The
beautiful
alone the holy there!
Warner - World's Best Literature - v22 - Sac to Sha
Personally he prized far more highly the honorary
citizenship of the French Republic, which had been conferred upon
him by the National Convention in 1793. In 1797 he was chosen a
member of the Academy of Sciences in Stockholm. In 1791 he had a
severe attack of catarrhal fever, from the effects of which he never
wholly recovered. Fortunately his pecuniary anxieties were partially
relieved by the Danish poet Jens Baggesen, who induced the Duke
of Holstein-Augustenburg, and the Danish minister Count von Schim-
melmann, to grant him pension of a thousand speciesdaler (equiva-
lent to about $1000), with the injunction to take care of his health
and not overwork. In the spring of 1804 he went to Berlin to a rep-
resentation of William Tell,' but the exertion caused a recurrence of
his old malady. He grew better, however; translated Racine's 'Phè-
dre' in twenty-six days, and completed two acts of a new play, 'The
False Demetrius,' when a return of catarrhal fever ended his days
on May 9th, 1805.
―
During the last ten years of his life, Schiller's relations to Goethe
were those of cordial friendship and literary co-operation; one of the
most important results of which was the joint production of a series
of satirical epigrams called 'Xenien,' and published in the Musenal-
manach in 1797. The more philosophic and less personal, or what
Schiller called the "harmless" ones, were also collected and printed
under the title of Tabulæ Votivæ (Votive Tablets). 'Xenia' (§ɛívia,
gifts to guests) is the title of the thirteenth book of the epigrams
of the Roman poet Martial, from whom the term was borrowed by
Goethe, who first mentioned it in a letter to Schiller dated December
23d, 1795; Schiller immediately replied that the idea is splendid,
and must be carried out. " The epigrams contain many happy hits at
the isms and ologies of the day, as well as at individual foibles.
They were evidently thrown off hastily, and are not always perfect in
form; but they are full of pointed wit and pungency, and made an im-
mense sensation. Some writers by whom they were fiercely resented,
ought to have been gratified and grateful, since the allusions to them
in these distichs have alone saved their names from oblivion.
In the ordinary relations of life Schiller was a simple-hearted,
noble-minded, and clear-sighted man, all alive with enthusiasm and
full of delicate sensibility, but free from every sort of affectation.
He was endowed with an intellect of high order, which he spared no
pains to cultivate by assiduous and systematic study. The versatility
of his genius was remarkable; and he might have excelled as a phi-
losopher or historian, had it not been for the predominance of his
## p. 12883 (#309) ##########################################
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
12883
(
poetic gifts, to which he made all acquisitions of learning subordi
nate and contributory. Perhaps the least conspicuous of his mental
powers was humor; but the scenes in Wallenstein's Camp,' 'The
Famous Wife, an Epistle from One Husband to Another,' and some
of his epigrams and parables, show that he was by no means des-
titute of this rare faculty. Remembering that he died before he was
forty-six, and suffered severely from sickness during the last decade
of his life, one cannot but wonder at the extent and brilliancy of his
achievements as a poet and scholar.
Е. Р. Егот
TO LAURA
(RAPTURE)
AURA, above this world methinks I fly,
L
And feel the glow of some May-lighted sky,
When thy looks beam on mine!
And my soul drinks a more ethereal air,
When mine own shape I see reflected there
In those blue eyes of thine!
A lyre sound from the Paradise afar,
A harp note trembling from some gracious star,
Seems the wild ear to fill;
And my Muse feels the Golden Shepherd hours,
When from thy lips the silver music pours
Slow, as against its will.
I see the young Loves flutter on the wing —
Move the charmed trees, as when the Thracian's string
Wild life to forests gave;
Swifter the globe's swift circle seems to fly,
When in the whirling dance thou glidest by,
Light as a happy wave.
Thy looks, when there Love's smiles their gladness
wreathe,
Could life itself to lips of marble breathe,
Lend rocks a pulse divine;
Reading thine eyes, my veriest life but seems
Made up and fashioned from my wildest dreams,-
Laura, sweet Laura, mine!
Bulwer's Translation.
## p. 12884 (#310) ##########################################
12884
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
THE KNIGHT TOGGENBURG
NIGHT, a sister's quiet love
Gives my heart to thee!
Ask me not for other love,
For it paineth me!
Calmly couldst thou greet me now.
"K
Calmly from me go;
Calmly ever,-why dost thou
Weep in silence so? »
Sadly - not a word he said –
To the heart she wrung,
Sadly clasped he once the maid,
On his steed he sprung!
"Up, my men of Switzerland! »
Up, awake the brave!
Forth they go-the Red-Cross band-
To the Savior's grave!
High your deeds, and great your fame,
Heroes of the tomb!
Glancing through the carnage came
Many a dauntless plume.
Terror of the Moorish foe,
Toggenburg, thou art!
But thy heart is heavy! oh,
Heavy is thy heart!
Heavy was the load his breast
For a twelvemonth bore:
Never can his trouble rest!
And he left the shore.
Lo! a ship on Joppa's strand,
Breeze and billow fair,-
On to that beloved land
Where she breathes the air!
Knocking at the castle gate
Was the pilgrim heard;
Woe the answer from the grate!
Woe the thunder-word!
"She thou seekest lives-a Nun!
To the world she died
When, with yester-morning's sun,
Heaven received a Bride! "
## p. 12885 (#311) ##########################################
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
12885
From that day his father's hall
Ne'er his home may be;
Helm and hauberk, steed and all,
Evermore left he!
Where his castle-crownèd height
Frowns the valley down,
Dwells unknown the hermit knight,
In a sackcloth gown.
Rude the hut he built him there,
Where his eyes may view
Wall and cloister glisten fair
Dusky lindens through.
There when dawn was in the skies,
Till the eve-star shone,
Sate he with mute wistful eyes,
Sate he there alone!
Looking to the cloister still,
Looking forth afar,
Looking to her lattice till
Clinked the lattice bar.
Tilla passing glimpse allowed-
Paused her image pale,
Calm and angel-mild, and bowed
Meekly towards the vale.
Then the watch of day was o'er;
Then, consoled awhile,
Down he lay, to greet once more
Morning's early smile.
Days and years are gone, and still
Looks he forth afar,
Uncomplaining, hoping-till
Clinks the lattice bar;
a passing glimpse allowed-
Paused her image pale,
Calm and angel-mild, and bowed
Meekly towards the vale.
So upon that lonely spot
Sate he, dead at last,
With the look where life was not,
Towards the casement cast.
Till
-
Bulwer's Translation.
## p. 12886 (#312) ##########################################
12886
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
THE SHARING OF THE EARTH
AKE the world," cried the God from his heaven
To men-"I proclaim you its heirs;
To divide it amongst you 'tis given:
You have only to settle the shares. "
"TAKE
Each takes for himself as it pleases,
Old and young have alike their desire:
The harvest the husbandman seizes;
Through the wood and the chase sweeps the squire.
The merchant his warehouse is locking;
The abbot is choosing his wine;
Cries the monarch, the thoroughfare blocking,
"Every toll for the passage is mine! "
All too late, when the sharing was over,
Comes the poet,— he came from afar;
Nothing left can the laggard discover,
Not an inch but its owners there are.
"Woe is me! is there nothing remaining
For the son who best loves thee alone! "
Thus to Jove went his voice in complaining,
As he fell at the Thunderer's throne.
"In the land of thy dreams if abiding,"
Quoth the God, "Canst thou murmur at me?
Where wert thou when the earth was dividing? "
"I was," said the poet, "by thee!
"Mine eye by thy glory was captured,
Mine ear by thy music of bliss:
Pardon him whom thy world so enraptured
As to lose him his portion in this! "
"Alas," said the God, "earth is given!
Field, forest, and market, and all!
What say you to quarters in heaven?
We'll admit you whenever you call! "
Bulwer's Translation.
## p. 12887 (#313) ##########################################
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
12887
THE BEST STATE
HOW
ow the best state to know? It is found out:
Like the best woman-that least talked about.
Bulwer's Translation.
Y NO kind Augustus reared,
To no Medici endeared,
German Art arose:
Β΄
GERMAN ART
Fostering glory smiled 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.
THE MAIDEN'S LAMENT
THE
HE wind rocks the forest,
The clouds gather o'er;
The maiden sits lonely
Beside the green shore;
The breakers are dashing with might, with might:
And she mingles her sighs with the gloomy night,
And her eyes are dim with tears.
"The earth is a desert,
And broken my heart,
Nor aught to my wishes
The world can impart.
Bulwer's Translation.
## p. 12888 (#314) ##########################################
12888
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
Thou Holy One, call now thy child from below;
I have known all the joys that the world can bestow-
I have lived and have loved. " —
"In vain, oh how vainly,
Flows tear upon tear!
Human woe never waketh
Dull Death's heavy ear!
Yet say what can soothe for the sweet vanished love,
And I, the Celestial, will shed from above
The balm for thy breast. "
Let ever, though vainly,
Flow tear upon tear;
Human woe never waketh
Dull Death's heavy ear:
Yet still when the heart mourns the sweet vanished love,
No balm for its wound can descend from above
Like Love's sorrows and tears.
Bulwer's Translation.
THE MAIDEN FROM AFAR
ITHIN a vale each infant year,
When earliest larks first carol free,
To humble shepherds doth appear
A wondrous maiden fair to see.
WITH
Not born within that lowly place;
From whence she wandered, none could tell;
Her parting footsteps left no trace,
When once the maiden sighed farewell.
And blessed 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 products of a brighter sun,
Of nature more benign than ours.
