The Poems of Schiller — Third period - Friedrich von Schiller

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appeared in the world

          For the sins of mankind to atone.

         The fugitive lusts of the sense were suppressed,

         And man now first grappled with thought in his breast.

         Each vain and voluptuous charm vanished now,

          Wherein the young world took delight;

         The monk and the nun made of penance a vow,

          And the tourney was sought by the knight.

         Though the aspect of life was now dreary and wild,

         Yet love remained ever both lovely and mild.

         An altar of holiness, free from all stain,

          The Muses in silence upreared;

         And all that was noble and worthy, again

          In woman's chaste bosom appeared;

         The bright flame of song was soon kindled anew

         By the minstrel's soft lays, and his love pure and true.

         And so, in a gentle and ne'er-changing band,

          Let woman and minstrel unite;

         They weave and they fashion, with hand joined to hand,

          The girdle of beauty and right.

         When love blends with music, in unison sweet,

         The lustre of life's youthful days ne'er can fleet.

      THE MAIDEN'S LAMENT

            The clouds fast gather,

             The forest-oaks roar —

            A maiden is sitting

             Beside the green shore, —

         The billows are breaking with might, with might,

         And she sighs aloud in the darkling night,

          Her eyelid heavy with weeping.

            "My heart's dead within me,

             The world is a void;

            To the wish it gives nothing,

             Each hope is destroyed.

         I have tasted the fulness of bliss below

         I have lived, I have loved, — Thy child, oh take now,

          Thou Holy One, into Thy keeping!"

            "In vain is thy sorrow,

             In vain thy tears fall,

            For the dead from their slumbers

             They ne'er can recall;

         Yet if aught can pour comfort and balm in thy heart,

         Now that love its sweet pleasures no more can impart,

          Speak thy wish, and thou granted shalt find it!"

            "Though in vain is my sorrow,

             Though in vain my tears fall, —

            Though the dead from their slumbers

             They ne'er can recall,

         Yet no balm is so sweet to the desolate heart,

         When love its soft pleasures no more can impart,

          As the torments that love leaves behind it!"

      TO MY FRIENDS

         Yes, my friends! — that happier times have been

         Than the present, none can contravene;

          That a race once lived of nobler worth;

         And if ancient chronicles were dumb,

         Countless stones in witness forth would come

          From the deepest entrails of the earth.

         But this highly-favored race has gone,

          Gone forever to the realms of night.

         We, we live! The moments are our own,

          And the living judge the right.

         Brighter zones, my friends, no doubt excel

         This, the land wherein we're doomed to dwell,

          As the hardy travellers proclaim;

         But if Nature has denied us much,

         Art is yet responsive to our touch,

          And our hearts can kindle at her flame.

         If the laurel will not flourish here —

          If the myrtle is cold winter's prey,

         Yet the vine, to crown us, year by year,

          Still puts forth its foliage gay.

         Of a busier life 'tis well to speak,

         Where four worlds their wealth to barter seek,

          On the world's great market, Thames' broad stream;

         Ships in thousands go there and depart —

         There are seen the costliest works of art,

          And the earth-god, Mammon, reigns supreme

         But the sun his image only graves

          On the silent streamlet's level plain,

         Not upon the torrent's muddy waves,

          Swollen by the heavy rain.

         Far more blessed than we, in northern states

         Dwells the beggar at the angel-gates,

          For he sees the peerless city — Rome!

         Beauty's glorious charms around him lie,

         And, a second heaven, up toward the sky

          Mounts St. Peter's proud and wondrous dome.

         But, with all the charms that splendor grants,

          Rome is but the tomb of ages past;

         Life but smiles upon the blooming plants

         

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