The Poems of Schiller — Suppressed poems

All hell is mine, I'm Pluto hight!
Make haste to bring your wares to light!"

The doctor, with a knowing look,
The swarthy king surveyed;
He neither felt his pulse, nor took
The usual steps, — (see Galen's book), —
No difference 'twould have made
As piercing as electric fire
He eyed him to his heart's desire.

"Monarch! I'll tell thee in a trice
The thing that's needed here;
Though desperate may seem the advice —
The case itself is very nice —
And children dragons fear.
Devil must devil eat! — no more! —
Either a wife, — or hellebore!

"Whether she scold, or sportive play,
('Tween these, no medium's known),
She'll drive the incubus away
That has assailed thee many a day
Upon thine iron throne.
She'll make the nimble spirits fleet
Up towards the head, down towards the feet."

Long may the doctor honored be
Who let this saying fall!
He ought to have his effigy
By Phidias sculptured, so that he
May be discerned by all;
A monument forever thriving,
Boerhaave, Hippocrates, surviving!

REPROACH — TO LAURA

Maiden, stay! — oh, whither wouldst thou go?
Do I still or pride or grandeur show?
Maiden, was it right?
Thou the giant mad'st a dwarf once more,
Scattered'st far the mountains that of yore
Climbed to glory's sunny height.

Thou hast doomed my flowerets to decay,
All the phantoms bright hast blown away,
Whose sweet follies formed the hero's trust;
All my plans that proudly raised their head
Thou dost, with gentle zephyr-tread,
Prostrate, laughing, in the dust.

To the godhead, eagle-like, I flew, —
Smiling, fortune's juggling wheel to view,
Careless wheresoe'er her ball might fly;
Hovering far beyond Cocytus' wave,
Death and life receiving like a slave —
Life and death from out one beaming eye!

Like the victors, who, with thunder-lance,
On the iron plain of glory dance,
Starting from their mistress' breast, —
From Aurora's rosy bed upsprings
God's bright sun, to roam o'er towns of kings,
And to make the young world blest!

Toward the hero doth this heart still strain?
Drink I, eagle, still the fiery rain
Of thine eye, that burneth to destroy?
In the glances that destructive gleam,
Laura's love I see with sweetness beam, —
Weep to see it — like a boy!

My repose, like yonder image bright,
Dancing in the waters — cloudless, light,
Maiden, hath been slain by thee!
On the dizzy height now totter I —
Laura — if from me — my Laura fly!
Oh, the thought to madness hurries me!

Gladly shout the revellers as they quaff,
Raptures in the leaf-crowned goblet laugh,
Jests within the golden wine have birth,
Since the maiden hath enslaved my mind,
I have left each youthful sport behind,
Friendless roam I o'er the earth.

Hear I still bright glory's thunder-tone?
Doth the laurel still allure me on?
Doth thy lyre, Apollo Cynthius?
In my breast no echoes now arise,
Every shamefaced muse in sorrow flies, —
And thou, too, Apollo Cynthius?

Shall I still be, as a woman, tame?
Do my pulses, at my country's name,
Proudly burst their prison-thralls?
Would I boast the eagle's soaring wing?
Do I long with Roman blood to spring,
When my Hermann calls?