The Poems of Schiller — Third period

   Even the beauteous must die! This vanquishes men and immortals;     But of the Stygian god moves not the bosom of steel.    Once and once only could love prevail on the ruler of shadows,     And on the threshold, e'en then, sternly his gift he recalled.    Venus could never heal the wounds of the beauteous stripling,     That the terrible boar made in his delicate skin;    Nor could his mother immortal preserve the hero so godlike,     When at the west gate of Troy, falling, his fate he fulfilled.    But she arose from the ocean with all the daughters of Nereus,     And o'er her glorified son raised the loud accents of woe.    See! where all the gods and goddesses yonder are weeping,     That the beauteous must fade, and that the perfect must die.    Even a woe-song to be in the mouth of the loved ones is glorious,     For what is vulgar descends mutely to Orcus' dark shades.

THE MAID OF ORLEANS

   Humanity's bright image to impair.     Scorn laid thee prostrate in the deepest dust;    Wit wages ceaseless war on all that's fair, —     In angel and in God it puts no trust;    The bosom's treasures it would make its prey, —    Besieges fancy, — dims e'en faith's pure ray.    Yet issuing like thyself from humble line,     Like thee a gentle shepherdess is she —    Sweet poesy affords her rights divine,     And to the stars eternal soars with thee.    Around thy brow a glory she hath thrown;    The heart 'twas formed thee, — ever thou'lt live on!    The world delights whate'er is bright to stain,     And in the dust to lay the glorious low;    Yet fear not! noble bosoms still remain,     That for the lofty, for the radiant glow    Let Momus serve to fill the booth with mirth;    A nobler mind loves forms of nobler worth.

ARCHIMEDES

   To Archimedes once a scholar came,    "Teach me," he said, "the art that won thy fame; —    The godlike art which gives such boons to toil,    And showers such fruit upon thy native soil; —    The godlike art that girt the town when all    Rome's vengeance burst in thunder on the wall!"    "Thou call'st art godlike — it is so, in truth,    And was," replied the master to the youth,    "Ere yet its secrets were applied to use —    Ere yet it served beleaguered Syracuse: —    Ask'st thou from art, but what the art is worth?    The fruit? — for fruit go cultivate the earth. —    He who the goddess would aspire unto,    Must not the goddess as the woman woo!"

THE DANCE

See how, like lightest waves at play, the airy dancers fleet; And scarcely feels the floor the wings of those harmonious feet. Ob, are they flying shadows from their native forms set free? Or phantoms in the fairy ring that summer moonbeams see? As, by the gentle zephyr blown, some light mist flees in air, As skiffs that skim adown the tide, when silver waves are fair, So sports the docile footstep to the heave of that sweet measure, As music wafts the form aloft at its melodious pleasure, Now breaking through the woven chain of the entangled dance, From where the ranks the thickest press, a bolder pair advance, The path they leave behind them lost — wide open the path beyond, The way unfolds or closes up as by a magic wand. See now, they vanish from the gaze in wild confusion blended; All, in sweet chaos whirled again, that gentle world is ended! No! — disentangled glides the knot, the gay disorder ranges — The only system ruling here, a grace that ever changes. For ay destroyed — for ay renewed, whirls on that fair creation; And yet one peaceful law can still pervade in each mutation. And what can to the reeling maze breathe harmony and vigor, And give an order and repose to every gliding figure? That each a ruler to himself doth but himself obey, Yet through the hurrying course still keeps his own appointed way. What, would'st thou know? It is in truth the mighty power of tune, A power that every step obeys, as tides obey the moon; That threadeth with a golden clue the intricate employment, Curbs bounding strength to tranquil grace, and tames the wild enjoyment. And comes the world's wide harmony in vain upon thine ears? The stream of music borne aloft from yonder choral spheres? And feel'st thou not the measure which eternal Nature keeps? The whirling dance forever held in yonder azure deeps? The suns that wheel in varying maze? — That music thou discernest? No! Thou canst honor that in sport which thou forgettest in earnest.37

