POEMS
[All poems in this section are translations by Edward, Lord Lytton, and appear by permission of George Routledge & Sons, Ltd., London.]
* * * * *
TO THE IDEAL (1795)
Then wilt thou, with thy fancies holy—
Wilt thou, faithless, fly from me?
With thy joy, thy melancholy,
Wilt thou thus relentless flee?
O Golden Time, O Human May,
Can nothing, Fleet One, thee restraint?
Must thy sweet river glide away
Into the eternal Ocean Main?
The suns serene are lost and vanish'd
That wont the path of youth to gild,
And all the fair Ideals banish'd
From that wild heart they whilome fill'd.
Gone the divine and sweet believing
In dreams which Heaven itself unfurl'd!
What godlike shapes have years bereaving
Swept from this real work-day world!
As once, with tearful passion fired,
The Cyprian Sculptor clasp'd the stone,
Till the cold cheeks, delight-inspired,
Blush'd—to sweet life the marble grown:
So youth's desire for Nature!—round
The Statue so my arms I wreathed,
Till warmth and life in mine it found,
And breath that poets breathe—it breathed;
With my own burning thoughts it burn'd;—
Its silence stirr'd to speech divine;—
Its lips my glowing kiss return'd—
Its heart in beating answer'd mine!
How fair was then the flower—the tree!—
How silver-sweet the fountain's fall!
The soulless had a soul to me!
My life its own life lent to all!
The Universe of things seem'd swelling
The panting heart to burst its bound,
And wandering Fancy found a dwelling
In every shape, thought, deed, and sound.
Germ'd in the mystic buds, reposing,
A whole creation slumbered mute,
Alas, when from the buds unclosing,
How scant and blighted sprung the fruit!
How happy in his dreaming error,
His own gay valor for his wing,
Of not one care as yet in terror
Did Youth upon his journey spring;
Till floods of balm, through air's dominion,
Bore upward to the faintest star—
For never aught to that bright pinion
Could dwell too high, or spread too far.
Though laden with delight, how lightly
The wanderer heavenward still could soar,
And aye the ways of life how brightly
The airy Pageant danced before!
Love, showering gifts (life's sweetest) down,
Fortune, with golden garlands gay,
And Fame, with starbeams for a crown,
And Truth, whose dwelling is the Day.
Ah! midway soon lost evermore,
Afar the blithe companions stray;
In vain their faithless steps explore,
As one by one, they glide away.
Fleet Fortune was the first escaper—
The thirst for wisdom linger'd yet;
But doubts with many a gloomy vapor
The sun-shape of the Truth beset!
The holy crown which Fame was wreathing,
Behold! the mean man's temples wore,
And, but for one short spring-day breathing,
Bloom'd Love—the Beautiful—no more!
And ever stiller yet, and ever
The barren path more lonely lay,
Till scarce from waning Hope could quiver
A glance along the gloomy way.
Who, loving, lingered yet to guide me,
When all her boon companions fled,
Who stands consoling yet beside me,
And follows to the House of Dread?
Thine FRIENDSHIP—thine the hand so tender,
Thine the balm dropping on the wound,
Thy task the load more lightly to render—
O! earliest sought and soonest found!
And Thou, so pleased, with her uniting,
To charm the soul-storm into peace,
Sweet TOIL, in toil itself delighting,
That more it labored, less could cease;
Tho' but by grains thou aid'st the pile
The vast Eternity uprears,
At least thou strik'st from Time the while
Life's debt—the minutes, days and years.[3]
* * * * *
THE VEILED IMAGE AT SAÏS (1795)
A youth, whom wisdom's warm desire had lured
To learn the secret lore of Egypt's priests,
To Saïs came. And soon, from step to step
Of upward mystery, swept his rapid soul!
Still ever sped the glorious Hope along,
Nor could the parch'd Impatience halt, appeased
By the calm answer of the Hierophant—
"What have I, if I have not all," he sigh'd;
"And giv'st thou but the little and the more?
Does thy truth dwindle to the gauge of gold,
A sum that man may smaller or less small
Possess and count—subtract or add to—still?
Is not TRUTH one and indivisible?
Take from the Harmony a single tone
A single tint take from the Iris bow—
And lo! what once was all, is nothing—while
Fails to the lovely whole one tint or tone!"
They stood within the temple's silent dome,
And, as the young man paused abrupt, his gaze
Upon a veil'd and giant IMAGE fell:
Amazed he turn'd unto his guide—"And what
Towers, yonder, vast beneath the veil?"
"THE TRUTH,"
Answered the Priest.
"And have I for the truth
Panted and struggled with a lonely soul,
And yon the thin and ceremonial robe
That wraps her from mine eyes?"
Replied the Priest,
"There shrouds herself the still Divinity.
Hear, and revere her best: 'Till I this veil
Lift—may no mortal-born presume to raise;
And who with guilty and unhallow'd hand
Too soon profanes the Holy and Forbidden—
He,' says the goddess."—
"Well?"
"'SHALL SEE THE TRUTH!'"
"And wond'rous oracle; and hast thou never
Lifted the veil?"
"No! nor desired to raise!"
"What! nor desired? O strange, incurious heart,
Here the thin barrier—there reveal'd the truth!"
Mildly return'd the priestly master: "Son,
More mighty than thou dream'st of, Holy Law
Spreads interwoven in yon slender web,
Air-light to touch—lead-heavy to the soul!"
The young man, thoughtful, turn'd him to his home,
And the sharp fever of the Wish to Know
Robb'd night of sleep. Around his couch he roll'd,
Till midnight hatch'd resolve—
"Unto the shrine!"
Stealthily on, the involuntary tread
Bears him—he gains the boundary, scales the wall,
And midway in the inmost, holiest dome,
Strides with adventurous step the daring man.
Now halts he where the lifeless Silence sleeps
In the embrace of mournful Solitude;—
Silence unstirr'd—save where the guilty tread
Call'd the dull echo from mysterious vaults!
High from the opening of the dome above,
Came with wan smile the silver-shining moon.
And, awful as some pale presiding god,
Dim-gleaming through the hush of that large gloom,
In its wan veil the Giant Image stood.
With an unsteady step he onward past,
Already touch'd the violating hand
The Holy—and recoil'd! a shudder thrill'd
His limbs, fire-hot and icy-cold in turns,
As if invisible arms would pluck the soul
Back from the deed.
"O miserable man!
What would'st thou?" (Thus within the inmost heart
Murmur'd the warning whisper.) "Wilt thou dare
The All-hallow'd to profane? 'No mortal-born'
(So spake the oracular word)—'may lift the veil
Till I myself shall raise!' Yet said it not—
The same oracular word—'who lifts the veil
Shall see the truth?' Behind, be what there may,
I dare the hazard—I will lift the veil—"
Loud rang his shouting voice—"and I will see!"
"SEE!"
A lengthen'd echo, mocking, shrill'd again!
He spoke and rais'd the veil! And ask'st thou what
Unto the sacrilegious gaze lay bare?
I know not—pale and senseless, stretch'd before
The statue of the great Egyptian queen,
The priests beheld him at the dawn of day;
But what he saw, or what did there befall,
His lips reveal'd not. Ever from his heart
Was fled the sweet serenity of life,
And the deep anguish dug the early grave
"Woe—woe to him"—such were his warning words,
Answering some curious and impetuous brain,
"Woe—for her face shall charm him never more!
Woe—woe to him who treads through Guilt to TRUTH!"
* * * * *
THE IDEAL AND THE ACTUAL LIFE (1795)
I
Forever fair, forever calm and bright,
Life flies on plumage, zephyr-light,
For those who on the Olympian hill rejoice—
Moons wane, and races wither to the tomb,
And 'mid the universal ruin, bloom
The rosy days of Gods—
With Man, the choice,
Timid and anxious, hesitates between
The sense's pleasure and the soul's content;
While on celestial brows, aloft and sheen,
The beams of both are blent.
II
Seek'st thou on earth the life of Gods to share,
Safe in the Realm of Death?—beware
To pluck the fruits that glitter to thine eye;
Content thyself with gazing on their glow—
Short are the joys Possession can bestow,
And in Possession sweet Desire will die.
'Twas not the ninefold chain of waves that bound
Thy daughter, Ceres, to the Stygian river—
She pluck'd the fruit of the unholy ground,
And so—was Hell's forever!
III
The Weavers of the Web—the Fates—but sway
The matter and the things of clay;
Safe from each change that Time to Matter gives,
Nature's blest playmate, free at will to stray
With Gods a god, amidst the fields of Day,
The FORM, the ARCHETYPE,[4] serenely lives.
Would'st thou soar heavenward on its joyous wing?
Cast from thee, Earth, the bitter and the real,
High from this cramp'd and dungeon being, spring
Into the Realm of the Ideal!
IV
Here, bathed, Perfection, in thy purest ray,
Free from the clogs and taints of clay,
Hovers divine the Archetypal Man!