With each, her gifts the maiden shared,—
To some the fruits, the flowers to some:
## p. 12889 (#315) ##########################################
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
12889
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 culled her rarest sweets whene'er
She saw two loving hearts draw near.
PUNCH SONG
F
OUR elements joined in
An emulous strife
Fashion the world and
Constitute life.
From the sharp citron
The starry juice pour:
Acid to life is
The innermost core.
Now let the sugar
The bitter one meet:
Still be life's bitter
Bulwer's Translation.
Tamed down to the sweet.
Let the bright water
Flow into the bowl:
Water, the calm one,
Embraces the whole.
Drops from the spirit
Pour quickening within:
Life but its life from
The spirit can win.
Haste while it gloweth,
Your vessel to bring:
The wave has but virtue
Drunk hot from the spring.
Bulwer's Translation.
## p. 12890 (#316) ##########################################
12890
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
WORTH OF WOMEN
ONOR to Woman! To her it is given
To garden the earth with the roses of Heaven!
All blessed, she linketh the Loves in their choir,-
In the veil of her Graces her beauty concealing,
She tends on each altar that's hallowed to Feeling,
And keeps ever living the fire!
HⓇ
From the bounds of Truth careering,
Man's strong spirit wildly sweeps,
With each hasty impulse veering,
Down to Passion's troubled deeps.
And his heart, contented never,
Greeds to grapple with the far,
Chasing his own dream forever
On through many a distant Star!
But Woman, with looks that can charm and enchain,
Lureth back at her beck that wild truant again
By the spell of her presence beguiled;
In the home of the Mother her modest abode,
And modest the manners by Nature bestowed
On Nature's most exquisite child.
Bruised and worn, but fiercely breasting,
Foe to foe, the angry strife,—
Man the Wild One, never resting,
Roams along the troubled life:
What he planneth, still pursuing;
Vainly as the hydra bleeds,
Crest the severed crest renewing,
Wish to withered wish succeeds.
But Woman at peace with all being reposes,
And seeks from the Moment to gather the roses,
Whose sweets to her culture belong.
Ah! richer than he, though his soul reigneth o'er
The mighty dominion of Genius and Lore,
And the infinite Circle of Song.
Strong and proud and self-depending,
Man's cold bosom beats alone:
Heart with heart divinely blending
In the love that Gods have known,
## p. 12891 (#317) ##########################################
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
12891
Soul's sweet interchange of feeling,
Melting tears, - he never knows;
Each hard sense the hard one steeling,
Arms against a world of foes.
Alive as the wind-harp, how lightly soever
If wooed by the Zephyr, to music will quiver,
Is Woman to Hope and to Fear;
Ah, tender one! still at the shadow of grieving,
How quiver the chords - how thy bosom is heaving-
How trembles thy glance through the tear!
Man's dominion, war and labor,
Might to right the Statute gave;
Laws are in the Scythian's sabre;
Where the Mede reigned, see the Slave!
Peace and Meekness grimly routing,
Prowls the War lust, rude and wild;
Eris rages, hoarsely shouting,
Where the vanished Graces smiled.
But Woman, the Soft One, persuasively prayeth;
Of the mild realm of manners the sceptre she swayeth;
She lulls, as she looks from above,
The Discord whose hell for its victims is gaping,
And blending awhile the forever-escaping,
Whispers Hate to the Image of Love.
RIDDLES
I
THE RAINBOW
Bulwer's Translation.
F
ROM pearls her lofty bridge she weaves,
A gray sea arching proudly over;
A moment's toil the work achieves,
And on the height behold her hover!
Beneath that arch securely go
The tallest barks that ride the seas;
No burthen e'er the bridge may know,
And as thou seek'st to near-it flees!
N
·
## p. 12892 (#318) ##########################################
12892
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
First with the floods it came, to fade
As rolled the waters from the land;
Say where that wondrous arch is made,
And whose the artist's plastic hand?
II
THE MOON AND STARS
Bulwer's Translation.
O'ER a spacious pasture go
Sheep in thousands, silver-white;
As to-day we see them, so
In the oldest grandsire's sight.
They drink, never waxing old,
Life from an unfailing brook;
There's a shepherd to their fold,
With a silver-hornèd crook.
From a gate of gold let out,
Night by night he counts them over;
Wide the field they rove about,
Never hath he lost a rover.
True the Dog that helps to lead them,
One gay Ram in front we see:
What the flock, and who doth heed them,
Sheep and shepherd,- tell to me?
Bulwer's Translation.
THE POWER OF SONG
A
RAIN-FLOOD from the mountain riven,
It leaps in thunder forth to-day;
Before its rush the crags are driven,
The oaks uprooted whirled away!
Awed yet in awe all wildly gladdening-
The startled wanderer halts below;
He hears the rock-born waters maddening,
Nor wits the source from whence they go:
So, from their high, mysterious founts, along,
Stream on the silenced world the waves of song!
## p. 12893 (#319) ##########################################
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
12893
Knit with th threads of life forever,
By those dread powers that weave the woof,-
Whose art the singer's spell can sever?
Whose breast has mail to music proof?
Lo, to the bard a wand of wonder
The herald of the gods has given;
He sinks the soul the death-realm under,
Or lifts it breathless up to heaven,-
Half sport, half earnest, rocking its devotion
Upon the tremulous ladder of emotion.
As when in hours the least unclouded,
Portentous, strides upon the scene
Some fate before from wisdom shrouded,
And awes the startled souls of men,-
Before that stranger from another,
Behold how this world's great ones bow;
Mean joys their idle clamor smother,
The mask is vanished from the brow:
And from truth's sudden, solemn flag unfurled
Fly all the craven falsehoods of the world!
―
So Song-like Fate itself—is given
To scare the idler thoughts away,
To lift the earthly up to heaven,
To wake the spirit from the clay!
One with the gods the bard: before him
All things unclean and earthly fly;
Hushed are all meaner powers, and o'er him
The dark fate swoops unharming by:
And while the soother's magic measures flow,
Smoothed every wrinkle on the brows of woe!
Even as a child, that after pining
For the sweet absent mother, hears
Her voice, and round her neck entwining
Young arms, vents all its soul in tears:
So by harsh custom far estranged,
Along the glad and guileless track,
To childhood's happy home unchanged
The swift song wafts the wanderer back,—
Snatched from the cold and formal world, and prest
By the great mother to her glowing breast!
Bulwer's Translation.
I
## p. 12894 (#320) ##########################################
12894
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
HYMN TO JOY
SPAR
PARK from the fire that gods have fed —
Joy-thou elysian child divine,
Fire-drunk, our airy footsteps tread,
O Holy One! thy holy shrine.
Strong custom rends us from each other,
Thy magic all together brings;
And man in man but hails a brother,
Wherever rest thy gentle wings.
Chorus - Embrace, ye millions-let this kiss,
Brothers, embrace the earth below!
Yon starry worlds that shine on this,
One common Father know!
He who this lot from fate can grasp,—
Of one true friend the friend to be,
He who one faithful maid can clasp,-
Shall hold with us his jubilee;
Yes, each who but one single heart
In all the earth can claim his own!
Let him who cannot, stand apart,
And weep beyond the pale, alone!
Chorus Homage to holy Sympathy,
―――
Ye dwellers in our mighty ring;
Up to yon star pavilions - she
Leads to the Unknown King!
All being drinks the mother dew
Of joy from Nature's holy bosom;
And Vice and Worth alike pursue
Her steps that strew the blossom.
Joy in each link: to us the treasure
Of Wine and Love; beneath the sod,
The worm has instincts fraught with pleasure;
In heaven the Cherub looks on God!
Chorus - Why bow ye down-why down-ye millions?
O World, thy Maker's throne to see,
Look upward - search the star pavilions:
There must his mansion be!
## p. 12895 (#321) ##########################################
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
12895
Joy is the mainspring in the whole.
Of endless Nature's calm rotation;
Joy moves the dazzling wheels that roll
In the great Timepiece of Creation;
Joy breathes on buds, and flowers they are;
Joy beckons suns come forth from heaven;
Joy rolls the spheres in realms afar,—
Ne'er to thy glass, dim Wisdom, given!
Chorus - Joyous as suns careering gay
Along their paths on high,
Joy from Truth's pure and lambent fires,
Smiles out upon the ardent seeker;
Joy leads to virtue man's desires,
And cheers as Suffering's step grows weaker.
High from the sunny slopes of Faith,
The gales her waving banners buoy;
And through the shattered vaults of Death,
Lo, 'mid the choral Angels - Joy!
Chorus
March, brothers, march your dauntless way,
As chiefs to victory!
-
- Bear this life, millions, bravely bear
Bear this life for the better one!
See the stars! a life is there,
Where the reward is won.
Men like the Gods themselves may be,
Though men may not the Gods requite;
Go soothe the pangs of Misery,
Go share the gladness with delight.
Revenge and hatred both forgot,
Have naught but pardon for thy foe;
May sharp repentance grieve him not,
No curse one tear of ours bestow!
Chorus - Let all the world be peace and love,
Cancel thy debt-book with thy brother;
For God shall judge of us above,
As we shall judge each other!
Joy sparkles to us from the bowl:
Behold the juice whose golden color
To meekness melts the savage soul,
And gives Despair a hero's valor.
## p. 12896 (#322) ##########################################
12896
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
Up, brothers! Lo, we crown the cup!
Lo, the wine flashes to the brim!
Let the bright fount spring heavenward! Up!
To the Good Spirit this glass! To him!
Chorus Praised by the ever-whirling ring
Of stars, and tuneful Seraphim,—
To the Good Spirit, the Father-King
In heaven! This glass to him!
