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202 Works of Frederich Schiller

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Political Precept

Story type: Poetry

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All that thou doest is right; but, friend, don’t carry this preceptOn too far,–be content, all that is right to effect.It is enough to true zeal, if what is existing be perfect;False zeal always would find finished perfection at once.

The Agreement

Story type: Poetry

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Both of us seek for truth–in the world without thou dost seek it,I in the bosom within; both of us therefore succeed.If the eye be healthy, it sees from without the Creator;And if the heart, then within doubtless it mirrors the world.

Why are taste and genius so seldom met with united?Taste of strength is afraid,–genius despises the rein.

Majestas Populi

Story type: Poetry

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Majesty of the nature of man! In crowds shall I seek thee?‘Tis with only a few that thou hast made thine abode.Only a few ever count; the rest are but blanks of no value,And the prizes are hid ‘neath the vain stir that they make.

Human Knowledge

Story type: Poetry

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Since thou readest in her what thou thyself hast there written,And, to gladden the eye, placest her wonders in groups;–Since o’er her boundless expanses thy cords to extend thou art able,Thou dost think that thy mind wonderful Nature can grasp.Thus the astronomer draws his figures over the heavens,So that he may with more ease traverse […]

Breadth And Depth

Story type: Poetry

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Full many a shining wit one sees,With tongue on all things well conversing;The what can charm, the what can please,In every nice detail rehearsing.Their raptures so transport the college,It seems one honeymoon of knowledge. Yet out they go in silence whereThey whilom held their learned prate;Ah! he who would achieve the fair,Or sow the embryo […]

Light And Warmth

Story type: Poetry

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In cheerful faith that fears no illThe good man doth the world begin;And dreams that all without shall stillReflect the trusting soul within.Warm with the noble vows of youth,Hallowing his true arm to the truth; Yet is the littleness of allSo soon to sad experience shown,That crowds but teach him to recallAnd centre thought on […]

Millions busily toil, that the human race may continue;But by only a few is propagated our kind.Thousands of seeds by the autumn are scattered, yet fruit is engenderedOnly by few, for the most back to the element go.But if one only can blossom, that one is able to scatterEven a bright living world, filled with […]

Two genii are there, from thy birth through weary life to guide thee;Ah, happy when, united both, they stand to aid beside thee?With gleesome play to cheer the path, the one comes blithe with beauty,And lighter, leaning on her arm, the destiny and duty.With jest and sweet discourse she goes unto the rock sublime,Where halts […]

Nowhere in the organic or sensitive world ever kindlesNovelty, save in the flower, noblest creation of life.

Honors

Story type: Poetry

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[Dignities would be the better title, if the word were not so essentially unpoetical.] When the column of light on the waters is glassed,As blent in one glow seem the shine and the stream;But wave after wave through the glory has passed,Just catches, and flies as it catches, the beamSo honors but mirror on mortals […]

Three words will I name thee–around and about,From the lip to the lip, full of meaning, they flee;But they had not their birth in the being without,And the heart, not the lip, must their oracle be!And all worth in the man shall forever be o’erWhen in those three words he believes no more. Man is […]

Hast thou the infant seen that yet, unknowing of the loveWhich warms and cradles, calmly sleeps the mother’s heart above–Wandering from arm to arm, until the call of passion wakes,And glimmering on the conscious eye–the world in glory breaks? And hast thou seen the mother there her anxious vigil keep?Buying with love that never sleeps […]

Three errors there are, that forever are foundOn the lips of the good, on the lips of the best;But empty their meaning and hollow their sound–And slight is the comfort they bring to the breast.The fruits of existence escape from the claspOf the seeker who strives but those shadows to grasp– So long as man […]

Two are the pathways by which mankind can to virtue mount upward;If thou should find the one barred, open the other will lie.‘Tis by exertion the happy obtain her, the suffering by patience.Blest is the man whose kind fate guides him along upon both!

Mighty art thou, because of the peaceful charms of thy presence;That which the silent does not, never the boastful can do.Vigor in man I expect, the law in its honors maintaining,But, through the graces alone, woman e’er rules or should rule.Many, indeed, have ruled through the might of the spirit and action,But then thou noblest […]

I. Threefold is the march of timeWhile the future slow advances,Like a dart the present glances,Silent stands the past sublime. No impatience e’er can speed himOn his course if he delay;No alarm, no doubts impede himIf he keep his onward way;No regrets, no magic numbersWake the tranced one from his slumbers.Wouldst thou wisely and with […]

The Iliad

Story type: Poetry

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Tear forever the garland of Homer, and number the fathersOf the immortal work, that through all time will survive!Yet it has but one mother, and bears that mother’s own feature,‘Tis thy features it bears,–Nature,–thy features eterne!