THE FORTUNE-FAVORED. 38

   Ah! happy he, upon whose birth each god     Looks down in love, whose earliest sleep the bright    Idalia cradles, whose young lips the rod    Of eloquent Hermes kindles — to whose eyes,    Scarce wakened yet, Apollo steals in light,     While on imperial brows Jove sets the seal of might!    Godlike the lot ordained for him to share,     He wins the garland ere he runs the race;    He learns life's wisdom ere he knows life's care,     And, without labor vanquished, smiles the grace.    Great is the man, I grant, whose strength of mind,     Self-shapes its objects and subdues the fates —    Virtue subdues the fates, but cannot blind     The fickle happiness, whose smile awaits    Those who scarce seek it; nor can courage earn    What the grace showers not from her own free urn!    From aught unworthy, the determined will     Can guard the watchful spirit — there it ends     The all that's glorious from the heaven descends;    As some sweet mistress loves us, freely still    Come the spontaneous gifts of heaven! — Above    Favor rules Jove, as it below rules love!    The immortals have their bias! — Kindly they    See the bright locks of youth enamored play,    And where the glad one goes, shed gladness round the way.    It is not they who boast the best to see,     Whose eyes the holy apparitions bless;    The stately light of their divinity      Hath oft but shone the brightest on the blind; —     And their choice spirit found its calm recess      In the pure childhood of a simple mind.    Unasked they come delighted to delude     The expectation of our baffled pride;     No law can call their free steps to our side.      Him whom he loves, the sire of men and gods    (Selected from the marvelling multitude)      Bears on his eagle to his bright abodes;    And showers, with partial hand and lavish, down,    The minstrel's laurel or the monarch's crown!    Before the fortune-favored son of earth,    Apollo walks — and, with his jocund mirth,    The heart-enthralling smiler of the skies     For him gray Neptune smooths the pliant wave —      Harmless the waters for the ship that bore      The Caesar and his fortunes to the shore!    Charmed at his feet the crouching lion lies,     To him his back the murmuring dolphin gave;    His soul is born a sovereign o'er the strife —    The lord of all the beautiful of life;    Where'er his presence in its calm has trod,    It charms — it sways as solve diviner God.    Scorn not the fortune-favored, that to him     The light-won victory by the gods is given,      Or that, as Paris, from the strife severe,     The Venus draws her darling — Whom the heaven      So prospers, love so watches, I revere!    And not the man upon whose eyes, with dim    And baleful night, sits fate. Achaia boasts,     No less the glory of the Dorian lord 39    That Vulcan wrought for him the shield and sword —    That round the mortal hovered all the hosts    Of all Olympus — that his wrath to grace,    The best and bravest of the Grecian race    Untimely slaughtered, with resentful ghosts    Awed the pale people of the Stygian coasts!    Scorn not the darlings of the beautiful,    If without labor they life's blossoms cull;    If, like the stately lilies, they have won    A crown for which they neither toiled nor spun; —    If without merit, theirs be beauty, still    Thy sense, unenvying, with the beauty fill.    Alike for thee no merit wins the right,    To share, by simply seeing, their delight.    Heaven breathes the soul into the minstrel's breast,    But with that soul he animates the rest;    The god inspires the mortal — but to God,    In turn, the mortal lifts thee from the sod.    Oh, not in vain to heaven the bard is dear;    Holy himself — he hallows those who hear!    The busy mart let justice still control,     Weighing the guerdon to the toil! — What then?      A God alone claims joy — all joy is his,     Flushing with unsought light the cheeks of men.      40 Where is no miracle, why there no bliss!    Grow, change, and ripen all that mortal be,     Shapened from form to form, by toiling time;      The blissful and the beautiful are born    Full grown, and ripened from eternity —     No gradual changes to their glorious prime,      No childhood dwarfs them, and no age has worn. —   Like heaven's, each earthly Venus on the sight    Comes, a dark birth, from out an endless sea;   Like the first Pallas, in maturest might,   Armed, from the thunderer's — brow, leaps forth each thought of light.

BOOKSELLER'S ANNOUNCEMENT

   Naught is for man so important as rightly to know his own purpose;     For but twelve groschen hard cash 'tis to be bought at my shop!

