Do your master proud, oh journeyman, build correctly!
As he measured, you take the trowel, build correctly!
 Do not concern yourself with your fellow journeymen, [with] how they may be building;
Let the master look out for that, upon your place [of work] build correctly!
 Do not ask about how quickly that which your hand has painstakingly joined
Will be smashed by the storms of time, build correctly!
 Do not let your discontent ask which resident's bad taste
Will in future deface the wall you built, build correctly!
 Gardener, for whom the soil functions as mortar, and whose trowel is a spade,
Bestir yourself, and faithfully plant the earth, build correctly!
 Build the forms of what you grow, establish plants and destroy
Weeds, so that they do not get in the way of leaves, build correctly!
 Organize your flowering dominion, rejoice in the populace [of plants].
Build correctly the beds and paths and the conduits for every water spring!
 Fisherman, for whom the sea serves as a field and the barque as a plough,
Plough deep furrows into the bed of the floodwaters, build your wave correctly!
 Fly to unite different parts of the world, ship, and let trade flourish!
Trade, your fairs and booths, scales and linear measuring tools, build correctly!
 Let your throne room, king, be built by justice and love!
Build the gable free and airy, and the threshold build correctly!
 When concord builds houses that are torn down by discord:
Concord, come, take the ruins of our discord, build correctly!
 Petty is the framework of nations before the eternal building of the world:
Come, wisdom of the world, fellow builder of the world-spirit, build correctly!
 The past [glory] of creation build again for us from the ruins,
And the future of history, build brightly, build correctly!
 Resolve the confusion of languages, which brings construction to a halt;
Such that the idea may realize the plan of the master, build correctly!
 Safe, quiet, undisturbed architect, oh Nature,
Continue building after the unconscious artistic model, build correctly!
 Build the proud cupola of your halls, oh Heaven, where
With music the spheres spin eternally, build correctly!
 The pathways of suns and galaxies, the residences of the planets,
The four houses for the moon's phases, build correctly!
 Build the coral reefs and the quiet mussel beds,
Holy ocean, and the crystalline brightness of the grottos, build correctly!
 Oh master-builder at the rivers, beaver, that human intellect
May learn from you, build correctly your edifices without a trowel!
 Build your soaring palaces under the boughs, you birds!
Artistic bee, build correctly your hexagonal honeycombs!
 Build the crypt according to the right measurements for the sleep of the chrysalis,
Caterpillar!  And your dark wings, oh dragonfly, build correctly!
 Build yourself upward, oh orange mullein, burn quietly upward in blossoms!
Lily, build correctly the pedestal for your candelabrum [of flowers]!
 Soaring upon the framework of leaves, flower, build your sanctuary,
The bridal chamber of scent-screened lovers build correctly!
 You, balsam shrubbery, build yourself into a sacrificial vessel of scent!
Fashion yourself into a repository of musk, oh gazelle, build correctly!
 Unconscious poetic soul, nightingale, oh build
Your throat, that it beautifully resounds of love, build correctly!
 Love, build your flute of reeds so that it breathes longing; build,
Your [pipe] organ, devotion, that it swells the heavens, build correctly!
 Harbinger of Spring! Amphion of Nature! That heart to heart
Of the Church, stone to stone of the cathedral places itself, build correctly!
 Build the musical ladder of thought toward Heaven,
Freimund! the sound-slope of your song waves build correctly!
 Spirit of love, soul of the world, fatherly ear that does not
Fail to hear a single voice in the congregation that praises you!
 A succession of prayers of thanksgiving, a string of songs of praise
Runs from the scent of morning to the light of evening.
 A succession of songs of praise, a string of prayers of thanksgiving
Runs from the scent of evening to the light of morning.
 A string upon which to your glory all the stars of heaven
Along with the blossoms of all groves, are suspended in an orderly fashion.
 A string to which the sea contributes the pearls of its devotion
And the depths of the earth the gemstones of their ardour.
 Grant that into the web of praise that creation daily works
Anew for you from a thousand threads, I may work my [threads] as well!
 You who gave, in order to praise you, a voice to every
Living thing from the bright sun to the dark rocks!
 Grant, that through the fanning of the flames of prayer
This soul, too, may illume its inner life for you to see!
 Let this little [wave of hymns] surge along in creation's flood of psalms,
In the world-ocean's great waves of hymns !
 O Nature, with your breath purify my soul,
That it may in a pure manner echo back your pure carillon!
 Grant that in the great consonance of your voices every
Human heart may harmonically dissolve, whether it rejoice, whether it weep!
 Ear of the world! before which from the beginning of time,
Through the centuries, many poets have joined their voices in song:
 The discrepancies in their strings are corrected before you;
You hear their hundred thousand voices as a single one.
 Let roses sough in your evening breezes over
The slumbering remains of everyone who sang your praises!
 Let the free poet's lips here serve to your praise,
Until in the hereafter his tongue joins more freely into the [praises uttered by] the tongues of angels!