Naenia

Story type: Poetry

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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 […]

What wonder this?–we ask the lympid well,O earth! of thee–and from thy solemn wombWhat 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 moreOpes […]

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 […]

The Fortune-favored. [1] Ah! happy he, upon whose birth each godLooks down in love, whose earliest sleep the brightIdalia cradles, whose young lips the rodOf 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 […]

Archimedes

Story type: Poetry

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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 allRome’s vengeance burst in thunder on the wall!”“Thou call’st art godlike–it is so, in truth,And was,” replied the […]

“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 preceptThat thou, Nature, thyself hast in my bosom impressed,Till the […]

The Sexes

Story type: Poetry

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See in the babe two loveliest flowers united–yet in truth,While in the bud they seem the same–the virgin and the youth!But loosened is the gentle bond, no longer side by side–From holy shame the fiery strength will soon itself divide.Permit the youth to sport, and still the wild desire to chase,For, but when sated, weary […]

Love And Desire

Story type: Poetry

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Rightly said, Schlosser! Man loves what he has; what he has not, desireth;None but the wealthy minds love; poor minds desire alone.

Jove To Hercules

Story type: Poetry

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‘Twas not my nectar made thy strength divine,But ’twas thy strength which made my nectar thine!

Say, where is now that glorious race, where now are the singersWho, with the accents of life, listening nations enthralled,Sung down from heaven the gods, and sung mankind up to heaven,And who the spirit bore up high on the pinions of song?Ah! the singers still live; the actions only are wanting,And to awake the glad […]

Whither was it that my spirit wendedWhen from thee my fleeting shadow moved?Is not now each earthly conflict ended?Say,–have I not lived,–have I not loved? Art thou for the nightingales inquiringWho entranced thee in the early yearWith their melody so joy-inspiring?Only whilst they loved they lingered here. Is the lost one lost to me forever?Trust […]

That which Grecian art created,Let the Frank, with joy elated,Bear to Seine’s triumphant strand,And in his museums gloriousShow the trophies all-victoriousTo his wondering fatherland. They to him are silent ever,Into life’s fresh circle neverFrom their pedestals come down.He alone e’er holds the MusesThrough whose breast their power diffuses,–To the Vandal they’re but stone!

Thou hast crossed over torrents, and swung through wide-spreading ocean,–Over the chain of the Alps dizzily bore thee the bridge,That thou might’st see me from near, and learn to value my beauty,Which the voice of renown spreads through the wandering world.And now before me thou standest,–canst touch my altar so holy,–But art thou nearer to […]

The German Art

Story type: Poetry

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By no kind Augustus reared,To no Medici endeared,German art arose;Fostering glory smiled not on her,Ne’er with kingly smiles to sun her,Did her blooms unclose. No,–she went by monarchs slightedWent 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 […]

Odysseus

Story type: Poetry

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Seeking to find his home, Odysseus crosses each water;Through Charybdis so dread; ay, and through Scylla’s wild yells,Through the alarms of the raging sea, the alarms of the land too,–E’en to the kingdom of hell leads him his wandering course.And at length, as he sleeps, to Ithaca’s coast fate conducts him;There he awakes, and, with […]

Oh, nobly shone the fearful cross upon your mail afar,When Rhodes and Acre hailed your might, O lions of the war!When leading many a pilgrim horde, through wastes of Syrian gloom;Or standing with the cherub’s sword before the holy tomb.Yet on your forms the apron seemed a nobler armor far,When by the sick man’s bed […]

Carthage

Story type: Poetry

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Oh thou degenerate child of the great and glorious mother,Who with the Romans’ strong might couplest the Tyrians’ deceit!But those ever governed with vigor the earth they had conquered,–These instructed the world that they with cunning had won.Say! what renown does history grant thee? Thou, Roman-like, gained’stThat with the steel, which with gold, Tyrian-like, then […]

German Faith

Story type: Poetry

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German Faith. [1] Once for the sceptre of Germany, fought with Bavarian LouisFrederick, of Hapsburg descent, both being called to the throne.But the envious fortune of war delivered the AustrianInto the hands of the foe, who overcame him in fight.With the throne he purchased his freedom, pledging his honorFor the victor to draw ‘gainst his […]

