The Poems of Schiller — First period

TO LAURA AT THE HARPSICHORD

 
   When o'er the chords thy fingers stray,
   My spirit leaves its mortal clay,
    A statue there I stand;
   Thy spell controls e'en life and death,
   As when the nerves a living breath
    Receive by Love's command! ¹
   More gently zephyr sighs along
   To listen to thy magic song;
   The systems formed by heavenly love
   To sing forever as they move,
   Pause in their endless-whirling round
   To catch the rapture-teeming sound;
   'Tis for thy strains they worship thee, —
   Thy look, enchantress, fetters me!
 
 
   From yonder chords fast-thronging come
    Soul-breathing notes with rapturous speed,
   As when from out their heavenly home
    The new-born seraphim proceed;
   The strains pour forth their magic might,
   As glittering suns burst through the night,
   When, by Creation's storm awoke,
   From chaos' giant-arm they broke.
 
 
    Now sweet, as when the silv'ry wave
    Delights the pebbly beach to lave;
    And now majestic as the sound
    Of rolling thunder gathering round;
   Now pealing more loudly, as when from yon height
   Descends the mad mountain-stream, foaming and bright;
      Now in a song of love
       Dying away,
      As through the aspen grove
       Soft zephyrs play:
   Now heavier and more mournful seems the strain,
   As when across the desert, death-like plain,
   Whence whispers dread and yells despairing rise,
   Cocytus' sluggish, wailing current sighs.
 
 
    Maiden fair, oh, answer me!
    Are not spirits leagued with thee?
    Speak they in the realms of bliss
    Other language e'er than this?
 

GROUP FROM TARTARUS

 
   Hark! like the sea in wrath the heavens assailing,
   Or like a brook through rocky basin wailing,
   Comes from below, in groaning agony,
   A heavy, vacant torment-breathing sigh!
   Their faces marks of bitter torture wear,
   While from their lips burst curses of despair;
    Their eyes are hollow, and full of woe,
     And their looks with heartfelt anguish
    Seek Cocytus' stream that runs wailing below,
     For the bridge o'er its waters they languish.
 
 
   And they say to each other in accents of fear,
   "Oh, when will the time of fulfilment appear?"
   High over them boundless eternity quivers,
   And the scythe of Saturnus all-ruthlessly, shivers!
 

RAPTURE — TO LAURA

 
   From earth I seem to wing my flight,
   And sun myself in Heaven's pure light,
    When thy sweet gaze meets mine
   I dream I quaff ethereal dew,
   When my own form I mirrored view
    In those blue eyes divine!
 
 
   Blest notes from Paradise afar,
   Or strains from some benignant star
    Enchant my ravished ear:
   My Muse feels then the shepherd's hour
   When silvery tones of magic power
    Escape those lips so dear!
 
 
   Young Loves around thee fan their wings —
   Behind, the maddened fir-tree springs,
    As when by Orpheus fired:
   The poles whirl round with swifter motion,
   When in the dance, like waves o'er Ocean,
    Thy footsteps float untired!
 
 
   Thy look, if it but beam with love,
   Could make the lifeless marble move,
    And hearts in rocks enshrine:
   My visions to reality
   Will turn, if, Laura, in thine eye
    I read — that thou art mine!
 

TO LAURA. (THE MYSTERY OF REMINISCENCE.) ²

 
   Who and what gave to me the wish to woo thee —
   Still, lip to lip, to cling for aye unto thee?
   Who made thy glances to my soul the link —
   Who bade me burn thy very breath to drink —
      My life in thine to sink?
   As from the conqueror's unresisted glaive,
   Flies, without strife subdued, the ready slave —
   So, when to life's unguarded fort, I see
   Thy gaze draw near and near triumphantly —
      Yields not my soul to thee?
   Why from its lord doth thus my soul depart? —
   Is it because its native home thou art?
   Or were they brothers in the days of yore,
   Twin-bound both souls, and in the link they bore
      Sigh to be bound once more?
   Were once our beings blent and intertwining,
   And therefore still my heart for thine is pining?
   Knew we the light of some extinguished sun —
   The joys remote of some bright realm undone,
      Where once our souls were ONE?
   Yes, it is so! — And thou wert bound to me
   In the long-vanish'd Eld eternally!
   In the dark troubled tablets which enroll
   The Past — my Muse beheld this blessed scroll —
      "One with thy love my soul!"
   Oh yes, I learned in awe, when gazing there,
   How once one bright inseparate life we were,
   How once, one glorious essence as a God,
   Unmeasured space our chainless footsteps trod —
      All Nature our abode!
   Round us, in waters of delight, forever
   Voluptuous flowed the heavenly Nectar river;
   We were the master of the seal of things,
   And where the sunshine bathed Truth's mountain-springs
      Quivered our glancing wings.
   Weep for the godlike life we lost afar —
   Weep! — thou and I its scattered fragments are;
   And still the unconquered yearning we retain —
   Sigh to restore the rapture and the reign,
      And grow divine again.
   And therefore came to me the wish to woo thee —
   Still, lip to lip, to cling for aye unto thee;
   This made thy glances to my soul the link —
   This made me burn thy very breath to drink —
      My life in thine to sink;
   And therefore, as before the conqueror's glaive,
   Flies, without strife subdued, the ready slave,
   So, when to life's unguarded fort, I see
   Thy gaze draw near and near triumphantly —
      Yieldeth my soul to thee!
   Therefore my soul doth from its lord depart,
   Because, beloved, its native home thou art;
   Because the twins recall the links they bore,
   And soul with soul, in the sweet kiss of yore,
      Meets and unites once more!
   Thou, too — Ah, there thy gaze upon me dwells,
   And thy young blush the tender answer tells;
   Yes! with the dear relation still we thrill,
   Both lives — though exiles from the homeward hill —
      One life — all glowing still!
 

