The Poems of Schiller - Second period Part 3

The wisest's wisdom, and the strongest's vigor,-- The meekest's meekness, and the n.o.blest's grace, By you were knit together in one figure, Wreathing a radiant glory round the place.

Man at the Unknown's sight must tremble, Yet its refulgence needs must love; That mighty Being to resemble, Each glorious hero madly strove; The prototype of beauty's earliest strain Ye made resound through Nature's wide domain.

The pa.s.sions' wild and headlong course, The ever-varying plan of fate, Duty and instinct's twofold force, With proving mind and guidance straight Ye then conducted to their ends.

What Nature, as she moves along, Far from each other ever rends, Become upon the stage, in song, Members of order, firmly bound.

Awed by the Furies' chorus dread, Murder draws down upon its head The doom of death from their wild sound.

Long e'er the wise to give a verdict dared, An Iliad had fate's mysteries declared To early ages from afar; While Providence in silence fared Into the world from Thespis' car.

Yet into that world's current so sublime Your symmetry was borne before its time, When the dark hand of destiny Failed in your sight to part by force.

What it had fashioned 'neath your eye, In darkness life made haste to die, Ere it fulfilled its beauteous course.

Then ye with bold and self-sufficient might Led the arch further through the future's night: Then, too, ye plunged, without a fear, Into Avernus' ocean black, And found the vanished life so dear Beyond the urn, and brought it back.

A blooming Pollux-form appeared now soon, On Castor leaning, and enshrined in light-- The shadow that is seen upon the moon, Ere she has filled her silvery circle bright!

Yet higher,--higher still above the earth Inventive genius never ceased to rise: Creations from creations had their birth, And harmonies from harmonies.

What here alone enchants the ravished sight, A n.o.bler beauty yonder must obey; The graceful charms that in the nymph unite, In the divine Athene melt away; The strength with which the wrestler is endowed, In the G.o.d's beauty we no longer find: The wonder of his time--Jove's image proud-- In the Olympian temple is enshrined.

The world, transformed by industry's bold hand, The human heart, by new-born instincts moved, That have in burning fights been fully proved, Your circle of creation now expand.

Advancing man bears on his soaring pinions, In grat.i.tude, art with him in his flight, And out of Nature's now-enriched dominions New worlds of beauty issue forth to light.

The barriers upon knowledge are o'erthrown; The spirit that, with pleasure soon matured, Has in your easy triumphs been inured To hasten through an artist-whole of graces, Nature's more distant columns duly places.

And overtakes her on her pathway lone.

He weighs her now with weights that human are, Metes her with measures that she lent of old; While in her beauty's rites more practised far, She now must let his eye her form behold.

With youthful and self-pleasing bliss, He lends the spheres his harmony, And, if he praise earth's edifice, 'Tis for its wondrous symmetry.

In all that now around him breathes, Proportion sweet is ever rife; And beauty's golden girdle wreathes With mildness round his path through life; Perfection blest, triumphantly, Before him in your works soars high; Wherever boisterous rapture swells, Wherever silent sorrow flees, Where pensive contemplation dwells, Where he the tears of anguish sees, Where thousand terrors on him glare, Harmonious streams are yet behind-- He sees the Graces sporting there, With feeling silent and refined.

Gentle as beauty's lines together linking, As the appearances that round him play, In tender outline in each other sinking, The soft breath of his life thus fleets away.

His spirit melts in the harmonious sea, That, rich in rapture, round his senses flows, And the dissolving thought all silently To omnipresent Cytherea grows.

Joining in lofty union with the Fates, On Graces and on Muses calm relying, With freely-offered bosom he awaits The shaft that soon against him will be flying From the soft bow necessity creates.

Favorites beloved of blissful harmony, Welcome attendants on life's dreary road, The n.o.blest and the dearest far that she, Who gave us life, to bless that life bestowed!

That unyoked man his duties bears in mind, And loves the fetters that his motions bind, That Chance with brazen sceptre rules him not,-- For this eternity is now your lot, Your heart has won a bright reward for this.