The Merchant

Story type: Poetry

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Where sails the ship?–It leads the Tyrian forthFor the rich amber of the liberal north.Be kind, ye seas–winds, lend your gentlest wing,May in each creek sweet wells restoring spring!–To you, ye gods, belong the merchant!–o’erThe waves his sails the wide world’s goods explore;And, all the while, wherever waft the galesThe wide world’s good sails with […]

I. A bridge of pearls its form uprearsHigh o’er a gray and misty sea;E’en in a moment it appears,And rises upwards giddily. Beneath its arch can find a roadThe loftiest vessel’s mast most high,Itself hath never borne a load,And seems, when thou draw’st near, to fly. It comes first with the stream, and goesSoon as […]

“Vivos voco–Mortuos plango–Fulgura frango.” [1] Fast, in its prison-walls of earth,Awaits the mould of baked clay.Up, comrades, up, and aid the birthThe bell that shall be born to-day!Who would honor obtain,With the sweat and the pain,The praise that man gives to the master must buy.–But the blessing withal must descend from on high! And well […]

Man of virtue has need;-into life with boldness he plunges,Entering with fortune more sure into the hazardous strife;But to woman one virtue suffices; it is ever shiningLovingly forth to the heart; so let it shine to the eye!

To Proselytizers

Story type: Poetry

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“Give me only a fragment of earth beyond the earth’s limits,”–So the godlike man said,–“and I will move it with ease.”Only give me permission to leave myself for one moment,And without any delay I will engage to be yours.

The Power Of Song

Story type: Poetry

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The foaming stream from out the rockWith thunder roar begins to rush,–The oak falls prostrate at the shock,And mountain-wrecks attend the gush.With rapturous awe, in wonder lost,The wanderer hearkens to the sound;From cliff to cliff he hears it tossed,Yet knows not whither it is bound:‘Tis thus that song’s bright waters pourFrom sources never known before. […]

Honor To Woman

Story type: Poetry

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[Literally “Dignity of Women.”] Honor to woman! To her it is givenTo garden the earth with the roses of heaven!All blessed, she linketh the loves in their choirIn the veil of the graces her beauty concealing,She tends on each altar that’s hallowed to feeling,And keeps ever-living the fire! From the bounds of truth careering,Man’s strong […]

A youth, impelled by a burning thirst for knowledgeTo roam to Sais, in fair Egypt’s land,The priesthood’s secret learning to explore,Had passed through many a grade with eager haste,And still was hurrying on with fond impatience.Scarce could the Hierophant impose a reinUpon his headlong efforts. “What availsA part without the whole?” the youth exclaimed;“Can there […]

“Take the world!” Zeus exclaimed from his throne in the skiesTo the children of man–“take the world I now give;It shall ever remain as your heirloom and prize,So divide it as brothers, and happily live.” Then all who had hands sought their share to obtain,The young and the aged made haste to appear;The husbandman seized […]

Forever fair, forever calm and bright,Life flies on plumage, zephyr-light,For those who on the Olympian hill rejoice–Moons wane, and races wither to the tomb,And ‘mid the universal ruin, bloomThe rosy days of Gods–With man, the choice,Timid and anxious, hesitates betweenThe sense’s pleasure and the soul’s content;While on celestial brows, aloft and sheen,The beams of both […]

If thou never hast gazed upon beauty in moments of sorrow,Thou canst with truth never boast that thou true beauty hast seen.If thou never hast gazed upon gladness in beauteous features,Thou canst with truth never boast that thou true gladness hast seen.

Deeper and bolder truths be careful, my friends, of avowing;For as soon as ye do all the world on ye will fall.

Thou hast produced mighty monarchs, of whom thou art not unworthy,For the obedient alone make him who governs them great.But, O Germany, try if thou for thy rulers canst make itHarder as kings to be great,–easier, though, to be men!

(OR FROM ABROAD.) Within a vale, each infant year,When earliest larks first carol free,To humble shepherds cloth appearA wondrous maiden, fair to see.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 […]

The Honorable

Story type: Poetry

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Ever honor the whole; individuals only I honor;In individuals I always discover the whole.

Female Judgment

Story type: Poetry

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Man frames his judgment on reason; but woman on love founds her verdict;If her judgment loves not, woman already has judged.

Lovely he looks, ’tis true, with the light of his torch now extinguished;But remember that death is not aesthetic, my friends!