Dim as those phantom ghosts of life that gleam
And wander voiceless by the Stygian stream,—
Fair as it stands in fields Elysian,
Ere down to Flesh the Immortal doth descend:—
If doubtful ever in the Actual life
Each contest—here a victory crowns the end
Of every nobler strife.
V
Not from the strife itself to set thee free,
But more to nerve—doth Victory
Wave her rich garland from the Ideal clime.
Whate'er thy wish, the Earth has no repose—
Life still must drag thee onward as it flows,
Whirling thee down the dancing surge of Time.
But when the courage sinks beneath the dull
Sense of its narrow limits—on the soul,
Bright from the hill-tops of the Beautiful,
Bursts the attainèd goal!
VI
If worth thy while the glory and the strife
Which fire the lists of Actual Life—
The ardent rush to fortune or to fame,
In the hot field where Strength and Valor are,
And rolls the whirling thunder of the car,
And the world, breathless, eyes the glorious game—
Then dare and strive—the prize can but belong
To him whose valor o'er his tribe prevails;
In life the victory only crowns the strong—
He who is feeble fails.
VII
But Life, whose source, by crags around it pil'd,
Chafed while confin'd, foams fierce and wild,
Glides soft and smooth when once its streams expand,
When its waves, glassing in their silver play,
Aurora blent with Hesper's milder ray,
Gain the Still BEAUTIFUL—that Shadow-Land!
Here, contest grows but interchange of Love;
All curb is but the bondage of the Grace;
Gone is each foe,—Peace folds her wings above
Her native dwelling-place.
VIII
When, through dead stone to breathe a soul of light,
With the dull matter to unite
The kindling genius, some great sculptor glows;
Behold him straining every nerve intent—
Behold how, o'er the subject element,
The stately THOUGHT its march laborious goes!
For never, save to Toil untiring, spoke
The unwilling Truth from her mysterious well—
The statue only to the chisel's stroke
Wakes from its marble cell.
IX
But onward to the Sphere of Beauty—go
Onward, O Child of Art! and, lo,
Out of the matter which thy pains control
The Statue springs!—not as with labor wrung
From the hard block, but as from Nothing sprung—
Airy and light—the offspring of the soul!
The pangs, the cares, the weary toils it cost
Leave not a trace when once the work is done—
The Artist's human frailty merged and lost
In Art's great victory won!
X
If human Sin confronts the rigid law
Of perfect Truth and Virtue, awe
Seizes and saddens thee to see how far
Beyond thy reach, Perfection;—if we test
By the Ideal of the Good, the best,
How mean our efforts and our actions are!
This space between the Ideal of man's soul
And man's achievement, who hath ever past?
An ocean spreads between us and that goal
Where anchor ne'er was cast!
XI
But fly the boundary of the Senses—live
The Ideal life free Thought can give;
And, lo, the gulf shall vanish, and the chill
Of the soul's impotent despair be gone!
And with divinity thou sharest the throne,
Let but divinity become thy will!
Scorn not the Law—permit its iron band
The sense (it cannot chain the soul) to thrall.
Let man no more the will of Jove withstand,
And Jove the bolt lets fall!
XII
If, in the woes of Actual Human Life—
If thou could'st see the serpent strife
Which the Greek Art has made divine in stone—
Could'st see the writhing limbs, the livid cheek,
Note every pang, and hearken every shriek
Of some despairing lost Laocoon,
The human nature would thyself subdue
To share the human woe before thine eye—
Thy cheek would pale, and all thy soul be true
To Man's great Sympathy.
XIII
But in the Ideal Realm, aloof and far,
Where the calm Art's pure dwellers are,
Lo, the Laocoon writhes, but does not groan.
Here, no sharp grief the high emotion knows—
Here, suffering's self is made divine, and shows
The brave resolve of the firm soul alone:
Here, lovely as the rainbow on the dew
Of the spent thunder-cloud, to Art is given,
Gleaming through Grief's dark veil, the peaceful blue
Of the sweet Moral Heaven.
XIV
So, in the glorious parable, behold
How, bow'd to mortal bonds, of old
Life's dreary path divine Alcides trod:
The hydra and the lion were his prey,
And to restore the friend he loved today,
He went undaunted to the black-brow'd God;
And all the torments and the labors sore
Wroth Juno sent—the meek majestic One,
With patient spirit and unquailing, bore,
Until the course was run—
XV
Until the God cast down his garb of clay,
And rent in hallowing flame away
The mortal part from the divine—to soar
To the empyreal air! Behold him spring
Blithe in the pride of the unwonted wing,
And the dull matter that confined before
Sinks downward, downward, downward as a dream!
Olympian hymns receive the escaping soul,
And smiling Hebe, from the ambrosial stream,
Fills for a God the bowl!
* * * * *
GENIUS (1795)
Do I believe, thou ask'st, the Master's word,
The Schoolman's shibboleth that binds the herd?
To the soul's haven is there but one chart?
Its peace a problem to be learned by art?
On system rest the happy and the good?
To base the temple must the props be wood?
Must I distrust the gentle law, imprest,
To guide and warn, by Nature on the breast,
Till, squared to rule the instinct of the soul,—
Till the School's signet stamp the eternal scroll,
Till in one mold some dogma hath confined
The ebb and flow—the light waves—of the mind?
Say thou, familiar to these depths of gloom,
Thou, safe ascended from the dusty tomb,
Thou, who hast trod these weird Egyptian cells—
Say—if Life's comfort with yon mummies dwells!—
Say—and I grope—with saddened steps indeed—
But on, thro' darkness, if to Truth it lead!
Nay, Friend, thou know'st the golden time—the age
Whose legends live in many a poet's page?
When heavenlier shapes with Man walked side by side,
And the chaste Feeling was itself a guide;
Then the great law, alike divine amid
Suns bright in Heaven, or germs in darkness hid—
That silent law—(call'd whether by the name
Of Nature or Necessity, the same),
To that deep sea, the heart, its movement gave—
Sway'd the full tide, and freshened the free wave.
Then sense unerring—because unreproved—
True as the finger on the dial moved,
Half-guide, half-playmate, of Earth's age of youth,
The sportive instinct of Eternal Truth.
Then, nor Initiate nor Profane were known;
Where the Heart felt—there Reason found a throne:
Not from the dust below, but life around
Warm Genius shaped what quick Emotion found.
One rule, like light, for every bosom glowed,
Yet hid from all the fountain whence it flowed.
But, gone that blessed Age!—our wilful pride
Has lost, with Nature, the old peaceful Guide.
Feeling, no more to raise us and rejoice,
Is heard and honored as a Godhead's voice;
And, disenhallowed in its eldest cell
The Human Heart—lies mute the Oracle,
Save where the low and mystic whispers thrill
Some listening spirit more divinely still.
There, in the chambers of the inmost heart,
There, must the Sage explore the Magian's art;
There, seek the long-lost Nature's steps to track,
Till, found once more, she gives him Wisdom back!
Hast thou—(O Blest, if so, whate'er betide!)—
Still kept the Guardian Angel by thy side?
Can thy Heart's guileless childhood yet rejoice
In the sweet instinct with its warning voice?
Does Truth yet limn upon untroubled eyes,
Pure and serene, her world of Iris-dies?
Rings clear the echo which her accent calls
Back from the breast, on which the music falls?
In the calm mind is doubt yet hush'd—and will
That doubt tomorrow, as today, be still?
Will all these fine sensations in their play,
No censor need to regulate and sway?
Fear'st thou not in the insidious Heart to find
The source of Trouble to the limpid mind?
No!—then thine Innocence thy Mentor be!
Science can teach thee naught—she learns from thee!
Each law that lends lame succor to the Weak—
The cripple's crutch—the vigorous need not seek!
From thine own self thy rule of action draw;
That which thou dost—what charms thee—is thy Law,
And founds to every race a code sublime—
What pleases Genius gives a Law to Time!
The Word—the Deed—all Ages shall command,
Pure if thy lip and holy if thy hand!
Thou, thou alone mark'st not within thy heart
The inspiring God whose Minister thou art,
Know'st not the magic of the mighty ring
Which bows the realm of Spirits to their King:
But meek, nor conscious of diviner birth,
Glide thy still footsteps thro' the conquered Earth!
* * * * *
VOTIVE TABLETS
[Under this title Schiller arranged that more dignified and philosophical portion of the small Poems published as Epigrams in the Musen Almanach; which rather sought to point a general thought, than a personal satire.—Many of these, however, are either wholly without interest for the English reader, or express in almost untranslatable laconism what, in far more poetical shapes, Schiller has elsewhere repeated and developed. We, therefore, content ourselves with such a selection as appears to us best suited to convey a fair notion of the object and spirit of the class.—Translator]
* * * * *
MOTTO TO THE VOTIVE TABLETS.
What the God taught—what has befriended all
Life's ways, I place upon the Votive Wall.
* * * * *
THE GOOD AND THE BEAUTIFUL
(ZWEIERLEI WIRKUNGSARTEN)
The Good's the Flower to Earth already given—
The Beautiful, on Earth sows flowers from Heaven!