Firm mind to bear what fate bestows;
Comfort to tears in sinless eyes;
Faith kept alike with friends and foes;
Man's oath eternal as the skies;
Manhood, the thrones of Kings to girth,
Though bought by life or limb the prize;
Success to merit's honest worth;
Perdition to the brood of lies!
---
Chorus-Draw closer in the holy ring;
YⓇ
Swear by the wine-cup's golden river,
Swear by the stars, and by their King,
To keep this vow forever.
THE GODS OF GREECE
Bulwer's Translation.
E IN the age gone by,
Who ruled the world a world how lovely then!
And guided still the steps of happy men
In the light leading-strings of careless joy!
Ah, flourished then your service of delight!
How different, oh how different, in the day
When thy sweet fanes with many a wreath were bright,
O Venus Amathusia!
Then, through a veil of dreams
Woven by song, truth's youthful beauty glowed,
And life's redundant and rejoicing streams
Gave to the soulless, soul-where'er they flowed.
Man gifted Nature with divinity
To lift and link her to the breast of love;
All things betrayed to the initiate eye
The track of gods above!
## p. 12897 (#323) ##########################################
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
12897
Where lifeless- fixed afar-
A flaming ball to our dull sense is given,
Phoebus Apollo in his golden car
In silent glory swept the fields of heaven!
On yonder hill the Oread was adored;
―
In yonder tree the Dryad held her home;
And from her urn the gentle Naiad poured
The wavelet's silver foam.
Yon bay chaste Daphne wreathed;
Yon stone was mournful Niobe's mute cell;
Low through yon sedges pastoral Syrinx breathed,
And through those groves wailed the sweet Philomel,
The tears of Ceres swelled in yonder rill—
Shed for Proserpina to Hades borne;
And for her lost Adonis, yonder hill
Heard Cytherea mourn!
Heaven's shapes were charmed unto
The mortal race of old Deucalion:
Pyrrha's fair daughter humanly to woo,
Came down, in shepherd's guise, Latona's son;
Between men, heroes, gods, harmonious then,
Love wove sweet links and sympathies divine,
Blest Amathusia,-heroes, gods, and men,
Equals before thy shrine!
Not to that culture gay,
Stern self-denial or sharp penance wan!
Well might each heart be happy in that day,
For gods, the happy ones, were kin to man!
The beautiful alone the holy there!
No pleasure shamed the gods of that young race;
So that the chaste Camenæ favoring were,
And the subduing Grace!
A palace every shrine;
Your very sports heroic;-yours the crown
Of contests hallowed to a power divine,
As rushed the chariots thundering to renown.
Fair round the altar where the incense breathed,
Moved your melodious dance inspired; and fair
Above victorious brows, the garland wreathed
Sweet leaves round odorous hair!
XXII-807
## p. 12898 (#324) ##########################################
12898
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
The lively Thyrsus-swinger,
And the wild car the exulting panthers bore,
Announced the presence of the rapture-bringer;
Bounded the satyr and blithe faun before;
And Mænads, as the frenzy stung the soul,
Hymned in their madding dance the glorious wine,
As ever beckoned to the lusty bowl
The ruddy host divine!
Before the bed of death
No ghastly spectre stood; but from the porch
Of life-the lip-one kiss inhaled the breath,
And the mute graceful genius lowered a torch.
The judgment balance of the realms below,
A judge himself of mortal lineage held;
The very Furies, at the Thracian's woe,
Were moved and music-spelled.
In the Elysian grove
The shades renewed the pleasures life held dear:
The faithful spouse rejoined remembered love,
And rushed along the meads the charioteer;
There Linus poured the old accustomed strain;
Admetus there Alcestis still could greet; won
Orestes hath his faithful friend again,
His arrows Poeas's son.
More glorious then the meeds
That in their strife with labor nerved the brave,
To the great doer of renowned deeds,
The Hebe and the heaven the Thunderer gave.
Before the rescued rescuer of the dead,
Bowed down the silent and immortal host;
And the twin stars their guiding lustre shed
On the bark tempest-tost!
Art thou, fair world, no more?
Return, thou virgin bloom on nature's face;-
Ah, only on the minstrel's magic shore,
Can we the footstep of sweet fable trace!
The meadows mourn for the old hallowing life;
Vainly we search the earth, of gods bereft;
Where once the warm and living shapes were rife,
Shadows alone are left!
## p. 12899 (#325) ##########################################
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
12899
Cold from the north has gone
Over the flowers the blast that killed their May;
And to enrich the worship of the One,
A universe of gods must pass away!
Mourning, I search on yonder starry steeps,
But thee no more, Selene, there I see!
And through the woods I call, and o'er the deeps,
And-Echo answers me!
Deaf to the joys she gives,
Blind to the pomp of which she is possessed,
Unconscious of the spiritual power that lives
Around and rules her, by our bliss unblessed,
Dull to the art that colors or creates,-
Like the dead timepiece, godless nature creeps
Her plodding round, and by the leaden weights
The slavish motion keeps.
To-morrow to receive
New life, she digs her proper grave to-day;
And icy moons with weary sameness weave
From their own light their fullness and decay.
Home to the poets' land the gods are flown;
Light use in them that later world discerns,
Which, the diviner leading-strings outgrown,
On its own axle turns.
Home! and with them are gone
The hues they gazed on and the tones they heard;
Life's beauty and life's melody; - alone
Broods o'er the desolate void the lifeless word:
Yet rescued from Time's deluge, still they throng
Unseen the Pindus they were wont to cherish:
Ah, that which gains immortal life in song,
To mortal life must perish!
Bulwer's Translation.
## p. 12900 (#326) ##########################################
12900
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
THE ARTISTS
[Only the concluding lines of this long and beautiful poem are given, in
which Schiller embodies his conceptions of the mission of art (in its broadest
sense, including poetry and all creations of the imagination), and of its rela-
tions to philosophy and science. ]
IT
F ON the course of Thought, now barrier-free,
Sweeps the glad search of bold Philosophy;
And with self-pæans and a vain renown
Would claim the praise and arrogate the crown,
Holding but as a soldier in her band
The nobler Art that did in truth command;
And grants, beneath her visionary throne,
To Art, her queen, the slave's first rank alone,—
Pardon the vaunt! For you Perfection all
Her star-gems weaves in one bright coronal!
With you, the first blooms of the spring, began
Awakening Nature in the soul of man!
With you fulfilled, when Nature seeks repose,
Autumn's exulting harvests ripely close.
If Art rose plastic from the stone and clay,
To mind from matter ever sweeps its sway;
Silent, but conquering in its silence, lo,
How o'er the spiritual world its triumphs go!
What in the land of knowledge, wide and far,
Keen science teaches, for you discovered are:
First in your arms the wise their wisdom learn,—
They dig the mine you teach them to discern;
And when that wisdom ripens to the flower
And crowning time of Beauty,-to the power
From whence it rose new stores it must impart,
The toils of science swell the wealth of art.
When to one height the sage ascends with you,
And spreads the vale of matter round his view
In the mild twilight of serene repose,-
The more the artist charms, the more the thinker knows.
The more the shapes in intellectual joy
Linked by the genii which your spells employ,
The more the thought with the emotion blends,-
The more upbuoyed by both the soul ascends
To loftier harmonies and heavenlier things,
And tracks the stream of beauty to its springs.
## p. 12901 (#327) ##########################################
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
12901
The lovely members of the mighty whole,
Till then confused and shapeless to his soul,
Distinct and glorious grow upon his sight;
The fair enigmas brighten from the night;
More rich the universe his thoughts inclose,
More wide the ocean with whose wave he flows;
The wrath of fate grows feebler to his fears,
As from God's scheme Chance wanes and disappears;
And as each straining impulse soars above,
How his pride lessens, how augments love!
So, scattering blooms, the still guide Poetry
Leads him through paths, though hid, that mount on high,
Through forms and tones more pure and more sublime,—
Alp upon Alp of beauty,- till the time
When what we long as poetry have nurst,
Shall às God's own swift inspiration burst,
And flash in glory, on that youngest day,—
One with the truth to which it wings the way!
O sons of Art! into your hands consigned,
O heed the trust, O heed it and revere!
The liberal dignity of human-kind!
With you to sink, with you to reappear.
The hallowed melody of Magian song
Does to creation as a link belong,
Blending its music with God's harmony,
As rivers melt into the mighty sea.
Truth, when the age she would reform expels,
Flies for safe refuge to the Muses' cells.
More fearful for the veil of charms she takes,
From song the fullness of her splendor breaks;
And o'er the foe that persecutes and quails
Her vengeance thunders, as the bard prevails.
Rise, ye free sons of the free Mother, rise:
Still on the light of Beauty sun your eyes;
Still to the heights that shine afar aspire,
Nor meaner meads than those she gives, desire.
If here the sister Art forsake awhile,
Elude the clasp, and vanish from the toil:
Go seek and find her at the mother's heart;
Go search for Nature - and arrive at Art!
Ever the Perfect dwells in whatsoe'er
Fair souls conceive and recognize as fair!
Borne on your daring pinions, soar sublime
Above the shoal and eddy of the time.
## p. 12902 (#328) ##########################################
12902
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
Far-glimmering on your wizard mirror, see
The silent shadow of the age to be.
Through all life's thousandfold entangled maze,
One godlike bourne your gifted sight surveys;
Through countless means one solemn end foreshown,
The labyrinth closes at a single Throne.
