The Poems of Schiller — Third period

POMPEII AND HERCULANEUM

 
   What wonder this? — we ask the lympid well,
   O earth! of thee — and from thy solemn womb
   What yieldest thou? — is there life in the abyss —
   Doth a new race beneath the lava dwell?
   Returns the past, awakening from the tomb?
   Rome — Greece! — Oh, come! — Behold — behold! for this!
   Our living world — the old Pompeii sees;
   And built anew the town of Dorian Hercules!
   House upon house — its silent halls once more
   Opes the broad portico! — Oh, haste and fill
   Again those halls with life! — Oh, pour along
   Through the seven-vista'd theatre the throng!
   Where are ye, mimes? — Come forth, the steel prepare
   For crowned Atrides, or Orestes haunt,
   Ye choral Furies, with your dismal chant!
   The arch of triumph! — whither leads it? — still
   Behold the forum! — on the curule chair
   Where the majestic image? Lictors, where
   Your solemn fasces? — Place upon his throne
   The Praetor — here the witness lead, and there
   Bid the accuser stand
 
 
                 — O God! how lone
   The clear streets glitter in the quiet day —
   The footpath by the doors winding its lifeless way!
   The roofs arise in shelter, and around
   The desolate Atrium — every gentle room
   Wears still the dear familiar smile of home!
   Open the doors — the shops — on dreary night
   Let lusty day laugh down in jocund light!
 
 
   See the trim benches ranged in order! — See
   The marble-tesselated floor — and there
   The very walls are glittering livingly
   With their clear colors. But the artist, where!
   Sure but this instant he hath laid aside
   Pencil and colors! — Glittering on the eye
   Swell the rich fruits, and bloom the flowers! — See all
   Art's gentle wreaths still fresh upon the wall!
   Here the arch Cupid slyly seems to glide
   By with bloom-laden basket. There the shapes
   Of genii press with purpling feet the grapes,
   Here springs the wild Bacchante to the dance,
   And there she sleeps [while that voluptuous trance
   Eyes the sly faun with never-sated glance]
   Now on one knee upon the centaur-steeds
   Hovering — the Thyrsus plies. — Hurrah! — away she speeds!
 
 
   Come — come, why loiter ye? — Here, here, how fair
   The goodly vessels still! Girls, hither turn,
   Fill from the fountain the Etruscan urn!
   On the winged sphinxes see the tripod. —
                       Ho!
   Quick — quick, ye slaves, come — fire! — the hearth prepare!
   Ha! wilt thou sell? — this coin shall pay thee — this,
   Fresh from the mint of mighty Titus! — Lo!
   Here lie the scales, and not a weight we miss
   So — bring the light! The delicate lamp! — what toil
   Shaped thy minutest grace! — quick pour the oil!
   Yonder the fairy chest! — come, maid, behold
   The bridegroom's gifts — the armlets — they are gold,
   And paste out-feigning jewels! — lead the bride
   Into the odorous bath — lo! unguents still —
   And still the crystal vase the arts for beauty fill!
 
 
   But where the men of old — perchance a prize
   More precious yet in yon papyrus lies,
   And see ev'n still the tokens of their toil —
   The waxen tablets — the recording style.
   The earth, with faithful watch, has hoarded all!
   Still stand the mute penates in the hall;
   Back to his haunts returns each ancient god.
   Why absent only from their ancient stand
   The priests? — waves Hermes his Caducean rod,
   And the winged victory struggles from the hand.
   Kindle the flame — behold the altar there!
   Long hath the god been worshipless — to prayer.
 

NAENIA

 
   Even the beauteous must die! This vanquishes men and immortals;
    But of the Stygian god moves not the bosom of steel.
   Once and once only could love prevail on the ruler of shadows,
    And on the threshold, e'en then, sternly his gift he recalled.
   Venus could never heal the wounds of the beauteous stripling,
    That the terrible boar made in his delicate skin;
   Nor could his mother immortal preserve the hero so godlike,
    When at the west gate of Troy, falling, his fate he fulfilled.
   But she arose from the ocean with all the daughters of Nereus,
    And o'er her glorified son raised the loud accents of woe.
   See! where all the gods and goddesses yonder are weeping,
    That the beauteous must fade, and that the perfect must die.
   Even a woe-song to be in the mouth of the loved ones is glorious,
    For what is vulgar descends mutely to Orcus' dark shades.
 

THE MAID OF ORLEANS

 
   Humanity's bright image to impair.
    Scorn laid thee prostrate in the deepest dust;
   Wit wages ceaseless war on all that's fair, —
    In angel and in God it puts no trust;
   The bosom's treasures it would make its prey, —
   Besieges fancy, — dims e'en faith's pure ray.
 
 
   Yet issuing like thyself from humble line,
    Like thee a gentle shepherdess is she —
   Sweet poesy affords her rights divine,
    And to the stars eternal soars with thee.
   Around thy brow a glory she hath thrown;
   The heart 'twas formed thee, — ever thou'lt live on!
 