A gentle was Fridolin,And he his mistress dear,Savern’s fair Countess, honored inAll truth and godly fear.She was so meek, and, ah! so good!Yet each wish of her wayward mood,He would have studied to fulfil,To please his God, with earnest will. From the first hour when daylight shoneTill rang the vesper-chime,He lived but for her will […]

The Count of Hapsburg. [1] At Aix-la-Chapelle, in imperial array,In its halls renowned in old story,At the coronation banquet so gayKing Rudolf was sitting in glory.The meats were served up by the Palsgrave of Rhine,The Bohemian poured out the bright sparkling wine,And all the Electors, the seven,Stood waiting around the world-governing one,As the chorus of […]

Before his lion-court,Impatient for the sport,King Francis sat one day;The peers of his realm sat around,And in balcony high from the groundSat the ladies in beauteous array. And when with his finger he beckoned,The gate opened wide in a second,–And in, with deliberate tread,Enters a lion dread,And looks aroundYet utters no sound;Then long he yawnsAnd […]

Woman, never judge man by his individual actions;But upon man as a whole, pass thy decisive decree.

All, thou gentle one, lies embraced in thy kingdom; the graybeardBack to the days of his youth, childish and child-like, returns.

Hero and Leander. [1] See you the towers, that, gray and old,Frown through the sunlight’s liquid gold,Steep sternly fronting steep?The Hellespont beneath them swells,And roaring cleaves the Dardanelles,The rock-gates of the deep!Hear you the sea, whose stormy wave,From Asia, Europe clove in thunder?That sea which rent a world, cannotRend love from love asunder! In Hero’s, […]

The tyrant Dionys to seek,Stern Moerus with his poniard crept;The watchful guard upon him swept;The grim king marked his changeless cheek:“What wouldst thou with thy poniard? Speak!”“The city from the tyrant free!”“The death-cross shall thy guerdon be.” “I am prepared for death, nor pray,”Replied that haughty man, “I to live;Enough, if thou one grace wilt […]

“What knight or what vassal will be so boldAs to plunge in the gulf below?See! I hurl in its depths a goblet of gold,Already the waters over it flow.The man who can bring back the goblet to me,May keep it henceforward,–his own it shall be.” Thus speaks the king, and he hurls from the heightOf […]

Greekism

Story type: Poetry

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Scarce has the fever so chilly of Gallomania departed,When a more burning attack in Grecomania breaks out.Greekism,–what did it mean?–‘Twas harmony, reason, and clearness!Patience,–good gentlemen, pray, ere ye of Greekism speak!‘Tis for an excellent cause ye are fighting, and all that I ask forIs that with reason it ne’er may be a laughing-stock made.

Why run the crowd? What means the throngThat rushes fast the streets along?Can Rhodes a prey to flames, then, be?In crowds they gather hastily,And, on his steed, a noble knightAmid the rabble, meets my sight;Behind him–prodigy unknown!–A monster fierce they’re drawing on;A dragon stems it by its shape,With wide and crocodile-like jaw,And on the knight […]

“I Can love thee well, believe me,As a sister true;Other love, Sir Knight, would grieve me,Sore my heart would rue.Calmly would I see thee going,Calmly, too, appear;For those tears in silence flowingFind no answer here.” Thus she speaks,–he hears her sadly,–How his heartstrings bleed!In his arms he clasps her madly,Then he mounts his steed.From the […]

Priam’s castle-walls had sunk,Troy in dust and ashes lay,And each Greek, with triumph drunk,Richly laden with his prey,Sat upon his ship’s high prow,On the Hellespontic strand,Starting on his journey now,Bound for Greece, his own fair land.Raise the glad exulting shout!Toward the land that gave them birthTurn they now the ships about,As they seek their native […]

The Mole

Story type: Poetry

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HUSBAND.The boy’s my very image! See!Even the scars my small-pox left me! WIFE.I can believe it easilyThey once of all my senses reft me.

‘Twixt the heavens and earth, high in the airy ocean,In the tempest’s cradle I’m borne with a rocking motion;Clouds are towering,Storms beneath me are lowering,Giddily all the wonders I see,And, O Eternal, I think of Thee! All Thy terrible pomp, lend to the Finite now,Mighty Nature! Oh, of Infinity, thouGiant daughter!Mirror God, as in water!Tempest, […]

On every nose he rightly readWhat intellects were in the headAnd yet–that he was not the oneBy whom God meant it to be done,This on his own he never read.