MELANCHOLY — TO LAURA

 
   Laura! a sunrise seems to break
    Where'er thy happy looks may glow.
   Joy sheds its roses o'er thy cheek,
   Thy tears themselves do but bespeak
    The rapture whence they flow;
   Blest youth to whom those tears are given —
   The tears that change his earth to heaven;
   His best reward those melting eyes —
   For him new suns are in the skies!
 
 
   Thy soul — a crystal river passing,
   Silver-clear, and sunbeam-glassing,
   Mays into bloom sad Autumn by thee;
   Night and desert, if they spy thee,
   To gardens laugh — with daylight shine,
   Lit by those happy smiles of thine!
   Dark with cloud the future far
   Goldens itself beneath thy star.
   Smilest thou to see the harmony
    Of charm the laws of Nature keep?
   Alas! to me the harmony
    Brings only cause to weep!
 
 
   Holds not Hades its domain
    Underneath this earth of ours?
   Under palace, under fame,
    Underneath the cloud-capped towers?
   Stately cities soar and spread
   O'er your mouldering bones, ye dead!
   From corruption, from decay,
    Springs yon clove-pink's fragrant bloom;
   Yon gay waters wind their way
    From the hollows of a tomb.
 
 
   From the planets thou mayest know
   All the change that shifts below,
   Fled — beneath that zone of rays,
   Fled to night a thousand Mays;
   Thrones a thousand — rising — sinking,
   Earth from thousand slaughters drinking
   Blood profusely poured as water; —
   Of the sceptre — of the slaughter —
   Wouldst thou know what trace remaineth?
   Seek them where the dark king reigneth!
 
 
   Scarce thine eye can ope and close
   Ere life's dying sunset glows;
   Sinking sudden from its pride
   Into death — the Lethe tide.
   Ask'st thou whence thy beauties rise?
   Boastest thou those radiant eyes? —
   Or that cheek in roses dyed?
   All their beauty (thought of sorrow!)
   From the brittle mould they borrow.
   Heavy interest in the tomb
   For the brief loan of the bloom,
   For the beauty of the day,
   Death the usurer, thou must pay,
    In the long to-morrow!
 
 
   Maiden! — Death's too strong for scorn;
    In the cheek the fairest, He
    But the fairest throne doth see
   Though the roses of the morn
   Weave the veil by beauty worn —
   Aye, beneath that broidered curtain,
   Stands the Archer stern and certain!
   Maid — thy Visionary hear —
   Trust the wild one as the sear,
   When he tells thee that thine eye,
    While it beckons to the wooer,
   Only lureth yet more nigh
    Death, the dark undoer!
 
 
   Every ray shed from thy beauty
    Wastes the life-lamp while it beams,
   And the pulse's playful duty,
    And the blue veins' merry streams,
   Sport and run into the pall —
   Creatures of the Tyrant, all!
   As the wind the rainbow shatters,
   Death thy bright smiles rends and scatters,
   Smile and rainbow leave no traces; —
   From the spring-time's laughing graces,
   From all life, as from its germ,
   Grows the revel of the worm!
 
 
   Woe, I see the wild wind wreak
    Its wrath upon thy rosy bloom,
   Winter plough thy rounded cheek,
    Cloud and darkness close in gloom;
   Blackening over, and forever,
   Youth's serene and silver river!
   Love alike and beauty o'er,
   Lovely and beloved no more!
 
 
   Maiden, an oak that soars on high,
    And scorns the whirlwind's breath
   Behold thy Poet's youth defy
    The blunted dart of Death!
   His gaze as ardent as the light
    That shoots athwart the heaven,
   His soul yet fiercer than the light
    In the eternal heaven,
   Of Him, in whom as in an ocean-surge
   Creation ebbs and flows — and worlds arise and merge!
   Through Nature steers the poet's thought to find
   No fear but this — one barrier to the mind?
 
 
   And dost thou glory so to think?
    And heaves thy bosom? — Woe!
   This cup, which lures him to the brink,
   As if divinity to drink —
    Has poison in its flow!
   Wretched, oh, wretched, they who trust
   To strike the God-spark from the dust!
   The mightiest tone the music knows,
    But breaks the harp-string with the sound;
   And genius, still the more it glows,
   But wastes the lamp whose life bestows
    The light it sheds around.
   Soon from existence dragged away,
   The watchful jailer grasps his prey:
   Vowed on the altar of the abused fire,
   The spirits I raised against myself conspire!
   Let — yes, I feel it two short springs away
    Pass on their rapid flight;
   And life's faint spark shall, fleeting from the clay,
    Merge in the Fount of Light!
 
 
   And weep'st thou, Laura? — be thy tears forbid;
   Would'st thou my lot, life's dreariest years amid,
    Protract and doom? — No: sinner, dry thy tears:
   Would'st thou, whose eyes beheld the eagle wing
   Of my bold youth through air's dominion spring,
   Mark my sad age (life's tale of glory done) —
   Crawl on the sod and tremble in the sun?
   Hear the dull frozen heart condemn the flame
   That as from heaven to youth's blithe bosom came;
   And see the blind eyes loathing turn from all
   The lovely sins age curses to recall?
    Let me die young! — sweet sinner, dry thy tears!
   Yes, let the flower be gathered in its bloom!
   And thou, young genius, with the brows of gloom,
    Quench thou life's torch, while yet the flame is strong!
   Even as the curtain falls; while still the scene
   Most thrills the hearts which have its audience been;
   As fleet the shadows from the stage — and long
    When all is o'er, lingers the breathless throng!