That round the cup where freedom flows, Merrily sport the G.o.ds of bliss,-- The beauteous dream its fragrance throws, For this, receive a loving kiss!

The spirit, glorious and serene, Who round necessity the graces trains,-- Who bids his ether and his starry plains Upon us wait with pleasing mien,-- Who, 'mid his terrors, by his majesty gives joy, And who is beauteous e'en when seeking to destroy,-- Him imitate, the artist good!

As o'er the streamlet's crystal flood The banks with checkered dances hover, The flowery mead, the sunset's light,-- Thus gleams, life's barren pathway over, Poesy's shadowy world so bright.

In bridal dress ye led us on Before the terrible Unknown, Before the inexorable fate, As in your urns the bones are laid, With beauteous magic veil ye shade The chorus dread that cares create.

Thousands of years I hastened through The boundless realm of vanished time How sad it seems when left by you-- But where ye linger, how sublime!

She who, with fleeting wing, of yore From your creating hand arose in might, Within your arms was found once more, When, vanquished by Time's silent flight, Life's blossoms faded from the cheek, And from the limbs all vigor went, And mournfully, with footstep weak, Upon his staff the gray-beard leant.

Then gave ye to the languishing, Life's waters from a new-born spring; Twice was the youth of time renewed, Twice, from the seeds that ye had strewed.

When chased by fierce barbarian hordes away, The last remaining votive brand ye tore From Orient's altars, now pollution's prey, And to these western lands in safety bore.

The fugitive from yonder eastern sh.o.r.e, The youthful day, the West her dwelling made; And on Hesperia's plains sprang up once more Ionia's flowers, in pristine bloom arrayed.

Over the spirit fairer Nature shed, With soft refulgence, a reflection bright, And through the graceful soul with stately tread Advanced the mighty Deity of light.

Millions of chains were burst asunder then, And to the slave then human laws applied, And mildly rose the younger race of men, As brethren, gently wandering side by side, With n.o.ble inward ecstasy, The bliss imparted ye receive, And in the veil of modesty, With silent merit take your leave.

If on the paths of thought, so freely given, The searcher now with daring fortune stands, And, by triumphant Paeans onward driven, Would seize upon the crown with dauntless hands-- If he with grovelling hireling's pay Thinks to dismiss his glorious guide-- Or, with the first slave's-place array Art near the throne his dream supplied-- Forgive him!--O'er your head to-day Hovers perfection's crown in pride, With you the earliest plant Spring had, Soul-forming Nature first began; With you, the harvest-chaplet glad, Perfected Nature ends her plan.

The art creative, that all-modestly arose From clay and stone, with silent triumph throws Its arms around the spirit's vast domain.

What in the land of knowledge the discoverer knows, He knows, discovers, only for your gain The treasures that the thinker has ama.s.sed, He will enjoy within your arms alone, Soon as his knowledge, beauty-ripe at last.

To art enn.o.bled shall have grown,-- Soon as with you he scales a mountain-height, And there, illumined by the setting sun, The smiling valley bursts upon his sight.

The richer ye reward the eager gaze The higher, fairer orders that the mind May traverse with its magic rays, Or compa.s.s with enjoyment unconfined-- The wider thoughts and feelings open lie To more luxuriant floods of harmony.

To beauty's richer, more majestic stream,-- The fair members of the world's vast scheme, That, maimed, disgrace on his creation bring, He sees the lofty forms then perfecting--

The fairer riddles come from out the night-- The richer is the world his arms enclose, The broader stream the sea with which he flows-- The weaker, too, is destiny's blind might-- The n.o.bler instincts does he prove-- The smaller he himself, the greater grows his love.

Thus is he led, in still and hidden race, By poetry, who strews his path with flowers, Through ever-purer forms, and purer powers, Through ever higher heights, and fairer grace.

At length, arrived at the ripe goal of time,-- Yet one more inspiration all-sublime, Poetic outburst of man's latest youth, And--he will glide into the arms of truth!

