Poems of The Second Period, Friedrich Schiller [best story books to read txt] 📗

of Ceres swelled in yonder rill--
Tears shed for Proserpine 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-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 Camoenae favoring were,
And the subduing grace!

A palace every shrine;
Your 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!

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 Maenads, as the frenzy stung the soul,
Hymned in their maddening 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; his
Friend there once more Orestes could regain,
His arrows--Philoctetes!

More glorious than 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 [10] of the dead,
Bowed down the silent and immortal host;
And the twain stars [11] their guiding lustre shed,
On the bark tempest-tossed!

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!

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 fulness and decay.
Home to the poet's 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:
All, that which gains immortal life in song,
To mortal life must perish!


RESIGNATION.

Yes! even I was in Arcadia born,
And, in mine infant ears,
A vow of rapture was by Nature sworn;--
Yes! even I was in Arcadia born,
And yet my short spring gave me only--tears!

Once blooms, and only once, life's youthful May;
For me its bloom hath gone.
The silent God--O brethren, weep to-day--
The silent God hath quenched my torch's ray,
And the vain dream hath flown.

Upon thy darksome bridge, Eternity,
I stand e'en now, dread thought!
Take, then, these joy-credentials back from me!
Unopened I return them now to thee,
Of happiness, alas, know naught!

Before Thy throne my mournful cries I vent,
Thou Judge, concealed from view!
To yonder star a joyous saying went
With judgment's scales to rule us thou art sent,
And call'st thyself Requiter, too!

Here,--say they,--terrors on the bad alight,
And joys to greet the virtuous spring.
The bosom's windings thou'lt expose to sight,
Riddle of Providence wilt solve aright,
And reckon with the suffering!

Here to the exile be a home outspread,
Here end the meek man's thorny path of strife!
A godlike child, whose name was Truth, they said,
Known but to few, from whom the many fled,
Restrained the ardent bridle of my life.

"It shall be thine another life to live,--
Thy youth to me surrender!
To thee this surety only can I give"--
I took the surety in that life to live;
And gave to her each youthful joy so tender.

"Give me the woman precious to thy heart,
Give up to me thy Laura!
Beyond the grave will usury pay the smart."--
I wept aloud, and from my bleeding heart
With resignation tore her.

"The obligation's drawn upon the dead!"
Thus laughed the world in scorn;
"The lying one, in league with despots dread,
For truth, a phantom palmed on thee instead,
Thou'lt be no more, when once this dream has gone!"

Shamelessly scoffed the mockers' serpent-band
"A dream that but prescription can admit
Dost dread? Where now thy God's protecting hand,
(The sick world's Saviour with such cunning planned),
Borrowed by human need of human wit?"

"What future is't that graves to us reveal?
What the eternity of thy discourse?
Honored because dark veils its form conceal,
The giant-shadows of the awe we feel,
Viewed in the hollow mirror of remorse!"

"An image false of shapes of living mould,
(Time's very mummy, she!)
Whom only Hope's sweet balm hath power to hold
Within the chambers of the grave so cold,--
Thy fever calls this immortality!"

"For empty hopes,--corruption gives the lie--
Didst thou exchange what thou hadst surely done?
Six thousand years sped death in silence by,--
His corpse from out the grave e'er mounted high,
That mention made of the Requiting One?"

I saw time fly to reach thy distant shore,
I saw fair Nature lie
A shrivelled corpse behind him evermore,--
No dead from out the grave then sought to soar
Yet in that Oath divine still trusted I.

My ev'ry joy to thee I've sacrificed,
I throw me now before thy judgment-throne;
The many's scorn with boldness I've despised,--
Only--thy gifts by me were ever prized,--
I ask my wages now, Requiting One!

"With equal love I love each child of mine!"
A genius hid from sight exclaimed.
"Two flowers," he cried, "ye mortals, mark the sign,--
Two flowers to greet the Searcher wise entwine,--
Hope and Enjoyment they are named."

"Who of these flowers plucks one, let him ne'er yearn
To touch the other sister's bloom.
Let him enjoy, who has no faith; eterne
As earth, this truth!--Abstain, who faith can learn!
The world's long story is the world's own doom."

"Hope thou hast felt,--thy wages, then, are paid;