.
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