As in seven tints of variegated light
Breaks the lone shimmer of the lucid white,
As the seven tints that paint the Iris bow
Into the lucid white dissolving flow,-
-
So truth in many-colored splendor plays:
Now on the eye enchanted with the rays;
Now in one lustre gathers every beam,
And floods the world with light—a single stream!
Bulwer's Translation.
EXTRACTS FROM THE SONG OF THE BELL'
SEE
EE the mold of clay, well heated,
In the earth walled firmly, stand.
Be the bell to-day created!
Come, my comrades, be at hand!
From the glowing brow
Sweat must freely flow,
So the work the master showeth;
Yet the blessing Heaven bestoweth.
The work we earnestly are doing
Befitteth well an earnest word;
Then toil goes on, more briskly flowing,
When good discourse is also heard.
So let us then with care now ponder
What through weak strength originates:
To him no reverence can we render,
Who never heeds what he creates.
'Tis this indeed that man most graceth,
For this 'tis his to understand,-
That in his inner heart he traceth
What he produces with his hand.
See how brown the pipes are getting!
This little rod I dip it in;
If it show a glazèd coating,
Then the casting may begin.
## p. 12903 (#329) ##########################################
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
12903
Now my lads, enough!
Prove me now the stuff,
The brittle with the tough combining,
See if they be rightly joining.
For when the strong and mild are pairing,
The manly with the tender sharing,
Then is the concord good and strong.
See ye, who join in endless union,
If heart with heart be in communion!
For fancy's brief, repentance long.
Be the casting now beginning;
Finely jagged is the grain.
But before we set it running,
Let us breathe a pious strain.
Let the metal go!
God protect us now!
Through the bending handle hollow
Smoking shoots the fire-brown billow.
Benignant is the might of flame,
When man keeps watch and makes it tame;
In what he fashions, what he makes,
Help from this heaven's force he takes:
But fearful is this heaven's force
When all unfettered in its course;
It steps forth on its own fierce way,
Thy daughter, Nature, wild and free.
Woe! when once emancipated,
With naught her power to withstand,
Through the streets thick populated,
Waves she high her monstrous brand!
By the elements is hated
What is formed by mortal hand.
From the tower,
Heavy and slow,
Tolls the funeral
Note of woe,
Sad and solemn, with its knell attending
Some new wanderer on the last way wending.
•
Ah! the wife it is, the dear one,
Ah! it is the faithful mother,
Whom the angel dark is tearing
From the husband's arms endearing,
## p. 12904 (#330) ##########################################
12904
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
From the group of children, far,
Whom she, blooming, to him bare,
Whom she on her faithful breast
Saw with joy maternal rest;
Ah! the household ties so tender
Broken are for evermore,
For the shadow-land now holds her,
Who the household rulèd o'er!
For her faithful guidance ceases;
No more keepeth watch her care;
In the void and orphaned places
Rules the stranger, loveless there.
•
Woe! if, heaped up, the fire-tinder
Should the still heart of cities fill,
Their fetters rending all asunder,
The people work then their own will!
Then at the bell-ropes tuggeth riot;
The bell gives forth a wailing sound,-
Sacred to peace alone and quiet,
For blood it rings the signal round.
"Equality and Freedom" howling,
Rushes to arms the citizen,
And bloody-minded bands are prowling,
And streets and halls are filled with men;
Then women, to hyenas changing,
On bloody horrors feast and laugh,
And with the thirst of panthers ranging.
The blood of hearts yet quivering quaff.
Naught sacred is there more, for breaking
Are all the bands of pious awe;
The good man's place the bad are taking,
And vice acknowledges no law.
'Tis dangerous to rouse the lion,
Deadly to cross the tiger's path,
But the most terrible of terrors
Is man himself in his wild wrath.
Alas! when to the ever blinded
The heavenly torch of light is lent!
It guides him not,-it can but kindle
Whole States in flames and ruin blent.
Translation of William H. Furness.
## p. 12905 (#331) ##########################################
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
12905
TRONGLY it bears us along in swelling and limitless billows,
Nothing before and nothing behind but the sky and the ocean.
Coleridge's Translation.
WHAT
THE EPIC HEXAMETER
MA
IN
IN THE hexameter rises the fountain's silvery column;
In the pentameter aye falling in melody back.
THE DISTICH
MY CREED
T's the religion I confess? Well, none of all those
Which you mention. Why none? From sense of religion.
Translation Anonymous.
-
Coleridge's Translation.
KANT AND HIS INTERPRETERS
H
ow one man of wealth gives a living to whole hosts of beggars!
If kings only build, the carters have plenty to do.
Translation Anonymous.
AX PICCOLOMINI [advancing to Wallenstein] —
My general!
Wallenstein -
FROM WALLENSTEIN'S DEATH ›
That I am no longer, if
Thou styl'st thyself the Emperor's officer.
Then thou wilt leave the army, general?
Max-
Wallenstein I have renounced the service of the Emperor.
Max-
And thou wilt leave the army?
Wallenstein.
Rather I hope
To bind it nearer still and faster to me.
[He seats himself.
Yes, Max, I have delayed to open it to thee,
Even till the hour of acting 'gins to strike.
Youth's fortunate feeling doth seize easily
The absolute right,-yea, and a joy it is
## p. 12906 (#332) ##########################################
12906
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
Max
To exercise the single apprehension
Where the sums square in proof;
But where it happens that of two sure evils
One must be taken, where the heart not wholly
Brings itself back from out the strife of duties,
There 'tis a blessing to have no election,
And blank necessity is grace and favor.
This is now present. Do not look behind thee!
It can no more avail thee. Look thou forwards!
Think not! Judge not! Prepare thyself to act!
The Court-it hath determined on my ruin,
Therefore I will to be beforehand with them.
We'll join the Swedes-right gallant fellows are they,
And our good friends.
[He rises and retires to the back of the stage. Max remains for a long
time motionless, in a trance of excessive anguish. At his first motion
Wallenstein returns, and places himself before him. ]
Max
[He stops himself, expecting Piccolomini's answer.
I have ta'en thee by surprise. Answer me not.
I grant thee time to recollect thyself.
My general, this day thou makest me
Of age to speak in my own right and person;
For till this day I have been spared the trouble
To find out my own road. Thee have I followed
With most implicit, unconditional faith,
Sure of the right path if I followed thee.
To-day, for the first time, dost thou refer
Me to myself, and forcest me to make
Election between thee and my own heart.
Wallenstein-Soft cradled thee thy fortune till to-day:
Thy duties thou couldst exercise in sport,
Indulge all lovely instincts, act for ever
With undivided heart. It can remain
No longer thus. Like enemies, the roads
Start from each other, duties strive with duties:
Thou must needs choose thy party in the war
Which is now kindling 'twixt thy friend and him
Who is thy Emperor.
War! is that the name?
War is as frightful as Heaven's pestilence;
Yet it is good, is it Heaven's will, as that is.
Is that a good war, which against the Emperor
Thou wagest with the Emperor's own army?
## p. 12907 (#333) ##########################################
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
12907
Wallenstein —
Max
Wallenstein
Max
――
O God of heaven! What a change is this!
Beseems it me to offer such persuasion
To thee, who, like the fixed star of the Pole,
Wert all I gazed at on life's trackless ocean?
Oh, what a rent thou makest in my heart!
The ingrained instinct of old reverence,
The holy habit of obediency —
Must I pluck life asunder from thy name?
Nay, do not turn thy countenance upon me:
It always was a god looking at me!
-
Duke Wallenstein, its power is not departed:
The senses still are in thy bonds; although,
Bleeding, the soul hath freed itself.
Max, hear me.
Oh! do it not, I pray thee, do it not!
There is a pure and noble soul within thee
Knows not of this unblest, unlucky doing.
Thy will is chaste; it is thy fancy only
Which hath polluted thee - and innocence.
It will not let itself be driven away
From that world-awing aspect. Thou wilt not,
Thou canst not, end in this. It would reduce
All human creatures to disloyalty
Against the nobleness of their own nature.
'Twill justify the vulgar misbelief
Which holdeth nothing noble in free-will,
And trusts itself to impotence alone,
Made powerful only in an unknown power.
The world will judge me sternly: I expect it.
Already have I said to my own self
All thou canst say to me. Who but avoids
Th' extreme, can he by going round avoid it?
But here there is no choice. Yes, I must use
Or suffer violence,- so stands the case;
There remains nothing possible but that.
So be it then! Maintain thee in thy post
By violence. Resist the Emperor,
And if it must be, force with force repel.
I will not praise it, yet I can forgive it.
But do not be a traitor - yes! the word
Is spoken out-be not a traitor.
That is no mere excess! that is no error
Of human nature; that is wholly different;
Oh, that is black, black as the pit of hell! .
## p. 12908 (#334) ##########################################
12908
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
Oh, turn back to thy duty. That thou canst
I hold it certain. Send me to Vienna.
I'll make thy peace for thee with the Emperor.
He knows thee not. But I do know thee. He
Shall see thee, duke, with my unclouded eye,
And I bring back his confidence to thee.
Wallenstein It is too late. Thou know'st not what has happened.
Max-
Were it too late, and were it gone so far,
That a crime only could prevent thy fall,
Then-fall! fall honorably, even as thou stood'st.
Lose the command. Go from the stage of war.
Thou canst with splendor do it—do it too
With innocence. Thou hast lived much for others:
At length live thou for thy own self. I follow thee.
My destiny I never part from thine.
Wallenstein-It is too late. Even now, while thou art losing
-
Thy words, one after the other are the mile-stones
Left fast behind by my post couriers,
Who bear the order on to Prague and Egra.
[Max stands as convulsed, with a gesture and countenance expressing the
most intense anguish. ]
Yield thyself to it. We act as we are forced.
