TO LAURA PLAYING.
When o'er the chords thy fingers steal,
A soulless statue now I feel,
And now a soul set free!
Sweet Sovereign! ruling over death and life—
Seizes the heart, in a voluptuous strife
As with a thousand strings—the SORCERY![14]
[Footnote 14: "The Sorcery."—In the original, Schiller has an allusion of very questionable taste, and one which is very obscure to the general reader, to a conjurer of the name of Philadelphia who exhibited before Frederick the Great.]
Then the vassal airs that woo thee,
Hush their low breath hearkening to thee.
In delight and in devotion,
Pausing from her whirling motion,
Nature, in enchanted calm,
Silently drinks the floating balm.
Sorceress, her heart with thy tone
Chaining—as thine eyes my own!
O'er the transport-tumult driven,
Doth the music gliding swim;
From the strings, as from their heaven,
Burst the new-born Seraphim.
As when from Chaos' giant arms set free,
'Mid the Creation-storm, exultingly
Sprang sparkling thro' the dark the Orbs of Light—
So streams the rich tone in melodious might.
Soft-gliding now, as when o'er pebbles glancing,
The silver wave goes dancing;
Now with majestic swell, and strong,
As thunder peals in organ-tones along;
And now with stormy gush,
As down the rock, in foam, the whirling torrents rush.
To a whisper now
Melts it amorously,
Like the breeze through the bough
Of the aspen tree;
Heavily now, and with a mournful breath,
Like midnight's wind along those wastes of death,
Where Awe the wail of ghosts lamenting hears,
And slow Cocytus trails the stream whose waves are tears.
Speak, maiden, speak!—Oh, art thou one of those
Spirits more lofty than our region knows?
Should we in thine the mother-language seek
Souls in Elysium speak?