 
   The world delights whate'er is bright to stain,
    And in the dust to lay the glorious low;
   Yet fear not! noble bosoms still remain,
    That for the lofty, for the radiant glow
   Let Momus serve to fill the booth with mirth;
   A nobler mind loves forms of nobler worth.
 

ARCHIMEDES

 
   To Archimedes once a scholar came,
   "Teach me," he said, "the art that won thy fame; —
   The godlike art which gives such boons to toil,
   And showers such fruit upon thy native soil; —
   The godlike art that girt the town when all
   Rome's vengeance burst in thunder on the wall!"
   "Thou call'st art godlike — it is so, in truth,
   And was," replied the master to the youth,
   "Ere yet its secrets were applied to use —
   Ere yet it served beleaguered Syracuse: —
   Ask'st thou from art, but what the art is worth?
   The fruit? — for fruit go cultivate the earth. —
   He who the goddess would aspire unto,
   Must not the goddess as the woman woo!"
 

THE DANCE

 
See how, like lightest waves at play, the airy dancers fleet;
And scarcely feels the floor the wings of those harmonious feet.
Ob, are they flying shadows from their native forms set free?
Or phantoms in the fairy ring that summer moonbeams see?
As, by the gentle zephyr blown, some light mist flees in air,
As skiffs that skim adown the tide, when silver waves are fair,
So sports the docile footstep to the heave of that sweet measure,
As music wafts the form aloft at its melodious pleasure,
Now breaking through the woven chain of the entangled dance,
From where the ranks the thickest press, a bolder pair advance,
The path they leave behind them lost — wide open the path beyond,
The way unfolds or closes up as by a magic wand.
See now, they vanish from the gaze in wild confusion blended;
All, in sweet chaos whirled again, that gentle world is ended!
No! — disentangled glides the knot, the gay disorder ranges —
The only system ruling here, a grace that ever changes.
For ay destroyed — for ay renewed, whirls on that fair creation;
And yet one peaceful law can still pervade in each mutation.
And what can to the reeling maze breathe harmony and vigor,
And give an order and repose to every gliding figure?
That each a ruler to himself doth but himself obey,
Yet through the hurrying course still keeps his own appointed way.
What, would'st thou know? It is in truth the mighty power of tune,
A power that every step obeys, as tides obey the moon;
That threadeth with a golden clue the intricate employment,
Curbs bounding strength to tranquil grace, and tames the wild enjoyment.
And comes the world's wide harmony in vain upon thine ears?
The stream of music borne aloft from yonder choral spheres?
And feel'st thou not the measure which eternal Nature keeps?
The whirling dance forever held in yonder azure deeps?
The suns that wheel in varying maze? — That music thou discernest?
No! Thou canst honor that in sport which thou forgettest in earnest.³⁷
 

THE FORTUNE-FAVORED. ³⁸

 
   Ah! happy he, upon whose birth each god
    Looks down in love, whose earliest sleep the bright
   Idalia cradles, whose young lips the rod
   Of eloquent Hermes kindles — to whose eyes,
   Scarce wakened yet, Apollo steals in light,
    While on imperial brows Jove sets the seal of might!
   Godlike the lot ordained for him to share,
    He wins the garland ere he runs the race;
   He learns life's wisdom ere he knows life's care,
    And, without labor vanquished, smiles the grace.
   Great is the man, I grant, whose strength of mind,
    Self-shapes its objects and subdues the fates —
   Virtue subdues the fates, but cannot blind
    The fickle happiness, whose smile awaits
   Those who scarce seek it; nor can courage earn
   What the grace showers not from her own free urn!
   From aught unworthy, the determined will
    Can guard the watchful spirit — there it ends
    The all that's glorious from the heaven descends;
   As some sweet mistress loves us, freely still
   Come the spontaneous gifts of heaven! — Above
   Favor rules Jove, as it below rules love!
   The immortals have their bias! — Kindly they
   See the bright locks of youth enamored play,
   And where the glad one goes, shed gladness round the way.
   It is not they who boast the best to see,
    Whose eyes the holy apparitions bless;
   The stately light of their divinity
     Hath oft but shone the brightest on the blind; —
    And their choice spirit found its calm recess
     In the pure childhood of a simple mind.
   Unasked they come delighted to delude
    The expectation of our baffled pride;
    No law can call their free steps to our side.
     Him whom he loves, the sire of men and gods
   (Selected from the marvelling multitude)
     Bears on his eagle to his bright abodes;
   And showers, with partial hand and lavish, down,
   The minstrel's laurel or the monarch's crown!
   Before the fortune-favored son of earth,
   Apollo walks — and, with his jocund mirth,
   The heart-enthralling smiler of the skies
    For him gray Neptune smooths the pliant wave —
     Harmless the waters for the ship that bore
     The Caesar and his fortunes to the shore!
   Charmed at his feet the crouching lion lies,
    To him his back the murmuring dolphin gave;
   His soul is born a sovereign o'er the strife —
   The lord of all the beautiful of life;
   Where'er his presence in its calm has trod,
   It charms — it sways as solve diviner God.
   Scorn not the fortune-favored, that to him
    The light-won victory by the gods is given,
     Or that, as Paris, from the strife severe,
    The Venus draws her darling — Whom the heaven
     So prospers, love so watches, I revere!
   And not the man upon whose eyes, with dim
   And baleful night, sits fate. Achaia boasts,
    No less the glory of the Dorian lord ³⁹
   That Vulcan wrought for him the shield and sword —
   That round the mortal hovered all the hosts
   Of all Olympus — that his wrath to grace,
   The best and bravest of the Grecian race
   Untimely slaughtered, with resentful ghosts
   Awed the pale people of the Stygian coasts!
   Scorn not the darlings of the beautiful,
   If without labor they life's blossoms cull;
   If, like the stately lilies, they have won
   A crown for which they neither toiled nor spun; —
   If without merit, theirs be beauty, still
   Thy sense, unenvying, with the beauty fill.
   Alike for thee no merit wins the right,
   To share, by simply seeing, their delight.
   Heaven breathes the soul into the minstrel's breast,
   But with that soul he animates the rest;
   The god inspires the mortal — but to God,
   In turn, the mortal lifts thee from the sod.
   Oh, not in vain to heaven the bard is dear;
   Holy himself — he hallows those who hear!
   The busy mart let justice still control,
    Weighing the guerdon to the toil! — What then?
     A God alone claims joy — all joy is his,
    Flushing with unsought light the cheeks of men.
     ⁴⁰ Where is no miracle, why there no bliss!
   Grow, change, and ripen all that mortal be,
    Shapened from form to form, by toiling time;
     The blissful and the beautiful are born
   Full grown, and ripened from eternity —
    No gradual changes to their glorious prime,
     No childhood dwarfs them, and no age has worn. —
  Like heaven's, each earthly Venus on the sight
   Comes, a dark birth, from out an endless sea;
  Like the first Pallas, in maturest might,
  Armed, from the thunderer's — brow, leaps forth each thought of light.
 