GENIUS

"Do I believe," sayest thou, "what the masters of wisdom would teach me,   And what their followers' band boldly and readily swear? Cannot I ever attain to true peace, excepting through knowledge,   Or is the system upheld only by fortune and law? Must I distrust the gently-warning impulse, the precept   That thou, Nature, thyself hast in my bosom impressed, Till the schools have affixed to the writ eternal their signet,   Till a mere formula's chain binds down the fugitive soul? Answer me, then! for thou hast down into these deeps e'en descended, —   Out of the mouldering grave thou didst uninjured return. Is't to thee known what within the tomb of obscure works is hidden,   Whether, yon mummies amid, life's consolations can dwell? Must I travel the darksome road? The thought makes me tremble;   Yet I will travel that road, if 'tis to truth and to right." Friend, hast thou heard of the golden age? Full many a story   Poets have sung in its praise, simply and touchingly sung — Of the time when the holy still wandered over life's pathways, —   When with a maidenly shame every sensation was veiled, — When the mighty law that governs the sun in his orbit,   And that, concealed in the bud, teaches the point how to move, When necessity's silent law, the steadfast, the changeless,   Stirred up billows more free, e'en in the bosom of man, — When the sense, unerring, and true as the hand of the dial,   Pointed only to truth, only to what was eternal? Then no profane one was seen, then no initiate was met with,   And what as living was felt was not then sought 'mongst the dead; Equally clear to every breast was the precept eternal,   Equally hidden the source whence it to gladden us sprang; But that happy period has vanished! And self-willed presumption   Nature's godlike repose now has forever destroyed. Feelings polluted the voice of the deities echo no longer,   In the dishonored breast now is the oracle dumb. Save in the silenter self, the listening soul cannot find it,   There does the mystical word watch o'er the meaning divine; There does the searcher conjure it, descending with bosom unsullied;   There does the nature long-lost give him back wisdom again. If thou, happy one, never hast lost the angel that guards thee,   Forfeited never the kind warnings that instinct holds forth; If in thy modest eye the truth is still purely depicted;   If in thine innocent breast clearly still echoes its call; If in thy tranquil mind the struggles of doubt still are silent,   If they will surely remain silent forever as now; If by the conflict of feelings a judge will ne'er be required;   If in its malice thy heart dims not the reason so clear, Oh, then, go thy way in all thy innocence precious!   Knowledge can teach thee in naught; thou canst instruct her in much! Yonder law, that with brazen staff is directing the struggling,   Naught is to thee. What thou dost, what thou mayest will is thy law, And to every race a godlike authority issues.   What thou with holy hand formest, what thou with holy mouth speakest, Will with omnipotent power impel the wondering senses;   Thou but observest not the god ruling within thine own breast, Not the might of the signet that bows all spirits before thee;   Simple and silent thou goest through the wide world thou hast won.

HONORS

   [Dignities would be the better title, if the word were not so    essentially unpoetical.]    When the column of light on the waters is glassed,     As blent in one glow seem the shine and the stream;    But wave after wave through the glory has passed,     Just catches, and flies as it catches, the beam    So honors but mirror on mortals their light;    Not the man but the place that he passes is bright.

THE PHILOSOPHICAL EGOTIST

   Hast thou the infant seen that yet, unknowing of the love    Which warms and cradles, calmly sleeps the mother's heart above —    Wandering from arm to arm, until the call of passion wakes,    And glimmering on the conscious eye — the world in glory breaks?    And hast thou seen the mother there her anxious vigil keep?    Buying with love that never sleeps the darling's happy sleep?    With her own life she fans and feeds that weak life's trembling rays,    And with the sweetness of the care, the care itself repays.    And dost thou Nature then blaspheme — that both the child and mother    Each unto each unites, the while the one doth need the other? —    All self-sufficing wilt thou from that lovely circle stand —    That creature still to creature links in faith's familiar band?    Ah! dar'st thou, poor one, from the rest thy lonely self estrange?    Eternal power itself is but all powers in interchange!

THE BEST STATE CONSTITUTION

I can recognize only as such, the one that enables Each to think what is right, — but that he thinks so, cares not.