Herself, the gentle Cypria, Illumined by her fiery crown, Then stands before her full-grown son Unveiled--as great Urania; The sooner only by him caught, The fairer he had fled away!

Thus stood, in wonder rapture-fraught, Ulysses' n.o.ble son that day, When the sage mentor who his youth beguiled; Herself transfigured as Jove's glorious child!

Man's honor is confided to your hand,-- There let it well protected be!

It sinks with you! with you it will expand!

Poesy's sacred sorcery Obeys a world-plan wise and good; In silence let it swell the flood Of mighty-rolling harmony.

By her own time viewed with disdain, Let solemn truth in song remain, And let the Muses' band defend her!

In all the fullness of her splendor, Let her survive in numbers glorious, More dread, when veiled her charms appear, And vengeance take, with strains victorious, On her tormentor's ear!

The freest mother's children free, With steadfast countenance then rise To highest beauty's radiancy, And every other crown despise!

The sisters who escaped you here, Within your mother's arms ye'll meet; What n.o.ble spirits may revere, Must be deserving and complete.

High over your own course of time Exalt yourselves with pinion bold, And dimly let your gla.s.s sublime The coming century unfold!

On thousand roads advancing fast Of ever-rich variety, With fond embraces meet at last Before the throne of harmony!

As into seven mild rays we view With softness break the glimmer white, As rainbow-beams of sevenfold hue Dissolve again in that soft light, In clearness thousandfold thus throw Your magic round the ravished gaze,-- Into one stream of light thus flow,-- One bond of truth that ne'er decays!

THE CELEBRATED WOMAN.

AN EPISTLE BY A MARRIED MAN--TO A FELLOW-SUFFERER.

[In spite of Mr. Carlyle's a.s.sertion of Schiller's "total deficiency in humor," [12] we think that the following poem suffices to show that he possessed the gift in no ordinary degree, and that if the aims of a genius so essentially earnest had allowed him to indulge it he would have justified the opinion of the experienced Iffland as to his capacities for original comedy.]

Can I, my friend, with thee condole?-- Can I conceive the woes that try men, When late repentance racks the soul Ensnared into the toils of hymen?

Can I take part in such distress?-- Poor martyr,--most devoutly, "Yes!"

Thou weep'st because thy spouse has flown To arms preferred before thine own;-- A faithless wife,--I grant the curse,-- And yet, my friend, it might be worse!

Just hear another's tale of sorrow, And, in comparing, comfort borrow!

What! dost thou think thyself undone, Because thy rights are shared with one!

O, happy man--be more resigned, My wife belongs to all mankind!

My wife--she's found abroad--at home; But cross the Alps and she's at Rome; Sail to the Baltic--there you'll find her; Lounge on the Boulevards--kind and kinder: In short, you've only just to drop Where'er they sell the last new tale, And, bound and lettered in the shop, You'll find my lady up for sale!

She must her fair proportions render To all whose praise can glory lend her;-- Within the coach, on board the boat, Let every pedant "take a note;"

Endure, for public approbation, Each critic's "close investigation,"

And brave--nay, court it as a flattery-- Each spectacled Philistine's battery.

Just as it suits some scurvy carcase In which she hails an Aristarchus, Ready to fly with kindred souls, O'er blooming flowers or burning coals, To fame or shame, to shrine or gallows, Let him but lead--sublimely callous!

A Leipsic man--(confound the wretch!) Has made her topographic sketch, A kind of map, as of a town, Each point minutely dotted down; Scarce to myself I dare to hint What this d----d fellow wants to print!

Thy wife--howe'er she slight the vows-- Respects, at least, the name of spouse; But mine to regions far too high For that terrestrial name is carried; My wife's "The famous Ninon!"--I "The gentleman that Ninon married!"

It galls you that you scarce are able To stake a florin at the table-- Confront the pit, or join the walk, But straight all tongues begin to talk!

O that such luck could me befall, Just to be talked about at all!