BOOKSELLER'S ANNOUNCEMENT

 
   Naught is for man so important as rightly to know his own purpose;
    For but twelve groschen hard cash 'tis to be bought at my shop!
 

GENIUS

 
"Do I believe," sayest thou, "what the masters of wisdom would teach me,
  And what their followers' band boldly and readily swear?
Cannot I ever attain to true peace, excepting through knowledge,
  Or is the system upheld only by fortune and law?
Must I distrust the gently-warning impulse, the precept
  That thou, Nature, thyself hast in my bosom impressed,
Till the schools have affixed to the writ eternal their signet,
  Till a mere formula's chain binds down the fugitive soul?
Answer me, then! for thou hast down into these deeps e'en descended, —
  Out of the mouldering grave thou didst uninjured return.
Is't to thee known what within the tomb of obscure works is hidden,
  Whether, yon mummies amid, life's consolations can dwell?
Must I travel the darksome road? The thought makes me tremble;
  Yet I will travel that road, if 'tis to truth and to right."
 
 
Friend, hast thou heard of the golden age? Full many a story
  Poets have sung in its praise, simply and touchingly sung —
Of the time when the holy still wandered over life's pathways, —
  When with a maidenly shame every sensation was veiled, —
When the mighty law that governs the sun in his orbit,
  And that, concealed in the bud, teaches the point how to move,
When necessity's silent law, the steadfast, the changeless,
  Stirred up billows more free, e'en in the bosom of man, —
When the sense, unerring, and true as the hand of the dial,
  Pointed only to truth, only to what was eternal?
 
 
Then no profane one was seen, then no initiate was met with,
  And what as living was felt was not then sought 'mongst the dead;
Equally clear to every breast was the precept eternal,
  Equally hidden the source whence it to gladden us sprang;
But that happy period has vanished! And self-willed presumption
  Nature's godlike repose now has forever destroyed.
Feelings polluted the voice of the deities echo no longer,
  In the dishonored breast now is the oracle dumb.
Save in the silenter self, the listening soul cannot find it,
  There does the mystical word watch o'er the meaning divine;
There does the searcher conjure it, descending with bosom unsullied;
  There does the nature long-lost give him back wisdom again.
If thou, happy one, never hast lost the angel that guards thee,
  Forfeited never the kind warnings that instinct holds forth;
If in thy modest eye the truth is still purely depicted;
  If in thine innocent breast clearly still echoes its call;
If in thy tranquil mind the struggles of doubt still are silent,
  If they will surely remain silent forever as now;
If by the conflict of feelings a judge will ne'er be required;
  If in its malice thy heart dims not the reason so clear,
Oh, then, go thy way in all thy innocence precious!
  Knowledge can teach thee in naught; thou canst instruct her in much!
Yonder law, that with brazen staff is directing the struggling,
  Naught is to thee. What thou dost, what thou mayest will is thy law,
And to every race a godlike authority issues.
  What thou with holy hand formest, what thou with holy mouth speakest,
Will with omnipotent power impel the wondering senses;
  Thou but observest not the god ruling within thine own breast,
Not the might of the signet that bows all spirits before thee;
  Simple and silent thou goest through the wide world thou hast won.