Much better than any of the foregoing is 'The Cranes of Ibycus'. In the composition of this ballad Goethe took a deep interest, giving several suggestions which were adopted by Schiller to the great advantage of the poem. The Greek legend does not explain, or explains variously, just why the murderers in the theater call out the name of Ibycus when they see the cranes flying over. Schiller supposes that the spectacle just then going on was a solemn chorus of the Eumenides. Thus the unaccountable exclamation of the murderers is connected with the mysterious power of the avenging Furies. It is this use of the nemesis idea that makes the merit of the ballad.
'The Knight of Toggenburg' is a sentimental tale of romantic love, while 'The Pledge'—a captivating and powerful version of the Damon and Pythias story—is a heroic ballad of loyal friendship. 'The Errand at the Furnace', wherein a spiteful tale-bearer meets the horrible fate he has prepared for the innocent and devout Fridolin,—may be styled a ballad of pious edification. Here, as a critic observes, Schiller purposely essays a tone of childlike naïveté which was foreign to his nature.[111] 'The Battle with the Dragon' has for its theme the moral majesty of self-conquest. With 'The Cranes of Ibycus' and 'The Pledge', it forms a triad which may be regarded as the choicest fruitage of Schiller's interest in the ballad. The later ones, 'The Count of Hapsburg' and 'Hero and Leander', are no less finished in the matter of form, but have more of a lyric tinge.
We see that as a balladist Schiller got his inspiration mainly from two sources: the traditions of Greek antiquity and the traditions of chivalrous romance. He dwelt habitually in the idealisms of the past, and his controlling purpose was to make these idealisms live again in stirring poetic pictures. The present time, with its fierce national conflicts, the larger meaning of which was not yet apparent, seemed to him barbarous and depressing. In the prologue to 'Wallenstein', it is true, he was able to survey the situation with a calm artistic eye and to see in the 'solemn close of the century' a period in which 'reality is becoming poetry'. But this is an isolated deliverance. His habitual mood was one of aversion, from which he sought relief by an escape into the kingdom of the mind. Thus, in some stanzas on the opening of the new century, he laments that the English-French war has overspread sea and land and left no place on earth for 'ten happy mortals'. Then he bids the friend to whom the verses are addressed take refuge in the holy temple of the heart, seeing that Freedom and Beauty dwell only in dreamland. A similar sentiment finds expression in 'The Words of Illusion', published in 1801, as a sort of pendant to the earlier 'Words of Faith'. The words of faith are Freedom, Virtue and God. Men are exhorted to cling steadfastly to these eternal verities, whereof only the heart gives knowledge. The other poem is directed against the superstition of believing in a golden age, or in any external realization of the right, the good and the true. The final stanza runs:
And so, noble soul, forget not the law,
And to the true faith be leal;
What ear never heard and eye never saw,
The Beautiful, the True, they are real.
Look not without, as the fool may do;
It is in thee and ever created anew.
These last-named poems belong to a type which the Germans sometimes call the 'lyric of thought',—a name which is fairly appropriate to a goodly number of Schiller's shorter effusions. Other examples—to mention a few of the best—are 'Light and Warmth', 'Breadth and Depth' and 'Hope'. They might be called lyrics of culture, since they regard the perfection of the individual,—the equipoise of heart and head, steadfast seriousness as opposed to showy sciolism, the preservation of hope and faith,—as a noble object of emotion. They are not intellectual in the opprobrious sense of the word as applied to poetry; they are suffused with warm feeling and their language is simple and natural. On the other hand they are argumentative: they state propositions and draw conclusions the value of which must in the end be gauged by the mind. For this reason one who has no sympathy with Schiller's idealism,—one who either never felt it or has lost it in the stress of life,—will not be touched by these poems, but will regard them as hollow. Yet they are no more hollow than the lyrics of Goethe or Heine or Shelley, though the illusion of sincerity is less perfect than in the work of these great lyrists.
A pure lyric effusion, of the kind that seems to sing itself without help or let from the brooding philosopher, was not often attempted by Schiller. Perhaps his very best achievement in this sort is 'The Maiden's Lament', of which the first two stanzas, translated as closely as possible with reference to both substance and form, run as follows:
The oak-wood moans, the clouds float o'er,
The maiden sits by the green sea-shore.
The waves are breaking with might, with might,
And she breathes out a sigh in the gloom of the night,
And her eyes are dim with weeping.
'My heart is dead, the world is naught,
It brings nothing more to my longing thought,
I have lived and loved,—earth's fortune was mine,
Thou Holy One, take this child of thine,
Take her back into thine own keeping.'[112]
Such verses, and one might adduce further the admirable songs in 'William Tell', show that Schiller had in him, when he could find it and let it have its way, a lyric gift of a high order. As a rule, however, when he attempted to sing, the attempt resulted in a philosophic evaluation of the feelings expressed. Thus in his well-known 'Punch Song', he is mainly concerned with the ethical symbolism of the four elements,—the lemon-juice, the sugar, the water and the spirits. In other cases he suggests an allegorical symbolism, and leaves the reader puzzling over an intellectual query that may or may not be worth puzzling over. Examples are 'The Maiden from Afar', 'The Youth at the Brook', 'The Mountain Song'. He even wrote a number of professed poetic riddles,—which may be left without commentary to those who like that sort of poetry.
The cultural poems of Schiller have always enjoyed a high degree of popularity. A large number of his lines and couplets have become familiar quotations that come readily to the tongue or pen of the educated German. There is probably no modern poet who has taken a deeper hold upon the intellectual life of his countrymen. This is partly attributable to the fact that his idealistic sentiments appeal especially to the youthful. No poet that ever lived is better adapted to the needs of the school; none more infallibly safe and inspiring to the young of both sexes. For the riper mind and the larger experience his oracles are apt to lose somewhat of their impressiveness; for it is not to be denied that his poetry at its best is seldom supremely good. The divine spark that fuses rare thought and waiting expression in the white heat of the imagination and gives one the sense of artistic perfection is not often there. His verse is never cold, never trivial; but; it does lack artistic distinction. Its highest claim is to give expression to the maxims of a ripe culture in tuneful verses and pleasing imagery that impress themselves readily upon the general heart. This is what he does in the most famous of all his poems, 'The Song of the Bell'. It is not great poetry, but it is a pleasing production which well deserves its popularity.