* * * * *
VALUE AND WORTH
If thou hast something, bring thy goods—a fair return be thine;
If thou art something, bring thy soul and interchange with mine.
* * * * *
THE KEY
To know thyself—in others self discern;
Wouldst thou know others? Read thyself—and learn!
* * * * *
THE DIVISION OF RANKS
Yes, in the moral world, as ours, we see
Divided grades—a Soul's Nobility;
By deeds their titles Commoners create—
The loftier order are by birthright great.[5]
* * * * *
TO THE MYSTIC
Spreads Life's true mystery round us evermore,
Seen by no eye, it lies all eyes before.
* * * * *
WISDOM AND PRUDENCE
Wouldst thou the loftiest height of Wisdom gain?
On to the rashness, Prudence would disdain;
The purblind see but the receding shore,
Not that to which the bold wave wafts thee o'er!
* * * * *
THE UNANIMITY
Truth seek we both—Thou, in the life without thee and around;
I in the Heart within—by both can Truth alike be found;
The healthy eye can through the world the great Creator track—
The healthy heart is but the glass which gives creation back.
* * * * *
THE SCIENCE OF POLITICS
All that thou dost be right—to that alone confine thy view,
And halt within the certain rule—the All that's right to do!
True zeal the what already is would sound and perfect see;
False zeal would sound and perfect make the something that's to be!
* * * * *
TO ASTRONOMERS
Of the Nebulæ and planets do not babble so to me;
What! is Nature only mighty inasmuch as you can see?
Inasmuch as you can measure her immeasurable ways,
As she renders world on world, sun and system to your gaze?
Though through space your object be the Sublimest to embrace,
Never the Sublime abideth—where you vainly search—in space!
* * * * *
THE BEST GOVERNED STATE
How the best state to know?—It is found out,
Like the best women—that least talked about.
* * * * *
MY BELIEF
What thy religion? Those thou namest—none!
None! Why?—Because I have religion!
* * * * *
FRIEND AND FOE
Dear is my friend—yet from my foe, as from my friend, comes good;
My friend shows what I can do, and my foe shows what I should.
* * * * *
LIGHT AND COLOR
Dwell, Light, beside the changeless God—God spoke and Light began;
Come, thou, the ever-changing one—come, Color, down to Man!
* * * * *
FORUM OF WOMEN
Woman—to judge man rightly—do not scan
Each separate act;—pass judgment on the Man!
* * * * *
GENIUS
Intellect can repeat what's been fulfill'd,
And, aping Nature, as she buildeth—build;
O'er Nature's base can haughty Reason dare
To pile its lofty castle—in the air.
But only thine, O Genius, is the charge,
In Nature's kingdom Nature to enlarge!
* * * * *
THE IMITATOR
Good out of good—that art is known to all—
But Genius from the bad the good can call;
Then, Mimic, not from leading-strings escaped,
Work'st but the matter that's already shaped
The already-shaped a nobler hand awaits—
All matter asks a Spirit that creates!
* * * * *
CORRECTNESS
(FREE TRANSLATION)
The calm correctness, where no fault we see,
Attests Art's loftiest or its least degree;
Alike the smoothness of the surface shows
The Pool's dull stagner—the great Sea's repose.
* * * * *
THE MASTER
The herd of scribes, by what they tell us,
Show all in which their wits excel us;
But the True Master we behold,
In what his art leaves—just untold.
* * * * *
EXPECTATION AND FULFILLMENT
O'er Ocean, with a thousand masts, sails forth the stripling bold—
One boat, hard rescued from the deep, draws into port the old!
* * * * *
THE PROSELYTE MAKER
"A little earth from out the Earth-and I
The Earth will move:" so spake the Sage divine.
Out of myself one little moment—try
Myself to take:—succeed, and I am thine!
* * * * *
THE CONNECTING MEDIUM
What to cement the lofty and the mean
Does Nature?—What?—Place vanity between?
* * * * *
THE MORAL POET
[This is an Epigram on Lavater's work, called "Pontius Pilatus, oder der
Mensch in Allen Gestalten," etc.—TRANSLATOR.]
"How poor a thing is man!" Alas, 'tis true
I'd half forgot it—when I chanced on you!
* * * * *
THE SUBLIME THEME
[Also on Lavater, and alluding to the "Jesus Messias, oder die Evangelien und Apostelgeschichte in Gesängen."—TRANSLATOR.]
How God compassionates Mankind, thy muse, my friend, rehearses—
Compassion for the sins of Man!—What comfort for thy verses!
* * * * *
SCIENCE
To some she is the Goddess great, to some the milch-cow of the field;
Their care is but to calculate—what butter she will yield.
* * * * *
KANT AND HIS COMMENTATORS
How many starvelings one rich man can nourish!
When monarchs build, the rubbish-carriers flourish.
* * * * *
THE MAIDEN FROM AFAR (1796)
Within a vale, each infant year,
When earliest larks first carol free,
To humble shepherds doth appear
A wondrous maiden, fair to see.
Not born within that lowly place—
From whence she wander'd, none could tell;
Her parting footsteps left no trace,
When once the maiden bade farewell.
And blessèd was her presence there—
Each heart, expanding, grew more gay;
Yet something loftier still than fair
Kept man's familiar looks away.
From fairy gardens, known to none,
She brought mysterious fruits and flowers—
The things of some serener sun—
Some Nature more benign than ours.
With each, her gifts the maiden shared—
To some the fruits, the flowers to some;
Alike the young, the aged fared;
Each bore a blessing back to home.
Though every guest was welcome there,
Yet some the maiden held more dear,
And cull'd her rarest sweets whene'er
She saw two hearts that loved draw near.
* * * * *
THE GLOVE (1797)
A TALE
Before his lion-court,
To see the gruesome sport,
Sate the king;
Beside him group'd his princely peers;
And dames aloft, in circling tiers,
Wreath'd round their blooming ring.
King Francis, where he sate,
Raised a finger—yawn'd the gate,
And, slow from his repose,
A LION goes!
Dumbly he gazed around
The foe-encircled ground;
And, with a lazy gape,
He stretch'd his lordly shape,
And shook his careless mane,
And—laid him down again!
[Illustration: THE KNIGHT SCORNS CUNIGONDE Eugen Klimsch]
A finger raised the king—
And nimbly have the guard
A second gate unbarr'd;
Forth, with a rushing spring,
A TIGER sprung!
Wildly the wild one yell'd
When the lion he beheld;
And, bristling at the look,
With his tail his sides he strook,
And roll'd his rabid tongue;
In many a wary ring
He swept round the forest king,
With a fell and rattling sound;—
And laid him on the ground,
Grommelling!
The king raised his finger; then
Leap'd two LEOPARDS from the den
With a bound;
And boldly bounded they
Where the crouching tiger lay
Terrible!
And he gripped the beasts in his deadly hold;
In the grim embrace they grappled and roll'd;
Rose the lion with a roar!
And stood the strife before;
And the wild-cats on the spot,
From the blood-thirst, wroth and hot,
Halted still!
Now from the balcony above,
A snowy hand let fall a glove:—
Midway between the beasts of prey,
Lion and tiger; there it lay,
The winsome lady's glove!
Fair Cunigonde said, with a lip of scorn,
To the knight DELORGES—"If the love you have sworn
Were as gallant and leal as you boast it to be,
I might ask you to bring back that glove to me!"
The knight left the place where the lady sate;
The knight he has pass'd thro' the fearful gate;
The lion and tiger he stoop'd above,
And his fingers have closed on the lady's glove!
All shuddering and stunn'd, they beheld him there—
The noble knights and the ladies fair;
But loud was the joy and the praise, the while
He bore back the glove with his tranquil smile!
With a tender look in her softening eyes,
That promised reward to his warmest sighs,
Fair Cunigonde rose her knight to grace;
He toss'd the glove in the lady's face!
"Nay, spare me the guerdon, at least," quoth he;
And he left forever that fair ladye!
* * * * *
[Illustration: THE DIVER CARL GEHRTS]
THE DIVER (1797)
A BALLAD
[The original of the story on which Schiller has founded this ballad, matchless perhaps for the power and grandeur of its descriptions, is to be found in Kircher. According to the true principles of imitative art, Schiller has preserved all that is striking in the legend, and ennobled all that is common-place. The name of the Diver was Nicholas, surnamed the Fish. The King appears, according to Hoffmeister's probable conjectures, to have been either Frederic I. or Frederic II., of Sicily. Date from 1295 to 1377.]
"Oh, where is the knight or the squire so bold,
As to dive to the howling charybdis below?—
I cast in the whirlpool a goblet of gold,
And o'er it already the dark waters flow;
Whoever to me may the goblet bring,
Shall have for his guerdon that gift of his king."
He spoke, and the cup from the terrible steep,
That, rugged and hoary, hung over the verge
Of the endless and measureless world of the deep,
Swirl'd into the maëlstrom that madden'd the surge.
