Saturday Rave: Ach, wie nichtig by Michael Franck

Michael Franck was born in Schleusingen, in Thuringia, Germany, in 1609. He was a baker.

He seems to have been quite a good baker, though sadly he wasn't much cop at the business side of things: basically, he never found a way to stop people breaking in at night and nicking his stuff. In the end, completely broke, he abandoned his business and started up a new line as a teacher, with a bit of poetry thrown in as a side-line.

Perhaps surprisingly, the poetry was fairly successful, and his verses were set to music by both J S Bach and Telemann.

Here is some of Franck's poem Ach wie flüchtig,
ach wie nichtig which Bach used in his 1724 Church Cantata BMV 26. 

Ach wie flüchtig,
ach wie nichtig
ist des Menschen Leben!
Wie Ein NEBEL bald enstehet
und ach wie der bald vergehet
so ist unser LEBEN sehet!

Ach wir nichtig,
ach wie flüchtig
sind der Menschen Sachen!
Alles, alles was wir sehen,
das muß fallen und vergehen,
Wer Gott fürcht', wird ewig stehen.

**

Ah, how fleeting,
ah how insubstantial
is man's life!
As a mist soon arises
and soon also vanishes again,
so is our life, see!

Ah, how insubstantial,
ah how fleeting
are mankind's affairs!
Ah, all that we see
must fall and vanish.
The person who fears God stands 
firm forever.



Word To Use Today: fleeting. Ironically, no one is sure of the derivation of this word. It might be something to do with the Old English flēotan, to float or glide rapidly and before that to the Latin pluere, to rain.

The rest of this wistful but lovely poem (these are just the first and last verses) can be found HERE.