ELYSIUM
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Past the despairing wail— And the bright banquets of the Elysian Vale Melt every care away! Delight, that breathes and moves forever, Glides through sweet fields like some sweet river! Elysian life survey! There, fresh with youth, o'er jocund meads, His merry west-winds blithely leads The ever-blooming May! Through gold-woven dreams goes the dance of the Hours, In space without bounds swell the soul and its powers, And Truth, with no veil, gives her face to the day. And joy today and joy tomorrow But wafts the airy soul aloft; The very name is lost to Sorrow, And Pain is Rapture tuned more exquisitely soft. Here the Pilgrim reposes the world-weary limb, And forgets in the shadow, cool-breathing and dim, The load he shall bear never more; Here the mower, his sickle at rest, by the streams Lull'd with harp strings, reviews, in the calm of his dreams The fields, when the harvest is o'er. Here, He, whose ears drank in the battle roar, Whose banners streamed upon the startled wind A thunder-storm,—before whose thunder tread The mountains trembled,—in soft sleep reclined, By the sweet brook that o'er its pebbly bed In silver plays, and murmurs to the shore, Hears the stern clangour of wild spears no more. —Schiller |