Death comes to set thee free;
Oh, meet him cheerily
As thy true friend,
And all thy fears shall cease,
And in eternal peace
Thy penance end.

Nun will euch Hülfe bringen
Der gnadenreiche Tod.
Den müßt ihr freundlich grüßen.
Dann wird er freundlich auch
Und kehrt in Lust das Büssen.

Original text (German)

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Source, in full

Sintram und seine Gefährten (1815) ch. 20. Translated as Sintram and His Companions, "Pilgrim Song", st. 3. The translation of Fouqué's other romance Undine is attributed to Thomas Tracy in Undine, and Sintram and His Companions (NY: Wiley and Putnam, 1845). Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 11th ed. (1937) p. 1063, note, attributes the translation of Sintram to Tracy

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.