The Hymn of the Soul

One often hears in the distant forest
A muffled ringing from on high,
Yet no one knows from whence it echoes,
And legend can scarcely explain it.
From the lost church, so they say,
The sound rings out upon the winds;
Once the path was crowded with pilgrims The original German uses the archaic term "Wallern" for pilgrims or wanderers on a spiritual journey.,
Now no one knows how to find it anymore.

Ludwig Uhland (1787–1862) was a famous poet of the German Romantic movement. These lines are the opening stanza of his poem "The Lost Church" (Die verlorene Kirche), used here as a metaphor for the recovery of the "lost" Gnostic hymn contained in this book.