I cannot give assent to my own shame
And ruin.
citizenship of the French Republic, which had been conferred upon
him by the National Convention in 1793. In 1797 he was chosen a
member of the Academy of Sciences in Stockholm. In 1791 he had a
severe attack of catarrhal fever, from the effects of which he never
wholly recovered. Fortunately his pecuniary anxieties were partially
relieved by the Danish poet Jens Baggesen, who induced the Duke
of Holstein-Augustenburg, and the Danish minister Count von Schim-
melmann, to grant him pension of a thousand speciesdaler (equiva-
lent to about $1000), with the injunction to take care of his health
and not overwork. In the spring of 1804 he went to Berlin to a rep-
resentation of William Tell,' but the exertion caused a recurrence of
his old malady. He grew better, however; translated Racine's 'Phè-
dre' in twenty-six days, and completed two acts of a new play, 'The
False Demetrius,' when a return of catarrhal fever ended his days
on May 9th, 1805.
―
During the last ten years of his life, Schiller's relations to Goethe
were those of cordial friendship and literary co-operation; one of the
most important results of which was the joint production of a series
of satirical epigrams called 'Xenien,' and published in the Musenal-
manach in 1797. The more philosophic and less personal, or what
Schiller called the "harmless" ones, were also collected and printed
under the title of Tabulæ Votivæ (Votive Tablets). 'Xenia' (§ɛívia,
gifts to guests) is the title of the thirteenth book of the epigrams
of the Roman poet Martial, from whom the term was borrowed by
Goethe, who first mentioned it in a letter to Schiller dated December
23d, 1795; Schiller immediately replied that the idea is splendid,
and must be carried out. " The epigrams contain many happy hits at
the isms and ologies of the day, as well as at individual foibles.
They were evidently thrown off hastily, and are not always perfect in
form; but they are full of pointed wit and pungency, and made an im-
mense sensation. Some writers by whom they were fiercely resented,
ought to have been gratified and grateful, since the allusions to them
in these distichs have alone saved their names from oblivion.
In the ordinary relations of life Schiller was a simple-hearted,
noble-minded, and clear-sighted man, all alive with enthusiasm and
full of delicate sensibility, but free from every sort of affectation.
He was endowed with an intellect of high order, which he spared no
pains to cultivate by assiduous and systematic study. The versatility
of his genius was remarkable; and he might have excelled as a phi-
losopher or historian, had it not been for the predominance of his
## p. 12883 (#309) ##########################################
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
12883
(
poetic gifts, to which he made all acquisitions of learning subordi
nate and contributory. Perhaps the least conspicuous of his mental
powers was humor; but the scenes in Wallenstein's Camp,' 'The
Famous Wife, an Epistle from One Husband to Another,' and some
of his epigrams and parables, show that he was by no means des-
titute of this rare faculty. Remembering that he died before he was
forty-six, and suffered severely from sickness during the last decade
of his life, one cannot but wonder at the extent and brilliancy of his
achievements as a poet and scholar.
Е. Р. Егот
TO LAURA
(RAPTURE)
AURA, above this world methinks I fly,
L
And feel the glow of some May-lighted sky,
When thy looks beam on mine!
And my soul drinks a more ethereal air,
When mine own shape I see reflected there
In those blue eyes of thine!
A lyre sound from the Paradise afar,
A harp note trembling from some gracious star,
Seems the wild ear to fill;
And my Muse feels the Golden Shepherd hours,
When from thy lips the silver music pours
Slow, as against its will.
I see the young Loves flutter on the wing —
Move the charmed trees, as when the Thracian's string
Wild life to forests gave;
Swifter the globe's swift circle seems to fly,
When in the whirling dance thou glidest by,
Light as a happy wave.
Thy looks, when there Love's smiles their gladness
wreathe,
Could life itself to lips of marble breathe,
Lend rocks a pulse divine;
Reading thine eyes, my veriest life but seems
Made up and fashioned from my wildest dreams,-
Laura, sweet Laura, mine!
Bulwer's Translation.
## p. 12884 (#310) ##########################################
12884
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
THE KNIGHT TOGGENBURG
NIGHT, a sister's quiet love
Gives my heart to thee!
Ask me not for other love,
For it paineth me!
Calmly couldst thou greet me now.
"K
Calmly from me go;
Calmly ever,-why dost thou
Weep in silence so? »
Sadly - not a word he said –
To the heart she wrung,
Sadly clasped he once the maid,
On his steed he sprung!
"Up, my men of Switzerland! »
Up, awake the brave!
Forth they go-the Red-Cross band-
To the Savior's grave!
High your deeds, and great your fame,
Heroes of the tomb!
Glancing through the carnage came
Many a dauntless plume.
Terror of the Moorish foe,
Toggenburg, thou art!
But thy heart is heavy! oh,
Heavy is thy heart!
Heavy was the load his breast
For a twelvemonth bore:
Never can his trouble rest!
And he left the shore.
Lo! a ship on Joppa's strand,
Breeze and billow fair,-
On to that beloved land
Where she breathes the air!
Knocking at the castle gate
Was the pilgrim heard;
Woe the answer from the grate!
Woe the thunder-word!
"She thou seekest lives-a Nun!
To the world she died
When, with yester-morning's sun,
Heaven received a Bride! "
## p. 12885 (#311) ##########################################
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
12885
From that day his father's hall
Ne'er his home may be;
Helm and hauberk, steed and all,
Evermore left he!
Where his castle-crownèd height
Frowns the valley down,
Dwells unknown the hermit knight,
In a sackcloth gown.
Rude the hut he built him there,
Where his eyes may view
Wall and cloister glisten fair
Dusky lindens through.
There when dawn was in the skies,
Till the eve-star shone,
Sate he with mute wistful eyes,
Sate he there alone!
Looking to the cloister still,
Looking forth afar,
Looking to her lattice till
Clinked the lattice bar.
Tilla passing glimpse allowed-
Paused her image pale,
Calm and angel-mild, and bowed
Meekly towards the vale.
Then the watch of day was o'er;
Then, consoled awhile,
Down he lay, to greet once more
Morning's early smile.
Days and years are gone, and still
Looks he forth afar,
Uncomplaining, hoping-till
Clinks the lattice bar;
a passing glimpse allowed-
Paused her image pale,
Calm and angel-mild, and bowed
Meekly towards the vale.
So upon that lonely spot
Sate he, dead at last,
With the look where life was not,
Towards the casement cast.
Till
-
Bulwer's Translation.
## p. 12886 (#312) ##########################################
12886
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
THE SHARING OF THE EARTH
AKE the world," cried the God from his heaven
To men-"I proclaim you its heirs;
To divide it amongst you 'tis given:
You have only to settle the shares. "
"TAKE
Each takes for himself as it pleases,
Old and young have alike their desire:
The harvest the husbandman seizes;
Through the wood and the chase sweeps the squire.
The merchant his warehouse is locking;
The abbot is choosing his wine;
Cries the monarch, the thoroughfare blocking,
"Every toll for the passage is mine! "
All too late, when the sharing was over,
Comes the poet,— he came from afar;
Nothing left can the laggard discover,
Not an inch but its owners there are.
"Woe is me! is there nothing remaining
For the son who best loves thee alone! "
Thus to Jove went his voice in complaining,
As he fell at the Thunderer's throne.
"In the land of thy dreams if abiding,"
Quoth the God, "Canst thou murmur at me?
Where wert thou when the earth was dividing? "
"I was," said the poet, "by thee!
"Mine eye by thy glory was captured,
Mine ear by thy music of bliss:
Pardon him whom thy world so enraptured
As to lose him his portion in this! "
"Alas," said the God, "earth is given!
Field, forest, and market, and all!
What say you to quarters in heaven?
We'll admit you whenever you call! "
Bulwer's Translation.
## p. 12887 (#313) ##########################################
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
12887
THE BEST STATE
HOW
ow the best state to know? It is found out:
Like the best woman-that least talked about.
Bulwer's Translation.
Y NO kind Augustus reared,
To no Medici endeared,
German Art arose:
Β΄
GERMAN ART
Fostering glory smiled 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.
THE MAIDEN'S LAMENT
THE
HE wind rocks the forest,
The clouds gather o'er;
The maiden sits lonely
Beside the green shore;
The breakers are dashing with might, with might:
And she mingles her sighs with the gloomy night,
And her eyes are dim with tears.
"The earth is a desert,
And broken my heart,
Nor aught to my wishes
The world can impart.
Bulwer's Translation.
## p. 12888 (#314) ##########################################
12888
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
Thou Holy One, call now thy child from below;
I have known all the joys that the world can bestow-
I have lived and have loved. " —
"In vain, oh how vainly,
Flows tear upon tear!
Human woe never waketh
Dull Death's heavy ear!
Yet say what can soothe for the sweet vanished love,
And I, the Celestial, will shed from above
The balm for thy breast. "
Let ever, though vainly,
Flow tear upon tear;
Human woe never waketh
Dull Death's heavy ear:
Yet still when the heart mourns the sweet vanished love,
No balm for its wound can descend from above
Like Love's sorrows and tears.
Bulwer's Translation.
THE MAIDEN FROM AFAR
ITHIN a vale each infant year,
When earliest larks first carol free,
To humble shepherds doth appear
A wondrous maiden fair to see.
WITH
Not born within that lowly place;
From whence she wandered, none could tell;
Her parting footsteps left no trace,
When once the maiden sighed farewell.
And blessed 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 products of a brighter sun,
Of nature more benign than ours.