THE WORDS OF BELIEF

   Three words will I name thee — around and about,     From the lip to the lip, full of meaning, they flee;    But they had not their birth in the being without,     And the heart, not the lip, must their oracle be!    And all worth in the man shall forever be o'er    When in those three words he believes no more.    Man is made free! — Man by birthright is free,     Though the tyrant may deem him but born for his tool.    Whatever the shout of the rabble may be —     Whatever the ranting misuse of the fool —    Still fear not the slave, when he breaks from his chain,    For the man made a freeman grows safe in his gain.    And virtue is more than a shade or a sound,     And man may her voice, in this being, obey;    And though ever he slip on the stony ground,     Yet ever again to the godlike way,    To the science of good though the wise may be blind,    Yet the practice is plain to the childlike mind.    And a God there is! — over space, over time,     While the human will rocks, like a reed, to and fro,    Lives the will of the holy — a purpose sublime,     A thought woven over creation below;    Changing and shifting the all we inherit,    But changeless through all one immutable spirit    Hold fast the three words of belief — though about     From the lip to the lip, full of meaning, they flee;    Yet they take not their birth from the being without —     But a voice from within must their oracle be;    And never all worth in the man can be o'er,    Till in those three words he believes no more.

THE WORDS OF ERROR

   Three errors there are, that forever are found     On the lips of the good, on the lips of the best;    But empty their meaning and hollow their sound —     And slight is the comfort they bring to the breast.    The fruits of existence escape from the clasp    Of the seeker who strives but those shadows to grasp —    So long as man dreams of some age in this life     When the right and the good will all evil subdue;    For the right and the good lead us ever to strife,     And wherever they lead us the fiend will pursue.    And (till from the earth borne, and stifled at length)    The earth that he touches still gifts him with strength! 41    So long as man fancies that fortune will live,     Like a bride with her lover, united with worth;    For her favors, alas! to the mean she will give —     And virtue possesses no title to earth!    That foreigner wanders to regions afar,    Where the lands of her birthright immortally are!    So long as man dreams that, to mortals a gift,     The truth in her fulness of splendor will shine;    The veil of the goddess no earth-born may lift,     And all we can learn is — to guess and divine!    Dost thou seek, in a dogma, to prison her form?    The spirit flies forth on the wings of the storm!    O, noble soul! fly from delusions like these,     More heavenly belief be it thine to adore;    Where the ear never hearkens, the eye never sees,     Meet the rivers of beauty and truth evermore!    Not without thee the streams — there the dull seek them; — No!    Look within thee — behold both the fount and the flow!

THE POWER OF WOMAN

   Mighty art thou, because of the peaceful charms of thy presence;     That which the silent does not, never the boastful can do.    Vigor in man I expect, the law in its honors maintaining,     But, through the graces alone, woman e'er rules or should rule.    Many, indeed, have ruled through the might of the spirit and action,     But then thou noblest of crowns, they were deficient in thee.    No real queen exists but the womanly beauty of woman;     Where it appears, it must rule; ruling because it appears!

THE TWO PATHS OF VIRTUE

   Two are the pathways by which mankind can to virtue mount upward;     If thou should find the one barred, open the other will lie.    'Tis by exertion the happy obtain her, the suffering by patience.     Blest is the man whose kind fate guides him along upon both!

THE PROVERBS OF CONFUCIUS

I

   Threefold is the march of time     While the future slow advances,     Like a dart the present glances,    Silent stands the past sublime.    No impatience e'er can speed him     On his course if he delay;    No alarm, no doubts impede him     If he keep his onward way;    No regrets, no magic numbers    Wake the tranced one from his slumbers.    Wouldst thou wisely and with pleasure,    Pass the days of life's short measure,    From the slow one counsel take,    But a tool of him ne'er make;    Ne'er as friend the swift one know,    Nor the constant one as foe!

II

   Threefold is the form of space:    Length, with ever restless motion,    Seeks eternity's wide ocean;    Breadth with boundless sway extends;    Depth to unknown realms descends.    All as types to thee are given;    Thou must onward strive for heaven,    Never still or weary be    Would'st thou perfect glory see;    Far must thy researches go.    Wouldst thou learn the world to know;    Thou must tempt the dark abyss    Wouldst thou prove what Being is.    Naught but firmness gains the prize, —    Naught but fulness makes us wise, —    Buried deep, truth ever lies!