"And where is the diver so stout to go—
I ask ye again—to the deep below?"
And the knights and the squires that gather'd around,
Stood silent—and fix'd on the ocean their eyes;
They look'd on the dismal and savage Profound,
And the peril chill'd back every thought of the prize.
And thrice spoke the monarch—"The cup to win,
Is there never a wight who will venture in?"
And all as before heard in silence the king—
Till a youth with an aspect unfearing but gentle,
'Mid the tremulous squires—stept out from the ring,
Unbuckling his girdle, and doffing his mantle;
And the murmuring crowd as they parted asunder,
On the stately boy cast their looks of wonder.
As he strode to the marge of the summit, and gave
One glance on the gulf of that merciless main;
Lo! the wave that forever devours the wave
Casts roaringly up the charybdis again;
And, as with the swell of the far thunder-boom,
Rushes foamingly forth from the heart of the gloom.
And it bubbles and seethes, and it hisses and roars,[6]
As when fire is with water commix'd and contending,
And the spray of its wrath to the welkin up-soars,
And flood upon flood hurries on, never-ending.
And it never will rest, nor from travail be free,
Like a sea that is laboring the birth of a sea.
Yet, at length, comes a lull O'er the mighty commotion,
As the whirlpool sucks into black smoothness the swell
Of the white-foaming breakers—and cleaves thro' the ocean
A path that seems winding in darkness to hell.
Round and round whirl'd the waves-deeper and deeper
still driven,
Like a gorge thro' the mountainous main thunder-riven!
The youth gave his trust to his Maker! Before
That path through the riven abyss closed again—
Hark! a shriek from the crowd rang aloft from the shore,
And, behold! he is whirl'd in the grasp of the main!
And o'er him the breakers mysteriously roll'd,
And the giant-mouth closed on the swimmer so bold.
O'er the surface grim silence lay dark; but the crowd
Heard the wail from the deep murmur hollow and fell;
They hearken and shudder, lamenting aloud—
"Gallant youth-noble heart-fare-thee-well, fare-thee-well!"
More hollow and more wails the deep on the ear—
More dread and more dread grows suspense in its fear.
If thou should'st in those waters thy diadem fling,
And cry, "Who may find it shall win it and wear;"
God wot, though the prize were the crown of a king—
A crown at such hazard were valued too dear.
For never shall lips of the living reveal
What the deeps that howl yonder in terror conceal.
Oh, many a bark, to that breast grappled fast,
Has gone down to the fearful and fathomless grave;
Again, crash'd together the keel and the mast,
To be seen, toss'd aloft in the glee of the wave.
Like the growth of a storm, ever louder and clearer,
Grows the roar of the gulf rising nearer and nearer.
And it bubbles and seethes, and it hisses and roars,
As when fire is with water commix'd and contending;
And the spray of its wrath to the welkin up-soars,
And flood upon flood hurries on, never ending;
And as with the swell of the far thunder-boom
Rushes roaringly forth from the heart of the gloom.
And, lo! from the heart of that far-floating gloom,[7]
What gleams on the darkness so swanlike and white?
Lo! an arm and a neck, glancing up from the tomb!—
They battle—the Man's with the Element's might.
It is he—it is he! In his left hand, behold!
As a sign!—as a joy!—shines the goblet of gold!
And he breathed deep, and he breathed long,
And he greeted the heavenly delight of the day.
They gaze on each other—they shout, as they throng—
"He lives—lo the ocean has render'd its prey!
And safe from the whirlpool and free from the grave,
Comes back to the daylight the soul of the brave!"
And he comes, with the crowd in their clamor and glee,
And the goblet his daring has won from the water,
He lifts to the king as he sinks on his knee;—
And the king from her maidens has beckon'd his daughter—
She pours to the boy the bright wine which they bring,
And thus spake the Diver—"Long life to the king!
"Happy they whom the rose-hues of daylight rejoice,
The air and the sky that to mortals are given!
May the horror below never more find a voice—
Nor Man stretch too far the wide mercy of Heaven!
Never more—never more may he lift from the sight
The veil which is woven with Terror and Night!
"Quick-brightening like lightning—it tore me along,
Down, down, till the gush of a torrent, at play
In the rocks of its wilderness, caught me—and strong
As the wings of an eagle, it whirl'd me away.
Vain, vain was my struggle—the circle had won me,
Round and round in its dance, the wild element spun me.
"And I call'd on my God, and my God heard my prayer
In the strength of my need, in the gasp of my breath—
And show'd me a crag that rose up from the lair,
And I clung to it, nimbly—and baffled the death!
And, safe in the perils around me, behold
On the spikes of the coral the goblet of gold!
"Below, at the foot of the precipice drear,
Spread the gloomy, and purple, and pathless Obscure!
A silence of Horror that slept on the ear,
That the eye more appall'd might the Horror endure!
Salamander—snake—dragon—vast reptiles that dwell
In the deep-coil'd about the grim jaws of their hell.
"Dark-crawl'd—glided dark the unspeakable swarms,
Clump'd together in masses, misshapen and vast—
Here clung and here bristled the fashionless forms—
Here the dark-moving bulk of the Hammer-fish pass'd—
And with teeth grinning white, and a menacing motion,
Went the terrible Shark—the Hyena of Ocean.
"There I hung, and the awe gather'd icily o'er me,
So far from the earth, where man's help there was none!
The One Human Thing, with the Goblins before me—
Alone—in a loneness so ghastly—ALONE!
Fathom-deep from man's eye in the speechless profound,
With the death of the Main and the Monsters around.
"Methought, as I gazed through the darkness, that now
IT[8] saw—the dread hundred-limbed creature-its prey!
And darted—O God! from the far flaming-bough
Of the coral, I swept on the horrible way;
And it seized me, the wave with its wrath and its roar,
It seized me to save—King, the danger is o'er!"
On the youth gazed the monarch, and marvel'd; quoth he,
"Bold Diver, the goblet I promised is thine,
And this ring will I give, a fresh guerdon to thee,
Never jewels more precious shone up from the mine,
If thou'lt bring me fresh tidings, and venture again
To tell what lies hid in the innermost main?"
Then outspake the daughter in tender emotion
"Ah! father, my father, what more can there rest?
Enough of this sport with the pitiless ocean—
He has served thee as none would, thyself has confest.
If nothing can slake thy wild thirst of desire,
Let thy knights put to shame the exploit of the squire!"
The king seized the goblet—he swung it on high,
And whirling, it fell in the roar of the tide:
"But bring back that goblet again to my eye,
And I'll hold thee the dearest that rides by my side;
And thine arms shall embrace, as thy bride, I decree,
The maiden whose pity now pleadeth for thee."
In his heart, as he listen'd, there leapt the wild joy—
And the hope and the love through his eyes spoke in fire,
On that bloom, on that blush, gazed delighted the boy;
The maiden-she faints at the feet of her sire!
Here the guerdon divine, there the danger beneath;
He resolves! To the strife with the life and the death!
They hear the loud surges sweep back in their swell,
Their coming the thunder-sound heralds along!
Fond eyes yet are tracking the spot where he fell:
They come, the wild waters, in tumult and throng,
Roaring up to the cliff—roaring back, as before,
But no wave ever brings the lost youth to the shore.
* * * *
THE CRANES OF IBYCUS (1797)
From Rhegium to the Isthmus, long
Hallow'd to steeds and glorious song,
Where, link'd awhile in holy peace,
Meet all the sons of martial Greece—
Wends Ibycus-whose lips the sweet
And ever-young Apollo fires;
The staff supports the wanderer's feet—
The God the Poet's soul inspires!
Soon from the mountain-ridges high,
The tower-crown'd Corinth greets his eye;
In Neptune's groves of darksome pine,
He treads with shuddering awe divine;
Nought lives around him, save a swarm
Of CRANES, that still pursued his way.
Lured by the South, they wheel and form
In ominous groups their wild array.
And "Hail! beloved Birds!" he cried;
"My comrades on the ocean tide,
Sure signs of good ye bode to me;
Our lots alike would seem to be;
From far, together borne, we greet
A shelter now from toil and danger;
And may the friendly hearts we meet
Preserve from every ill—the Stranger!"
His step more light, his heart more gay,
Along the mid-wood winds his way,
When, where the path the thickets close,
Burst sudden forth two ruffian foes;
Now strife to strife, and foot to foot!
Ah! weary sinks the gentle hand;
The gentle hand that wakes the lute
Has learn'd no lore that guides the brand.
He calls on men and Gods—in vain!
His cries no blest deliverer gain;
Feebler and fainter grows the sound,
And still the deaf life slumbers round—
"In the far land I fall forsaken,
Unwept and unregarded, here;
By death from caitiff hands o'ertaken,
Nor ev'n one late avenger near!"
Down to the earth the death-stroke bore him—
Hark, where the Cranes wheel dismal o'er him!
He hears, as darkness veils his eyes,
Near, in hoarse croak, their dirge-like cries.
