Master of Mankind

          The Poem of Ecstasy is the Joy of Liberated Action. The Cosmos, i.e., Spirit, is Eternal Creation without External Motivation, a Divine Play of Worlds. The Creative Spirit, i.e., the Universe at Play, is not conscious of the Absoluteness of its creativeness, having subordinated itself to a Finality and made creativity a means toward an end. The stronger the pulse beat of life and the more rapid the precipitation of rhythms, the more clearly the awareness comes to the Spirit that it is consubstantial with creativity itself. When the Spirit has attained the supreme culmination of its activity and has been torn away from the embraces of teleology and relativity, when it has exhausted completely its substance and its liberated active energy, the Time of Ecstasy shall arrive.
          

Wenn im Unendlichen dasselbe 
          Sich wiederholend ewig fliesst, 
          Das tausendfaltige Gewölbe 
          Sich kräftig ineinander schliesst; 
          Strömt Lebenslust aus allen Dingen, 
          Dem kleinsten wie dem grössten Stern, 
          Und alles Drängen, alles Ringen 
          Ist ewige Ruh in Gott dem Herrn.