With each, her gifts the maiden shared,—
To some the fruits, the flowers to some:
## p. 12889 (#315) ##########################################
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
12889
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 culled her rarest sweets whene'er
She saw two loving hearts draw near.
PUNCH SONG
F
OUR elements joined in
An emulous strife
Fashion the world and
Constitute life.
From the sharp citron
The starry juice pour:
Acid to life is
The innermost core.
Now let the sugar
The bitter one meet:
Still be life's bitter
Bulwer's Translation.
Tamed down to the sweet.
Let the bright water
Flow into the bowl:
Water, the calm one,
Embraces the whole.
Drops from the spirit
Pour quickening within:
Life but its life from
The spirit can win.
Haste while it gloweth,
Your vessel to bring:
The wave has but virtue
Drunk hot from the spring.
Bulwer's Translation.
## p. 12890 (#316) ##########################################
12890
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
WORTH OF WOMEN
ONOR to Woman! To her it is given
To garden the earth with the roses of Heaven!
All blessed, she linketh the Loves in their choir,-
In the veil of her Graces her beauty concealing,
She tends on each altar that's hallowed to Feeling,
And keeps ever living the fire!
HⓇ
From the bounds of Truth careering,
Man's strong spirit wildly sweeps,
With each hasty impulse veering,
Down to Passion's troubled deeps.
And his heart, contented never,
Greeds to grapple with the far,
Chasing his own dream forever
On through many a distant Star!
But Woman, with looks that can charm and enchain,
Lureth back at her beck that wild truant again
By the spell of her presence beguiled;
In the home of the Mother her modest abode,
And modest the manners by Nature bestowed
On Nature's most exquisite child.
Bruised and worn, but fiercely breasting,
Foe to foe, the angry strife,—
Man the Wild One, never resting,
Roams along the troubled life:
What he planneth, still pursuing;
Vainly as the hydra bleeds,
Crest the severed crest renewing,
Wish to withered wish succeeds.
But Woman at peace with all being reposes,
And seeks from the Moment to gather the roses,
Whose sweets to her culture belong.
Ah! richer than he, though his soul reigneth o'er
The mighty dominion of Genius and Lore,
And the infinite Circle of Song.
Strong and proud and self-depending,
Man's cold bosom beats alone:
Heart with heart divinely blending
In the love that Gods have known,
## p. 12891 (#317) ##########################################
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
12891
Soul's sweet interchange of feeling,
Melting tears, - he never knows;
Each hard sense the hard one steeling,
Arms against a world of foes.
Alive as the wind-harp, how lightly soever
If wooed by the Zephyr, to music will quiver,
Is Woman to Hope and to Fear;
Ah, tender one! still at the shadow of grieving,
How quiver the chords - how thy bosom is heaving-
How trembles thy glance through the tear!
Man's dominion, war and labor,
Might to right the Statute gave;
Laws are in the Scythian's sabre;
Where the Mede reigned, see the Slave!
Peace and Meekness grimly routing,
Prowls the War lust, rude and wild;
Eris rages, hoarsely shouting,
Where the vanished Graces smiled.
But Woman, the Soft One, persuasively prayeth;
Of the mild realm of manners the sceptre she swayeth;
She lulls, as she looks from above,
The Discord whose hell for its victims is gaping,
And blending awhile the forever-escaping,
Whispers Hate to the Image of Love.
RIDDLES
I
THE RAINBOW
Bulwer's Translation.
F
ROM pearls her lofty bridge she weaves,
A gray sea arching proudly over;
A moment's toil the work achieves,
And on the height behold her hover!
Beneath that arch securely go
The tallest barks that ride the seas;
No burthen e'er the bridge may know,
And as thou seek'st to near-it flees!
N
·
## p. 12892 (#318) ##########################################
12892
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
First with the floods it came, to fade
As rolled the waters from the land;
Say where that wondrous arch is made,
And whose the artist's plastic hand?
II
THE MOON AND STARS
Bulwer's Translation.
O'ER a spacious pasture go
Sheep in thousands, silver-white;
As to-day we see them, so
In the oldest grandsire's sight.
They drink, never waxing old,
Life from an unfailing brook;
There's a shepherd to their fold,
With a silver-hornèd crook.
From a gate of gold let out,
Night by night he counts them over;
Wide the field they rove about,
Never hath he lost a rover.
True the Dog that helps to lead them,
One gay Ram in front we see:
What the flock, and who doth heed them,
Sheep and shepherd,- tell to me?
Bulwer's Translation.
THE POWER OF SONG
A
RAIN-FLOOD from the mountain riven,
It leaps in thunder forth to-day;
Before its rush the crags are driven,
The oaks uprooted whirled away!
Awed yet in awe all wildly gladdening-
The startled wanderer halts below;
He hears the rock-born waters maddening,
Nor wits the source from whence they go:
So, from their high, mysterious founts, along,
Stream on the silenced world the waves of song!
## p. 12893 (#319) ##########################################
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
12893
Knit with th threads of life forever,
By those dread powers that weave the woof,-
Whose art the singer's spell can sever?
Whose breast has mail to music proof?
Lo, to the bard a wand of wonder
The herald of the gods has given;
He sinks the soul the death-realm under,
Or lifts it breathless up to heaven,-
Half sport, half earnest, rocking its devotion
Upon the tremulous ladder of emotion.
As when in hours the least unclouded,
Portentous, strides upon the scene
Some fate before from wisdom shrouded,
And awes the startled souls of men,-
Before that stranger from another,
Behold how this world's great ones bow;
Mean joys their idle clamor smother,
The mask is vanished from the brow:
And from truth's sudden, solemn flag unfurled
Fly all the craven falsehoods of the world!
―
So Song-like Fate itself—is given
To scare the idler thoughts away,
To lift the earthly up to heaven,
To wake the spirit from the clay!
One with the gods the bard: before him
All things unclean and earthly fly;
Hushed are all meaner powers, and o'er him
The dark fate swoops unharming by:
And while the soother's magic measures flow,
Smoothed every wrinkle on the brows of woe!
Even as a child, that after pining
For the sweet absent mother, hears
Her voice, and round her neck entwining
Young arms, vents all its soul in tears:
So by harsh custom far estranged,
Along the glad and guileless track,
To childhood's happy home unchanged
The swift song wafts the wanderer back,—
Snatched from the cold and formal world, and prest
By the great mother to her glowing breast!
Bulwer's Translation.
I
## p. 12894 (#320) ##########################################
12894
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
HYMN TO JOY
SPAR
PARK from the fire that gods have fed —
Joy-thou elysian child divine,
Fire-drunk, our airy footsteps tread,
O Holy One! thy holy shrine.
Strong custom rends us from each other,
Thy magic all together brings;
And man in man but hails a brother,
Wherever rest thy gentle wings.
Chorus - Embrace, ye millions-let this kiss,
Brothers, embrace the earth below!
Yon starry worlds that shine on this,
One common Father know!
He who this lot from fate can grasp,—
Of one true friend the friend to be,
He who one faithful maid can clasp,-
Shall hold with us his jubilee;
Yes, each who but one single heart
In all the earth can claim his own!
Let him who cannot, stand apart,
And weep beyond the pale, alone!
Chorus Homage to holy Sympathy,
―――
Ye dwellers in our mighty ring;
Up to yon star pavilions - she
Leads to the Unknown King!
All being drinks the mother dew
Of joy from Nature's holy bosom;
And Vice and Worth alike pursue
Her steps that strew the blossom.
Joy in each link: to us the treasure
Of Wine and Love; beneath the sod,
The worm has instincts fraught with pleasure;
In heaven the Cherub looks on God!
Chorus - Why bow ye down-why down-ye millions?
O World, thy Maker's throne to see,
Look upward - search the star pavilions:
There must his mansion be!
## p. 12895 (#321) ##########################################
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
12895
Joy is the mainspring in the whole.
Of endless Nature's calm rotation;
Joy moves the dazzling wheels that roll
In the great Timepiece of Creation;
Joy breathes on buds, and flowers they are;
Joy beckons suns come forth from heaven;
Joy rolls the spheres in realms afar,—
Ne'er to thy glass, dim Wisdom, given!
Chorus - Joyous as suns careering gay
Along their paths on high,
Joy from Truth's pure and lambent fires,
Smiles out upon the ardent seeker;
Joy leads to virtue man's desires,
And cheers as Suffering's step grows weaker.
High from the sunny slopes of Faith,
The gales her waving banners buoy;
And through the shattered vaults of Death,
Lo, 'mid the choral Angels - Joy!
Chorus
March, brothers, march your dauntless way,
As chiefs to victory!
-
- Bear this life, millions, bravely bear
Bear this life for the better one!
See the stars! a life is there,
Where the reward is won.
Men like the Gods themselves may be,
Though men may not the Gods requite;
Go soothe the pangs of Misery,
Go share the gladness with delight.
Revenge and hatred both forgot,
Have naught but pardon for thy foe;
May sharp repentance grieve him not,
No curse one tear of ours bestow!
Chorus - Let all the world be peace and love,
Cancel thy debt-book with thy brother;
For God shall judge of us above,
As we shall judge each other!
Joy sparkles to us from the bowl:
Behold the juice whose golden color
To meekness melts the savage soul,
And gives Despair a hero's valor.
## p. 12896 (#322) ##########################################
12896
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
Up, brothers! Lo, we crown the cup!
Lo, the wine flashes to the brim!
Let the bright fount spring heavenward! Up!
To the Good Spirit this glass! To him!
Chorus Praised by the ever-whirling ring
Of stars, and tuneful Seraphim,—
To the Good Spirit, the Father-King
In heaven! This glass to him!