"Ye whose wild wings above me hover,
(Since never voice, save yours alone,
The deed can tell)—the hand discover—
Avenge!"—He spoke, and life was gone.
Naked and maim'd the corpse was found—
And, still through many a mangling wound,
The sad Corinthian Host could trace
The loved—too well-remember'd face.
"And must I meet thee thus once more?
Who hoped with wreaths of holy pine,
Bright with new fame—the victory o'er—
The Singer's temples to entwine!"
And loud lamented every guest
Who held the Sea-God's solemn feast—
As in a single heart prevailing,
Throughout all Hellas went the wailing.
Wild to the Council Hall they ran—
In thunder rush'd the threat'ning Flood—
"Revenge shall right the murder'd man,
The last atonement-blood for blood!"
Yet 'mid the throng the Isthmus claims,
Lured by the Sea-God's glorious games—
The mighty many-nation'd throng—
How track the hand that wrought the wrong?—
How guess if that dread deed were done,
By ruffian hands, or secret foes?
He who sees all on earth—the SUN—
Alone the gloomy secret knows.
Perchance he treads in careless peace,
Amidst your Sons, assembled Greece;
Hears with a smile revenge decreed;
Gloats with fell joy upon the deed.
His steps the avenging gods may mock
Within the very Temple's wall,
Or mingle with the crowds that flock
To yonder solemn scenic[9] hall.
Wedg'd close, and serried, swarms the crowd—
Beneath the weight the walls are bow'd—
Thitherwards streaming far, and wide,
Broad Hellas flows in mingled tide tide—
A tide like that which heaves the deep
When hollow-sounding, shoreward driven;
On, wave on wave, the thousands sweep
Till arching, row on row, to heaven!
The tribes, the nations, who shall name,
That guest-like, there assembled came?
From Theseus' town, from Aulis' strand—
From Phocis, from the Spartans' land—
From Asia's wave-divided clime,
The Isles that gem the Ægean Sea,
To hearken on that Stage Sublime,
The Dark Choir's mournful melody!
True to the awful rites of old,
In long and measured strides, behold
The Chorus from the hinder ground,
Pace the vast circle's solemn round.
So this World's women never strode—
Their race from Mortals ne'er began;
Gigantic, from their grim abode,
They tower above the Sons of Man!
Across their loins the dark robe clinging,
In fleshless hands the torches swinging,
Now to and fro, with dark red glow—
No blood that lives the dead cheeks know!
Where flow the locks that woo to love
On human temples—ghastly dwell
The serpents, coil'd the brow above,
And the green asps with poison swell.
Thus circling, horrible, within
That space—doth their dark hymn begin,
And round the sinner as they go,
Cleave to the heart their words of woe.
Dismally wails, the senses chilling,
The hymn—the FURIES' solemn song;
And froze the very marrow thrilling
As roll'd the gloomy sounds along.
And weal to him—from crime secure—
Who keeps his soul as childhood's pure;
Life's path he roves, a wanderer free—
We near him not-THE AVENGERS, WE,
But woe to him for whom we weave
The doom for deeds that shun the light:
Fast to the murderer's feet we cleave,
The fearful Daughters of the Night.
"And deems he flight from us can hide him?
Still on dark wings We sail beside him!
The murderer's feet the snare enthralls—
Or soon or late, to earth he falls!
Untiring, hounding on, we go;
For blood can no remorse atone I
On, ever—to the Shades below,
And there—we grasp him, still our own!"
So singing, their slow dance they wreathe,
And stillness, like a silent death,
Heavily there lay cold and drear,
As if the Godhead's self were near.
Then, true to those strange rites of old,
Pacing the circle's solemn round,
In long and measured strides—behold,
They vanish in the hinder ground!
Confused and doubtful—half between
The solemn truth and phantom scene,
The crowd revere the Power, presiding
O'er secret deeps, to justice guiding—
The Unfathom'd and Inscrutable
By whom the web of doom is spun,
Whose shadows in the deep heart dwell,
Whose form is seen not in the sun!
Just then, amidst the highest tier,
Breaks forth a voice that starts the ear;
"See there—see there, Timotheus,
Behold the Cranes of Ibycus!"
A sudden darkness wraps the sky;
Above the roofless building hover
Dusk, swarming wings; and heavily
Sweep the slow Cranes, hoarse-murmuring, over!
"Of Ibycus?"—that name so dear
Thrills through the hearts of those who hear!
Like wave on wave in eager seas,
From mouth to mouth the murmur flees—
"Of Ibycus, whom we bewail!
The murder'd one! What mean those words?
Who is the man—knows he the tale?
Why link that name with those wild birds?"
Questions on questions louder press—
Like lightning flies the inspiring guess—
Leaps every heart—"The truth we seize;
Your might is here, EUMENIDES!
The murderer yields himself confest—
Vengeance is near—that voice the token—
Ho!-him who yonder spoke, arrest!
And him to whom the words were spoken!"
Scarce had the wretch the words let fall,
Than fain their sense he would recall
In vain; those whitening lips—behold!
The secret have already told.
Into their Judgment Court sublime
The Scene is changed;—their doom is seal'd!
Behold the dark unwitness'd Crime,
Struck by the lightning that reveal'd!
* * * * *
THE WORDS OF BELIEF (1797)
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 for ever 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 (1799)
Three Errors there are, that for ever 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![10]
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 I
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!
* * * * *
[Illustration: THE LAY OF THE BELL JULIUS BENEZUR]
THE LAY OF THE BELL[11] (1799)
"Vivos voco—Mortuos plango—Fulgura frango." [12]
I
Fast in its prison-walls of earth,
Awaits the mold of bakèd clay.
Up, comrades, up, and aid the birth—
THE BELL that shall be born today!
Who would honor obtain,
With the sweat and the pain,
The praise that Man gives to the Master must buy!—
But the blessing withal must descend from on high!
And well an earnest word beseems
The work the earnest hand prepares;
Its load more light the labor deems,
When sweet discourse the labor shares.
So let us ponder—nor in vain—
What strength can work when labor wills;
For who would not the fool disdain
Who ne'er designs what he fulfils?
And well it stamps our Human Race,
And hence the gift To UNDERSTAND,
That Man within the heart should trace
Whate'er he fashions with the hand.
II
From the fir the faggot take,
Keep it, heap it hard and dry,
That the gathered flame may break
Through the furnace, wroth and high.
When the copper within
Seethes and simmers—the tin
Pour quick, that the fluid that feeds the Bell
May flow in the right course glib and well.
Deep hid within this nether cell,
What force with Fire is molding thus
In yonder airy tower shall dwell,
And witness wide and far of us!
It shall, in later days, unfailing,
Rouse many an ear to rapt emotion;
Its solemn voice with Sorrow wailing,
Or choral chiming to Devotion.
Whatever Fate to Man may bring,
Whatever weal or woe befall,
That metal tongue shall backward ring
The warning moral drawn from all.
III
See the silvery bubbles spring!
Good! the mass is melting now!
Let the salts we duly bring
Purge the flood, and speed the flow.
From the dross and the scum,
Pure, the fusion must come;
For perfect and pure we the metal must keep,
That its voice may be perfect, and pure, and deep.
That voice, with merry music rife,
The cherished child shall welcome in,
What time the rosy dreams of life
In the first slumber's arms begin;
As yet in Time's dark womb unwarning,
Repose the days, or foul or fair,
And watchful o'er that golden morning,
The Mother-Love's untiring care!
And swift the years like arrows fly—
No more with girls content to play,
Fast in its prison-walls of earth,
Awaits the mold of bakèd clay.
Up, comrades, up, and aid the birth—
The BELL that shall be born to-day!
Bounds the proud Boy upon his way,
Storms through loud life's tumultuous pleasures,
With pilgrim staff the wide world measures;
And, wearied with the wish to roam,
Again seeks, stranger-like, the Father-Home.
And, lo, as some sweet vision breaks
Out from its native morning skies,
With rosy shame on downcast cheeks,
The Virgin stands before his eyes.
A nameless longing seizes him!
From all his wild companions flown;
Tears, strange till then, his eyes bedim;
He wanders all alone.
Blushing, he glides where'er she move;
Her greeting can transport him;
To every mead to deck his love,
The happy wild flowers court him!
Sweet Hope—and tender Longing—ye
The growth of Life's first Age of Gold,
When the heart, swelling, seems to see
The gates of heaven unfold!
O Love, the beautiful and brief! O prime,
Glory, and verdure, of life's summertime!
IV
Browning o'er, the pipes are simmering,
Dip this wand of clay[13] within;
If like glass the wand be glimmering,
Then the casting may begin.
Brisk, brisk now, and see
If the fusion flow free;
If—(happy and welcome indeed were the sign!)
If the hard and the ductile united combine.
For still where the strong is betrothed to the weak,
And the stern in sweet marriage is blent with the meek,
Rings the concord harmonious, both tender and strong:
So be it with thee, if forever united,
The heart to the heart flows in one, love-delighted;
Illusion is brief, but Repentance is long.
Lovely, thither are they bringing,
With her virgin wreath, the Bride!