Firm mind to bear what fate bestows;
Comfort to tears in sinless eyes;
Faith kept alike with friends and foes;
Man's oath eternal as the skies;
Manhood, the thrones of Kings to girth,
Though bought by life or limb the prize;
Success to merit's honest worth;
Perdition to the brood of lies!
---
Chorus-Draw closer in the holy ring;
YⓇ
Swear by the wine-cup's golden river,
Swear by the stars, and by their King,
To keep this vow forever.
THE GODS OF GREECE
Bulwer's Translation.
E IN the age gone by,
Who ruled the world a world how lovely then!
And guided still the steps of happy men
In the light leading-strings of careless joy!
Ah, flourished then your service of delight!
How different, oh how different, in the day
When thy sweet fanes with many a wreath were bright,
O Venus Amathusia!
Then, through a veil of dreams
Woven by song, truth's youthful beauty glowed,
And life's redundant and rejoicing streams
Gave to the soulless, soul-where'er they flowed.
Man gifted Nature with divinity
To lift and link her to the breast of love;
All things betrayed to the initiate eye
The track of gods above!
## p. 12897 (#323) ##########################################
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
12897
Where lifeless- fixed afar-
A flaming ball to our dull sense is given,
Phoebus Apollo in his golden car
In silent glory swept the fields of heaven!
On yonder hill the Oread was adored;
―
In yonder tree the Dryad held her home;
And from her urn the gentle Naiad poured
The wavelet's silver foam.
Yon bay chaste Daphne wreathed;
Yon stone was mournful Niobe's mute cell;
Low through yon sedges pastoral Syrinx breathed,
And through those groves wailed the sweet Philomel,
The tears of Ceres swelled in yonder rill—
Shed for Proserpina to Hades borne;
And for her lost Adonis, yonder hill
Heard Cytherea mourn!
Heaven's shapes were charmed unto
The mortal race of old Deucalion:
Pyrrha's fair daughter humanly to woo,
Came down, in shepherd's guise, Latona's son;
Between men, heroes, gods, harmonious then,
Love wove sweet links and sympathies divine,
Blest Amathusia,-heroes, gods, and men,
Equals before thy shrine!
Not to that culture gay,
Stern self-denial or sharp penance wan!
Well might each heart be happy in that day,
For gods, the happy ones, were kin to man!
The beautiful alone the holy there!
No pleasure shamed the gods of that young race;
So that the chaste Camenæ favoring were,
And the subduing Grace!
A palace every shrine;
Your very sports heroic;-yours the crown
Of contests hallowed to a power divine,
As rushed the chariots thundering to renown.
Fair round the altar where the incense breathed,
Moved your melodious dance inspired; and fair
Above victorious brows, the garland wreathed
Sweet leaves round odorous hair!
XXII-807
## p. 12898 (#324) ##########################################
12898
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
The lively Thyrsus-swinger,
And the wild car the exulting panthers bore,
Announced the presence of the rapture-bringer;
Bounded the satyr and blithe faun before;
And Mænads, as the frenzy stung the soul,
Hymned in their madding dance the glorious wine,
As ever beckoned to the lusty bowl
The ruddy host divine!
Before the bed of death
No ghastly spectre stood; but from the porch
Of life-the lip-one kiss inhaled the breath,
And the mute graceful genius lowered a torch.
The judgment balance of the realms below,
A judge himself of mortal lineage held;
The very Furies, at the Thracian's woe,
Were moved and music-spelled.
In the Elysian grove
The shades renewed the pleasures life held dear:
The faithful spouse rejoined remembered love,
And rushed along the meads the charioteer;
There Linus poured the old accustomed strain;
Admetus there Alcestis still could greet; won
Orestes hath his faithful friend again,
His arrows Poeas's son.
More glorious then the meeds
That in their strife with labor nerved the brave,
To the great doer of renowned deeds,
The Hebe and the heaven the Thunderer gave.
Before the rescued rescuer of the dead,
Bowed down the silent and immortal host;
And the twin stars their guiding lustre shed
On the bark tempest-tost!
Art thou, fair world, no more?
Return, thou virgin bloom on nature's face;-
Ah, only on the minstrel's magic shore,
Can we the footstep of sweet fable trace!
The meadows mourn for the old hallowing life;
Vainly we search the earth, of gods bereft;
Where once the warm and living shapes were rife,
Shadows alone are left!
## p. 12899 (#325) ##########################################
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
12899
Cold from the north has gone
Over the flowers the blast that killed their May;
And to enrich the worship of the One,
A universe of gods must pass away!
Mourning, I search on yonder starry steeps,
But thee no more, Selene, there I see!
And through the woods I call, and o'er the deeps,
And-Echo answers me!
Deaf to the joys she gives,
Blind to the pomp of which she is possessed,
Unconscious of the spiritual power that lives
Around and rules her, by our bliss unblessed,
Dull to the art that colors or creates,-
Like the dead timepiece, godless nature creeps
Her plodding round, and by the leaden weights
The slavish motion keeps.
To-morrow to receive
New life, she digs her proper grave to-day;
And icy moons with weary sameness weave
From their own light their fullness and decay.
Home to the poets' land the gods are flown;
Light use in them that later world discerns,
Which, the diviner leading-strings outgrown,
On its own axle turns.
Home! and with them are gone
The hues they gazed on and the tones they heard;
Life's beauty and life's melody; - alone
Broods o'er the desolate void the lifeless word:
Yet rescued from Time's deluge, still they throng
Unseen the Pindus they were wont to cherish:
Ah, that which gains immortal life in song,
To mortal life must perish!
Bulwer's Translation.
## p. 12900 (#326) ##########################################
12900
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
THE ARTISTS
[Only the concluding lines of this long and beautiful poem are given, in
which Schiller embodies his conceptions of the mission of art (in its broadest
sense, including poetry and all creations of the imagination), and of its rela-
tions to philosophy and science. ]
IT
F ON the course of Thought, now barrier-free,
Sweeps the glad search of bold Philosophy;
And with self-pæans and a vain renown
Would claim the praise and arrogate the crown,
Holding but as a soldier in her band
The nobler Art that did in truth command;
And grants, beneath her visionary throne,
To Art, her queen, the slave's first rank alone,—
Pardon the vaunt! For you Perfection all
Her star-gems weaves in one bright coronal!
With you, the first blooms of the spring, began
Awakening Nature in the soul of man!
With you fulfilled, when Nature seeks repose,
Autumn's exulting harvests ripely close.
If Art rose plastic from the stone and clay,
To mind from matter ever sweeps its sway;
Silent, but conquering in its silence, lo,
How o'er the spiritual world its triumphs go!
What in the land of knowledge, wide and far,
Keen science teaches, for you discovered are:
First in your arms the wise their wisdom learn,—
They dig the mine you teach them to discern;
And when that wisdom ripens to the flower
And crowning time of Beauty,-to the power
From whence it rose new stores it must impart,
The toils of science swell the wealth of art.
When to one height the sage ascends with you,
And spreads the vale of matter round his view
In the mild twilight of serene repose,-
The more the artist charms, the more the thinker knows.
The more the shapes in intellectual joy
Linked by the genii which your spells employ,
The more the thought with the emotion blends,-
The more upbuoyed by both the soul ascends
To loftier harmonies and heavenlier things,
And tracks the stream of beauty to its springs.
## p. 12901 (#327) ##########################################
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
12901
The lovely members of the mighty whole,
Till then confused and shapeless to his soul,
Distinct and glorious grow upon his sight;
The fair enigmas brighten from the night;
More rich the universe his thoughts inclose,
More wide the ocean with whose wave he flows;
The wrath of fate grows feebler to his fears,
As from God's scheme Chance wanes and disappears;
And as each straining impulse soars above,
How his pride lessens, how augments love!
So, scattering blooms, the still guide Poetry
Leads him through paths, though hid, that mount on high,
Through forms and tones more pure and more sublime,—
Alp upon Alp of beauty,- till the time
When what we long as poetry have nurst,
Shall às God's own swift inspiration burst,
And flash in glory, on that youngest day,—
One with the truth to which it wings the way!
O sons of Art! into your hands consigned,
O heed the trust, O heed it and revere!
The liberal dignity of human-kind!
With you to sink, with you to reappear.
The hallowed melody of Magian song
Does to creation as a link belong,
Blending its music with God's harmony,
As rivers melt into the mighty sea.
Truth, when the age she would reform expels,
Flies for safe refuge to the Muses' cells.
More fearful for the veil of charms she takes,
From song the fullness of her splendor breaks;
And o'er the foe that persecutes and quails
Her vengeance thunders, as the bard prevails.
Rise, ye free sons of the free Mother, rise:
Still on the light of Beauty sun your eyes;
Still to the heights that shine afar aspire,
Nor meaner meads than those she gives, desire.
If here the sister Art forsake awhile,
Elude the clasp, and vanish from the toil:
Go seek and find her at the mother's heart;
Go search for Nature - and arrive at Art!
Ever the Perfect dwells in whatsoe'er
Fair souls conceive and recognize as fair!
Borne on your daring pinions, soar sublime
Above the shoal and eddy of the time.
## p. 12902 (#328) ##########################################
12902
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
Far-glimmering on your wizard mirror, see
The silent shadow of the age to be.
Through all life's thousandfold entangled maze,
One godlike bourne your gifted sight surveys;
Through countless means one solemn end foreshown,
The labyrinth closes at a single Throne.
As in seven tints of variegated light
Breaks the lone shimmer of the lucid white,
As the seven tints that paint the Iris bow
Into the lucid white dissolving flow,-
-
So truth in many-colored splendor plays:
Now on the eye enchanted with the rays;
Now in one lustre gathers every beam,
And floods the world with light—a single stream!