To the love-feast clearly ringing,
Tolls the church-bell far and wide!
With that sweetest holyday,
Must the May of Life depart;
With the cestus loosed—away
Flies ILLUSION from the heart!
Yet love lingers lonely,
When Passion is mute,
And the blossoms may only
Give way to the fruit.
The Husband must enter
The hostile life;
With struggle and strife,
To plant or to watch,
To snare or to snatch,
To pray and importune,
Must wager and venture
And hunt down his fortune!
Then flows in a current the gear and the gain,
And the garners are filled with the gold of the grain,
Now a yard to the court, now a wing to the centre!
Within sits Another,
The thrifty Housewife;
The mild one, the mother—
Her home is her life.
In its circle she rules,
And the daughters she schools,
And she cautions the boys,
With a bustling command,
And a diligent hand
Employed she employs;
Gives order to store,
And the much makes the more;
Locks the chest and the wardrobe, with lavender smelling,
And the hum of the spindle goes quick through the dwelling,
And she hoards in the presses, well polished and full,
The snow of the linen, the shine of the wool;
Blends the sweet with the good, and from care and endeavor
Rests never!
Blithe the Master (where the while
From his roof he sees them smile)
Eyes the lands, and counts the gain;
There, the beams projecting far,
And the laden store-house are,
And the granaries bowed beneath
The blessèd golden grain;
There, in undulating motion,
Wave the corn-fields like an ocean.
Proud the boast the proud lips breathe:—
"My house is built upon a rock,
And sees unmoved the stormy shock
Of waves that fret below!"
What chain so strong, what girth so great,
To bind the giant form of Fate?—
Swift are the steps of Woe.
V
Now the casting may begin;
See the breach indented there:
Ere we run the fusion in,
Halt—and speed the pious prayer!
Pull the bung out—
See around and about
What vapor, what vapor—God help us!—has risen?—
Ha! the flame like a torrent leaps forth from its prison!
What friend is like the might of fire
When man can watch and wield the ire?
Whate'er we shape or work, we owe
Still to that heaven-descended glow.
But dread the heaven-descended glow,
When from their chain its wild wings go,
When, where it listeth, wide and wild
Sweeps the Free Nature's free-born Child!
When the Frantic One fleets,
While no force can withstand,
Through the populous streets
Whirling ghastly the brand;
For the Element hates
What man's labor creates,
And the work of his hand!
Impartially out from the cloud,
Or the curse or the blessing may fall!
Benignantly out from the cloud,
Come the dews, the revivers of all!
Avengingly out from the cloud
Come the levin, the bolt, and the ball!
Hark—a wail from the steeple!—aloud
The bell shrills its voice to the crowd!
Look—look—red as blood
All on high!
It is not the daylight that fills with its flood
The sky!
What a clamor awaking
Roars up through the street!
What a hell-vapor breaking
Rolls on through the street!
And higher and higher
Aloft moves the Column of Fire!
Through the vistas and rows
Like a whirlwind it goes,
And the air like the steam from a furnace glows.
Beams are crackling—posts are shrinking—
Walls are sinking—windows clinking
Children crying—
Mothers flying—
And the beast (the black ruin yet smoldering under)
Yells the howl of its pain and its ghastly wonder!
Hurry and skurry—away—away,
The face of the night is as clear as day!
As the links in a chain,
Again and again
Flies the bucket from hand to hand;
High in arches up-rushing
The engines are gushing,
And the flood, as a beast on the prey that it hounds,
With a roar on the breast of the element bounds.
To the grain and the fruits,
Through the rafters and beams,
Through the barns and the garners it crackles and streams!
As if they would rend up the earth from its roots,
Rush the flames to the sky
Giant-high;
And at length,
Wearied out and despairing, man bows to their strength!
With an idle gaze sees their wrath consume,
And submits to his doom!
Desolate
The place, and dread
For storms the barren bed!
In the blank voids that cheerful casements were,
Comes to and fro the melancholy air,
And sits despair;
And through the ruin, blackening in its shroud,
Peers, as it flits, the melancholy cloud.
One human glance of grief upon the grave
Of all that Fortune gave
The loiterer takes—then turns him to depart,
And grasps the wanderer's staff and mans his heart:
Whatever else the element bereaves
One blessing more than all it reft—it leaves
The face that he loves!—He counts them o'er,
See—not one look is missing from that store!
VI
Now clasped the bell within the clay—
The mold the mingled metals fill—
Oh, may it, sparkling into day,
Reward the labor and the skill!
Alas! should it fail,
For the mold may be frail—
And still with our hope must be mingled the fear—
And, ev'n now, while we speak, the mishap may be near!
To the dark womb of sacred earth
This labor of our hands is given,
As seeds that wait the second birth,
And turn to blessings watched by heaven!
Ah seeds, how dearer far than they
We bury in the dismal tomb,
Where Hope and Sorrow bend to pray
That suns beyond the realm of day
May warm them into bloom!
From the steeple
Tolls the bell,
Deep and heavy,
The death-knell,
Guiding with dirge-note—solemn, sad, and slow,
To the last home earth's weary wanderers know.
It is that worshipped wife—
It is that faithful mother![14]
Whom the dark Prince of Shadows leads benighted,
From that dear arm where oft she hung delighted.
Far from those blithe companions, born
Of her, and blooming in their morn;
On whom, when couched her heart above,
So often looked the Mother-Love!
Ah! rent the sweet Home's union-band,
And never, never more to come—
She dwells within the shadowy land,
Who was the Mother of that Home!
How oft they miss that tender guide,
The care—the watch—the face—the MOTHER—
And where she sate the babes beside,
Sits with unloving looks—ANOTHER!
VII
While the mass is cooling now,
Let the labor yield to leisure,
As the bird upon the bough,
Loose the travail to the pleasure.
When the soft stars awaken!
Each task be forsaken!
And the vesper-bell, lulling the earth into peace,
If the master still toil, chimes the workman's release!
Homeward from the tasks of day,
Through the greenwood's welcome way
Wends the wanderer, blithe and cheerily,
To the cottage loved so dearly!
And the eye and ear are meeting,
Now, the slow sheep homeward bleating;
Now, the wonted shelter near,
Lowing the lusty-fronted steer
Creaking now the heavy wain,
Reels with the happy harvest grain;
While, with many-colored leaves,
Glitters the garland on the sheaves;
For the mower's work is done,
And the young folks' dance begun!
Desert street, and quiet mart;—
Silence is in the city's heart;
And the social taper lighteth
Each dear face that HOME uniteth;
While the gate the town before
Heavily swings with sullen roar!
Though darkness is spreading
O'er earth—the Upright
And the Honest, undreading,
Look safe on the night
Which the evil man watches in awe,
For the eye of the Night is the Law!
Bliss-dowered! O daughter of the skies,
Hail, holy ORDER, whose employ
Blends like to like in light and joy—
Builder of cities, who of old
Called the wild man from waste and wold,
And, in his but thy presence stealing,
Roused each familiar household feeling,
And, best of all, the happy ties,
The centre of the social band—
The Instinct of the Fatherland!
United thus—each helping each,
Brisk work the countless hands forever;
For naught its power to Strength can teach,
Like Emulation and Endeavor!
Thus linked the master with the man,
Each in his rights can each revere,
And while they march in freedom's van,
Scorn the lewd rout that dogs the rear!
To freemen labor is renown!
Who works—gives blessings and commands;
Kings glory in the orb and crown—
Be ours the glory of our hands,
Long in these walls—long may we greet
Your footfalls, Peace and Concord sweet!
Distant the day, oh! distant far,
When the rude hordes of trampling War
Shall scare the silent vale—
The where
Now the sweet heaven, when day doth leave
The air,
Limns its soft rose-hues on the veil of Eve—
Shall the fierce war-brand, tossing in the gale,
From town and hamlet shake the horrent glare!
VIII
Now, its destined task fulfilled,
Asunder break the prison-mold;
Let the goodly Bell we build,
Eye and heart alike behold.
The hammer down heave,
Till the cover it cleave:—
For not till we shatter the wall of its cell
Can we lift from its darkness and bondage the Bell.
To break the mold the master may,
If skilled the hand and ripe the hour;
But woe, when on its fiery way
The metal seeks itself to pour,
Frantic and blind, with thunder-knell,
Exploding from its shattered home,
And glaring forth, as from a hell,
Behold the red Destruction come!
When rages strength that has no reason,
There breaks the mold before the season;
When numbers burst what bound before,
Woe to the State that thrives no more!
Yea, woe, when in the City's heart,
The latent spark to flame is blown,
"Freedom! Equality!"—to blood
And Millions from their silence start,
To claim, without a guide, their own!
Discordant howls the warning Bell,
Proclaiming discord wide and far,
And, born but things of peace to tell,
Becomes the ghastliest voice of war:
"Freedom! Equality!"—to blood
Rush the roused people at the sound!
Through street, hall, palace, roars the flood,
And banded murder closes round!
The hyena-shapes (that women were!)
Jest with the horrors they survey;
They hound—they rend—they mangle there,
As panthers with their prey!
Naught rests to hallow—burst the ties
Of life's sublime and reverent awe;
Before the Vice the Virtue flies,
And Universal Crime is Law!
Man fears the lion's kingly tread;
Man fears the tiger's fangs of terror;
And still, the dreadliest of the dread,
Is Man himself in error!
No torch, though lit from Heaven, illumes
The Blind!—Why place it in his hands?
It lights not him—it but consumes
The City and the Land!
IX
Rejoice and laud the prospering skies!
The kernel bursts its husks—behold
From the dull clay the metal rise,
Pure-shining, as a star of gold!
Neck and lip, but as one beam,
It laughs like a sunbeam.
And even the scutcheon, clear-graven, shall tell
That the art of a master has fashioned the Bell!
Come in—come in,
My merry men—we'll form a ring
The new-born labor christening;
And "CONCORD" we will name her!
To union may her heart-felt call
In brother-love attune us all!
May she the destined glory win
For which the master sought to frame her—
Aloft—(all earth's existence under)
In blue-pavilioned heaven afar
To dwell—the Neighbor of the Thunder,
The borderer of the Star!
Be hers above a voice to raise
Like those bright hosts in yonder sphere,
Who, while they move, their Maker praise,
And lead around the wreathèd year!
To solemn and eternal things
We dedicate her lips sublime,
As hourly, calmly, on she swings,
Fanned by the fleeting wings of Time!
No pulse—no heart—no feeling hers!
She lends the warning voice to Fate;
And still companions, while she stirs,
The changes of the Human State!
So may she teach us, as her tone
But now so mighty, melts away—
That earth no life which earth has known
From the last silence can delay!
Slowly now the cords upheave her!
From her earth-grave soars the Bell;
'Mid the airs of Heaven we leave her!
In the Music-Realm to dwell!
Up—upwards—yet raise—
She has risen—she sways.
Fair Bell to our city bode joy and increase,
And oh, may thy first sound be hallowed to—PEACE.[15]
* * * * *
THE GERMAN ART (1800)
By no kind Augustus reared,
To no Medici endeared,
German Art arose;
Fostering glory smil'd not on her,
Ne'er with kingly smiles to sun her,
Did her blooms unclose.
No! She went, by Monarchs slighted
Went unhonored, unrequited,
From high Frederick's throne;
Praise and Pride be all the greater,
That Man's genius did create her,
From Man's worth alone.
Therefore, all from loftier mountains,
Purer wells and richer Fountains,
Streams our Poet-Art;
So no rule to curb its rushing—
All the fuller flows it gushing
From its deep—The Heart!
* * * * *
COMMENCEMENT OF THE NEW CENTURY (1801)
Where can Peace find a refuge? Whither, say,
Can Freedom turn? Lo, friend, before our view
The CENTURY rends itself in storm away,
And, red with slaughter, dawns on earth the New!
The girdle of the lands is loosen'd[16]—hurl'd
To dust the forms old Custom deem'd divine,—
Safe from War's fury not the watery world;—
Safe not the Nile-God nor the antique Rhine.
Two mighty nations make the world their field,
Deeming the world is for their heirloom given—
Against the freedom of all lands they wield
This—Neptune's trident; that—the Thund'rer's levin
Gold to their scales each region must afford;
And, as fierce Brennus in Gaul's early tale,
The Frank casts in the iron of his sword,
To poise the balance, where the right may fail—
Like some huge Polypus, with arms that roam
Outstretch'd for prey—the Briton spreads his reign;
And, as the Ocean were his household home,
Locks up the chambers of the liberal main.
On to the Pole where shines, unseen, the Star,
Onward his restless course unbounded flies;
Tracks every isle and every coast afar,
And undiscover'd leaves but—Paradise!
Alas, in vain on earth's wide chart, I ween,
Thou seek'st that holy realm beneath the sky—
Where Freedom dwells in gardens ever green—
And blooms the Youth of fair Humanity!
O'er shores where sail ne'er rustled to the wind,
O'er the vast universe, may rove thy ken;
But in the universe thou canst not find
A space sufficing for ten happy men!
In the heart's holy stillness only beams
The shrine of refuge from life's stormy throng;
Freedom is only in the land of Dreams;
And only blooms the Beautiful in Song!
* * * * *
CASSANDRA (1802)
[There is peace between the Greeks and Trojans—Achilles is to wed Polyxena, Priam's daughter. On entering the Temple, he is shot through his only vulnerable part by Paris.—The time of the following Poem is during the joyous preparations for the marriage.]
And mirth was in the halls of Troy,
Before her towers and temples fell;
High peal'd the choral hymns of joy,
Melodious to the golden shell.
The weary had reposed from slaughter—
The eye forgot the tear it shed;
This day King Priam's lovely daughter
Shall great Pelides wed!
Adorn'd with laurel boughs, they come,
Crowd after crowd—the way divine,
Where fanes are deck'd—for gods the home—
And to the Thymbrian's[17] solemn shrine.
The wild Bacchantic joy is madd'ning
The thoughtless host, the fearless guest;
And there, the unheeded heart is sadd'ning
One solitary breast!
Unjoyous in the joyful throng,
Alone, and linking life with none,
Apollo's laurel groves among
The still Cassandra wander'd on!
Into the forest's deep recesses
The solemn Prophet-Maiden pass'd,
And, scornful, from her loosen'd tresses,
The sacred fillet cast!
"To all its arms doth Mirth unfold,
And every heart foregoes its cares;
And Hope is busy in the old;
The bridal-robe my sister wears.
But I alone, alone am weeping;
The sweet delusion mocks not me—
Around these walls destruction sweeping
More near and near I see!
"A torch before my vision glows,
But not in Hymen's hand it shines;
A flame that to the welkin goes,
But not from holy offering-shrines;
Glad hands the banquet are preparing,
And near, and near the halls of state
I hear the God that comes unsparing;
I hear the steps of Fate.
"And men my prophet-wail deride!
The solemn sorrow dies in scorn;
And lonely in the waste, I hide
The tortured heart that would forewarn.
Amidst the happy, unregarded,
Mock'd by their fearful joy, I trod;
Oh, dark to me the lot awarded,
Thou evil Pythian god!
"Thine oracle, in vain to be,
Oh, wherefore am I thus consign'd
With eyes that every truth must see,
Lone in the City of the Blind?
Cursed with the anguish of a power
To view the fates I may not thrall,
The hovering tempest still must lower—
The horror must befall!
"Boots it the veil to lift, and give
To sight the frowning fates beneath?
For error is the life we live,
And, oh, our knowledge is but death!
Take back the clear and awful mirror,
Shut from mine eyes the blood-red glare
Thy truth is but a gift of terror
When mortal lips declare.
"My blindness give to me once more[18]—
The gay dim senses that rejoice;
The Past's delighted songs are o'er
For lips that speak a Prophet's voice.
To me the future thou hast granted;
I miss the moment from the chain—
The happy Present-Hour enchanted!
Take back thy gift again!
"Never for me the nuptial wreath
The odor-breathing hair shall twine;
My heavy heart is bow'd beneath
The service of thy dreary shrine.
My youth was but by tears corroded,—
My sole familiar is my pain,
Each coming ill my heart foreboded,
And felt it first—in vain!
"How cheer'ly sports the careless mirth—
The life that loves, around I see;
Fair youth to pleasant thoughts give birth—
The heart is only sad to me.
Not for mine eyes the young spring gloweth,
When earth her happy feast-day keeps;
The charm of life who ever knoweth
That looks into the deeps?
"Wrapt in thy bliss, my sister, thine
The heart's inebriate rapture-springs;—
Longing with bridal arms to twine
The bravest of the Grecian kings.
High swells the joyous bosom, seeming
Too narrow for its world of love,
Nor envies, in its heaven of dreaming,
The heaven of gods above!
"I too might know the soft control
Of one the longing heart could choose,
With look which love illumes with soul—
The look that supplicates and woos.
And sweet with him, where love presiding
Prepares our hearth, to go—but, dim,
A Stygian shadow, nightly gliding,
Stalks between me and him!
"Forth from the grim funereal shore,
The Hell-Queen sends her ghastly bands;
Where'er I turn—behind—before—
Dumb in my path—a Spectre stands!
Wherever gayliest, youth assembles—
I see the shades in horror clad,
Amidst Hell's ghastly People trembles
One soul for ever sad!
"I see the steel of Murder gleam—
I see the Murderer's glowing eyes—
To right—to left, one gory stream—
One circling fate—my flight defies!
I may not turn my gaze—all seeing,
Foreknowing all, I dumbly stand—
To close in blood my ghastly being
In the far strangers' land!"
Hark! while the sad sounds murmur round,
Hark, from the Temple-porch, the cries!—
A wild, confused, tumultuous sound!—
Dead the divine Pelides lies!
Grim Discord rears her snakes devouring—
The last departing god hath gone!