Bulwer's Translation.
EXTRACTS FROM THE SONG OF THE BELL'
SEE
EE the mold of clay, well heated,
In the earth walled firmly, stand.
Be the bell to-day created!
Come, my comrades, be at hand!
From the glowing brow
Sweat must freely flow,
So the work the master showeth;
Yet the blessing Heaven bestoweth.
The work we earnestly are doing
Befitteth well an earnest word;
Then toil goes on, more briskly flowing,
When good discourse is also heard.
So let us then with care now ponder
What through weak strength originates:
To him no reverence can we render,
Who never heeds what he creates.
'Tis this indeed that man most graceth,
For this 'tis his to understand,-
That in his inner heart he traceth
What he produces with his hand.
See how brown the pipes are getting!
This little rod I dip it in;
If it show a glazèd coating,
Then the casting may begin.
## p. 12903 (#329) ##########################################
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
12903
Now my lads, enough!
Prove me now the stuff,
The brittle with the tough combining,
See if they be rightly joining.
For when the strong and mild are pairing,
The manly with the tender sharing,
Then is the concord good and strong.
See ye, who join in endless union,
If heart with heart be in communion!
For fancy's brief, repentance long.
Be the casting now beginning;
Finely jagged is the grain.
But before we set it running,
Let us breathe a pious strain.
Let the metal go!
God protect us now!
Through the bending handle hollow
Smoking shoots the fire-brown billow.
Benignant is the might of flame,
When man keeps watch and makes it tame;
In what he fashions, what he makes,
Help from this heaven's force he takes:
But fearful is this heaven's force
When all unfettered in its course;
It steps forth on its own fierce way,
Thy daughter, Nature, wild and free.
Woe! when once emancipated,
With naught her power to withstand,
Through the streets thick populated,
Waves she high her monstrous brand!
By the elements is hated
What is formed by mortal hand.
From the tower,
Heavy and slow,
Tolls the funeral
Note of woe,
Sad and solemn, with its knell attending
Some new wanderer on the last way wending.
•
Ah! the wife it is, the dear one,
Ah! it is the faithful mother,
Whom the angel dark is tearing
From the husband's arms endearing,
## p. 12904 (#330) ##########################################
12904
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
From the group of children, far,
Whom she, blooming, to him bare,
Whom she on her faithful breast
Saw with joy maternal rest;
Ah! the household ties so tender
Broken are for evermore,
For the shadow-land now holds her,
Who the household rulèd o'er!
For her faithful guidance ceases;
No more keepeth watch her care;
In the void and orphaned places
Rules the stranger, loveless there.
•
Woe! if, heaped up, the fire-tinder
Should the still heart of cities fill,
Their fetters rending all asunder,
The people work then their own will!
Then at the bell-ropes tuggeth riot;
The bell gives forth a wailing sound,-
Sacred to peace alone and quiet,
For blood it rings the signal round.
"Equality and Freedom" howling,
Rushes to arms the citizen,
And bloody-minded bands are prowling,
And streets and halls are filled with men;
Then women, to hyenas changing,
On bloody horrors feast and laugh,
And with the thirst of panthers ranging.
The blood of hearts yet quivering quaff.
Naught sacred is there more, for breaking
Are all the bands of pious awe;
The good man's place the bad are taking,
And vice acknowledges no law.
'Tis dangerous to rouse the lion,
Deadly to cross the tiger's path,
But the most terrible of terrors
Is man himself in his wild wrath.
Alas! when to the ever blinded
The heavenly torch of light is lent!
It guides him not,-it can but kindle
Whole States in flames and ruin blent.
Translation of William H. Furness.
## p. 12905 (#331) ##########################################
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
12905
TRONGLY it bears us along in swelling and limitless billows,
Nothing before and nothing behind but the sky and the ocean.
Coleridge's Translation.
WHAT
THE EPIC HEXAMETER
MA
IN
IN THE hexameter rises the fountain's silvery column;
In the pentameter aye falling in melody back.
THE DISTICH
MY CREED
T's the religion I confess? Well, none of all those
Which you mention. Why none? From sense of religion.
Translation Anonymous.
-
Coleridge's Translation.
KANT AND HIS INTERPRETERS
H
ow one man of wealth gives a living to whole hosts of beggars!
If kings only build, the carters have plenty to do.
Translation Anonymous.
AX PICCOLOMINI [advancing to Wallenstein] —
My general!
Wallenstein -
FROM WALLENSTEIN'S DEATH ›
That I am no longer, if
Thou styl'st thyself the Emperor's officer.
Then thou wilt leave the army, general?
Max-
Wallenstein I have renounced the service of the Emperor.
Max-
And thou wilt leave the army?
Wallenstein.
Rather I hope
To bind it nearer still and faster to me.
[He seats himself.
Yes, Max, I have delayed to open it to thee,
Even till the hour of acting 'gins to strike.
Youth's fortunate feeling doth seize easily
The absolute right,-yea, and a joy it is
## p. 12906 (#332) ##########################################
12906
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
Max
To exercise the single apprehension
Where the sums square in proof;
But where it happens that of two sure evils
One must be taken, where the heart not wholly
Brings itself back from out the strife of duties,
There 'tis a blessing to have no election,
And blank necessity is grace and favor.
This is now present. Do not look behind thee!
It can no more avail thee. Look thou forwards!
Think not! Judge not! Prepare thyself to act!
The Court-it hath determined on my ruin,
Therefore I will to be beforehand with them.
We'll join the Swedes-right gallant fellows are they,
And our good friends.
[He rises and retires to the back of the stage. Max remains for a long
time motionless, in a trance of excessive anguish. At his first motion
Wallenstein returns, and places himself before him. ]
Max
[He stops himself, expecting Piccolomini's answer.
I have ta'en thee by surprise. Answer me not.
I grant thee time to recollect thyself.
My general, this day thou makest me
Of age to speak in my own right and person;
For till this day I have been spared the trouble
To find out my own road. Thee have I followed
With most implicit, unconditional faith,
Sure of the right path if I followed thee.
To-day, for the first time, dost thou refer
Me to myself, and forcest me to make
Election between thee and my own heart.
Wallenstein-Soft cradled thee thy fortune till to-day:
Thy duties thou couldst exercise in sport,
Indulge all lovely instincts, act for ever
With undivided heart. It can remain
No longer thus. Like enemies, the roads
Start from each other, duties strive with duties:
Thou must needs choose thy party in the war
Which is now kindling 'twixt thy friend and him
Who is thy Emperor.
War! is that the name?
War is as frightful as Heaven's pestilence;
Yet it is good, is it Heaven's will, as that is.
Is that a good war, which against the Emperor
Thou wagest with the Emperor's own army?
## p. 12907 (#333) ##########################################
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
12907
Wallenstein —
Max
Wallenstein
Max
――
O God of heaven! What a change is this!
Beseems it me to offer such persuasion
To thee, who, like the fixed star of the Pole,
Wert all I gazed at on life's trackless ocean?
Oh, what a rent thou makest in my heart!
The ingrained instinct of old reverence,
The holy habit of obediency —
Must I pluck life asunder from thy name?
Nay, do not turn thy countenance upon me:
It always was a god looking at me!
-
Duke Wallenstein, its power is not departed:
The senses still are in thy bonds; although,
Bleeding, the soul hath freed itself.
Max, hear me.
Oh! do it not, I pray thee, do it not!
There is a pure and noble soul within thee
Knows not of this unblest, unlucky doing.
Thy will is chaste; it is thy fancy only
Which hath polluted thee - and innocence.
It will not let itself be driven away
From that world-awing aspect. Thou wilt not,
Thou canst not, end in this. It would reduce
All human creatures to disloyalty
Against the nobleness of their own nature.
'Twill justify the vulgar misbelief
Which holdeth nothing noble in free-will,
And trusts itself to impotence alone,
Made powerful only in an unknown power.
The world will judge me sternly: I expect it.
Already have I said to my own self
All thou canst say to me. Who but avoids
Th' extreme, can he by going round avoid it?
But here there is no choice. Yes, I must use
Or suffer violence,- so stands the case;
There remains nothing possible but that.
So be it then! Maintain thee in thy post
By violence. Resist the Emperor,
And if it must be, force with force repel.
I will not praise it, yet I can forgive it.
But do not be a traitor - yes! the word
Is spoken out-be not a traitor.
That is no mere excess! that is no error
Of human nature; that is wholly different;
Oh, that is black, black as the pit of hell! .
## p. 12908 (#334) ##########################################
12908
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
Oh, turn back to thy duty. That thou canst
I hold it certain. Send me to Vienna.
I'll make thy peace for thee with the Emperor.
He knows thee not. But I do know thee. He
Shall see thee, duke, with my unclouded eye,
And I bring back his confidence to thee.
Wallenstein It is too late. Thou know'st not what has happened.
Max-
Were it too late, and were it gone so far,
That a crime only could prevent thy fall,
Then-fall! fall honorably, even as thou stood'st.
Lose the command. Go from the stage of war.
Thou canst with splendor do it—do it too
With innocence. Thou hast lived much for others:
At length live thou for thy own self. I follow thee.
My destiny I never part from thine.
Wallenstein-It is too late. Even now, while thou art losing
-
Thy words, one after the other are the mile-stones
Left fast behind by my post couriers,
Who bear the order on to Prague and Egra.
[Max stands as convulsed, with a gesture and countenance expressing the
most intense anguish. ]
Yield thyself to it. We act as we are forced.
I cannot give assent to my own shame
And ruin.