And, womb'd in cloud, the thunder, lowering,
Hangs black on Ilion.
[Illustration: CASSANDRA Ferdinand Keller]
* * * * *
RUDOLPH OF HAPSBURG (1803)
A BALLAD
[Hinrichs properly classes this striking ballad (together with the yet grander one of the "Fight with the Dragon") amongst those designed to depict and exalt the virtue of Humility. The source of the story is in Ægidius Tschudi, a Swiss chronicler; and Schiller appears to have adhered, with much fidelity, to the original narrative.]
At Aachen, in imperial state,
In that time-hallow'd hall renown'd,
At solemn feast King Rudolf sate,
The day that saw the hero crown'd!
Bohemia and thy Palgrave, Rhine,
Give this the feast, and that the wine;[19]
The Arch Electoral Seven,
Like choral stars around the sun,
Gird him whose hand a world has won,
The anointed choice of Heaven.
In galleries raised above the pomp,
Press'd crowd on crowd their panting way,
And with the joy-resounding tromp,
Rang out the millions' loud hurra!
For, closed at last the age of slaughter,
When human blood was pour'd as water—
LAW dawns upon the world![20]
Sharp force no more shall right the wrong,
And grind the weak to crown the strong—
War's carnage-flag is furl'd!
In Rudolf's hand the goblet shines—
And gaily round the board look'd he;
"And proud the feast, and bright the wines
My kingly heart feels glad to me!
Yet where the Gladness-Bringer—blest
In the sweet art which moves the breast
With lyre and verse divine?
Dear from my youth the craft of song,
And what as knight I loved so long,
As Kaiser, still be mine."
Lo, from the circle bending there,
With sweeping robe the Bard appears,
As silver white his gleaming hair,
Bleach'd by the many winds of years;
"And music sleeps in golden strings—
Love's rich reward the minstrel sings,
Well known to him the ALL
High thoughts and ardent souls desire!
What would the Kaiser from the lyre
Amidst the banquet-hall?"
The Great One smiled—"Not mine the sway—
The minstrel owns a loftier power—
A mightier king inspires the lay—
Its hest—THE IMPULSE OF THE HOUR!"
As through wide air the tempests sweep,
As gush the springs from mystic deep,
Or lone untrodden glen;
So from dark hidden fount within
Comes SONG, its own wild world to win
Amidst the souls of men!
Swift with the fire the minstrel glow'd,
And loud the music swept the ear:—
"Forth to the chase a Hero rode,
To hunt the bounding chamois-deer;
With shaft and horn the squire behind;—
Through greensward meads the riders wind—
A small sweet bell they hear.
Lo, with the HOST, a holy man—
Before him strides the sacristan,
And the bell sounds near and near.
"The noble hunter down-inclined
His reverent head and soften'd eye,
And honor'd with a Christian's mind
The Christ who loves humility!
Loud through the pasture, brawls and raves
A brook—the rains had fed the waves,
And torrents from the bill.
His sandal-shoon the priest unbound,
And laid the Host upon the ground,
And near'd the swollen rill!
"What wouldst thou, priest?" the Count began,
As, marveling much, he halted there,
"Sir Count, I seek a dying man,
Sore-hungering for the heavenly fare.
The bridge that once its safety gave,
Rent by the anger of the wave,
Drifts down the tide below.
Yet barefoot now, I will not fear
(The soul that seeks its God, to cheer)
Through the wild wave to go!"
"He gave that priest the knightly steed,
He reach'd that priest the lordly reins,
That he might serve the sick man's need,
Nor slight the task that heaven ordains.
He took the horse the squire bestrode;
On to the sick, the priest!
And when the morrow's sun was red,
The servant of the Savior led
Back to its lord the beast.
"'Now Heaven forfend!' the Hero cried,
'That e'er to chase or battle more
These limbs the sacred steed bestride
That once my Maker's image bore;
If not a boon allow'd to thee,
Thy Lord and mine its Master be,
My tribute to the King,
From whom I hold, as fiefs, since birth,
Honor, renown, the goods of earth,
Life and each living thing!"
"'So may the God, who faileth never
To hear the weak and guide the dim,
To thee give honor here and ever,
As thou hast duly honor'd Him!'
Far-famed ev'n now through Swisserland
Thy generous heart and dauntless hand;
And fair from thine embrace
Six daughters bloom,[21] six crowns to bring,
Blest as the daughters of a KING,
The mothers of a RACE!"
The mighty Kaiser heard amazed!
His heart was in the days of old;
Into the minstrel's heart he gazed,
That tale the Kaiser's own had told.
Yes, in the bard the priest he knew,
And in the purple veil'd from view
The gush of holy tears!
A thrill through that vast audience ran,
And every heart the godlike man
Revering God—reveres!
[Illustration: THE COUNT GIVES UP HIS HORSE TO THE PRIEST Alexander
Wagner]
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 3: Though the Ideal images of youth forsake us, the Ideal itself still remains to the Poet. It is his task and his companion, for, unlike the Phantasies of Fortune, Fame, and Love, the Phantasies of the Ideal are imperishable. While, as the occupation of life, it pays off the debt of Time, as the exalter of life it contributes to the Building of Eternity.—TRANSLATOR.]
[Footnote 4: "Die Gesalt"—Form. the Platonic Archetype.]
[Footnote 5: This idea is often repeated, somewhat more clearly in the haughty philosophy of Schiller. He himself says, elsewhere—"In a fair soul each single action is not properly moral, but the whole character is moral. The fair soul has no other service than the instincts of its own beauty."—Translator]
[Footnote 6: "Und es wallet, and siedet, und brauset, and zischt," etc. Goethe was particularly struck with the truthfulness of these lines, of which his personal observation at the Falls of the Rhine enabled him to judge. Schiller modestly owns his obligations to Homer's descriptions of Charybdis, Odyss. I., 12. The property of the higher order of imagination to reflect truth, though not familiar to experience, is singularly illustrated in this description. Schiller had never seen even a Waterfall.—TRANSLATOR.]
[Footnote 7: The same rhyme as the preceding line in the original.]
[Footnote 8: "—da kroch's heran," etc. The It in the original has been greatly admired. The poet thus vaguely represents the fabulous misshapen monster, the Polypus of the ancients.]
[Footnote 9: The theatre.]
[Footnote 10: This simile is nobly conceived, but expressed somewhat obscurely. As Hercules contended in vain against Antæus, the Son of Earth,—so long as the Earth gave her giant offspring new strength in every fall,—so the soul contends in vain with evil—the natural earth-born enemy, while the very contact of the earth invigorates the enemy for the struggle. And as Antæus was slain at last, when Hercules lifted him from the earth and strangled him while raised aloft, so can the soul slay the enemy (the desire, the passion, the evil, the earth's offspring), when bearing it from earth itself and stifling it in the higher air.—Translator.]
[Footnote 11: Translated by Edward, Lord Lytton (Permission George
Routledge & Sons.)]
[Footnote 12: "I call the Living—I mourn the Dead—I break the Lightning." These words are inscribed on the Great Bell of the Minster of Schaffhausen—also on that of the Church of Art near Lucerne. There was an old belief in Switzerland that the undulation of air, caused by the sound of a Bell, broke the electric fluid of a thunder-cloud.]
[Footnote 13: A piece of clay pipe, which becomes vitrified if the metal is sufficiently heated.]
[Footnote 14: The translator adheres to the original, in forsaking the rhyme in these lines and some others.]
[Footnote 15: Written in the time of the French war.]
[Footnote 16: That is—the settled political question—the balance of power.]
[Footnote 17: Apollo.]
[Footnote 18: "Everywhere," says Hoffmeister truly, "Schiller exalts Ideal Belief over real wisdom;—everywhere this modern Apostle of Christianity advocates that Ideal, which exists in Faith and emotion, against the wisdom of worldly intellect, the barren experience of life," etc.—TRANSLATOR.]
[Footnote 19: The office, at the coronation feast, of the Count Palatine of the Rhine (Grand Sewer of the Empire and one of the Seven Electors) was to bear the Imperial Globe and set the dishes on the board; that of the King of Bohemia was cup-bearer. The latter was not, however, present, as Schiller himself observed in a note (omitted in the editions of his collected works), at the coronation of Rudolf.]
[Footnote 20: Literally, "A. judge (ein Richter) was again upon the earth." The word substituted in the translation is introduced in order to recall to the reader the sublime name given, not without justice, to Rudolf of Hapsburg, viz., "THE LIVING LAW."—TRANSLATOR.]
[Footnote 21: At the coronation of Rudolf was celebrated the marriage-feast of three of his daughters—to Ludwig of Bavaria, Otto of Brandenburg, and Albrecht of Saxony. His other three daughters married afterward Otto, nephew of Ludwig of Bavaria, Charles Martell, son of Charles of Anjou, and Wenceslaus, son of Ottocar of Bohemia. The royal house of England numbers Rudolf of Hapsburg amongst its ancestors.—TRANSLATOR.]
* * * * *