Dialogue

Story type: Poetry

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A.Hark, neighbor, for one moment stay!Herr Doctor Scalpel, so they say,Has got off safe and sound;At Paris I your uncle foundFast to a horse’s crupper bound,–Yet Scalpel made a king his prey. B.Oh, dear me, no! A real misnomer!The fact is, he has his diploma;The other one has not. A.Eh? What? Has a diploma?In Suabia […]

The dead has risen here, to live through endless ages;This I with firmness trust and know.I was first led to guess it by the sages,The knaves convince me that ’tis really so.

Plague’s contagious murderous breathGod’s strong might with terror reveals,As through the dreary valley of deathWith its brotherhood fell it steals! Fearfully throbs the anguish-struck heart,Horribly quivers each nerve in the frame;Frenzy’s wild laughs the torment proclaim,Howling convulsions disclose the fierce smart. Fierce delirium writhes upon the bed–Poisonous mists hang o’er the cities dead;Men all haggard, […]

Monument of Moor the Robber. [1] ‘Tis ended!Welcome! ’tis endedOh thou sinner majestic,All thy terrible part is now played! Noble abased one!Thou, of thy race beginner and ender!Wondrous son of her fearfulest humor,Mother Nature’s blunder sublime! Through cloud-covered night a radiant gleam!Hark how behind him the portals are closing!Night’s gloomy jaws veil him darkly in […]

An aged satyr soughtAround my Muse to pass,Attempting to pay court,And eyed her fondly through his glass. By Phoebus’ golden torch,By Luna’s pallid light,Around her temple’s porchCrept the unhappy sharp-eared wight; And warbled many a lay,Her beauty’s praise to sing,And fiercely scraped awayOn his discordant fiddle-string. With tears, too, swelled his eyes,As large as nuts, […]

The Bad Monarchs

Story type: Poetry

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The Bad Monarchs [1] Earthly gods–my lyre shall win your praise,Though but wont its gentle sounds to raiseWhen the joyous feast the people throng;Softly at your pompous-sounding names,Shyly round your greatness purple flames,Trembles now my song. Answer! shall I strike the golden string,When, borne on by exultation’s wing,O’er the battle-field your chariots trail?When ye, from […]

The Wirtemberger

Story type: Poetry

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The name of Wirtemberg they holdTo come from Wirth am berg [1], I’m told.A Wirtemberger who ne’er drinksNo Wirtemberger is, methinks! FOOTNOTE:[1] The Landlord on the Mountain.

The Winter Night

Story type: Poetry

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Farewell! the beauteous sun is sinking fast,The moon lifts up her head;Farewell! mute night o’er earth’s wide round at lastHer darksome raven-wing has spread. Across the wintry plain no echoes float,Save, from the rock’s deep womb,The murmuring streamlet, and the screech-owl’s note,Arising from the forest’s gloom. The fish repose within the watery deeps,The snail draws […]

Actaeon

Story type: Poetry

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Thy wife is destined to deceive thee!She’ll seek another’s arms and leave thee,And horns upon thy head will shortly sprout!How dreadful that when bathing thou shouldst see me(No ether-bath can wash the stigma out),And then, in perfect innocence, shouldst flee me!

Man’s Dignity

Story type: Poetry

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I am a man!–Let every oneWho is a man, too, springWith joy beneath God’s shining sun,And leap on high, and sing! To God’s own image fair on earthIts stamp I’ve power to show;Down to the front, where heaven has birthWith boldness I dare go. ‘Tis well that I both dare and can!When I a maiden […]

What mean the joyous sounds from yonder vine-clad height?What the exulting Evoe? [1]Why glows the cheek? Whom is’t that I, with pinions light,Swinging the lofty Thyrsus see? Is it the genius whom the gladsome throng obeys?Do I his numerous train descry?In plenty’s teeming horn the gifts of heaven he sways,And reels from very ecstacy!– See […]

Quirl

Story type: Poetry

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You tell me that you feel surpriseBecause Quirl’s paper’s grown in size;And yet they’re crying through the streetThat there’s a rise in bread and meat.

Here lies a man cut off by fateToo soon for all good men;For sextons he died late–too lateFor those who wield the pen.

The Parallel

Story type: Poetry

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Her likeness Madame Ramler bids me find;I try to think in vain, to whom or howBeneath the moon there’s nothing of the kind.–I’ll show she’s like the moon, I vow! The moon–she rouges, steals the sun’s bright light,By eating stolen bread her living gets,–Is also wont to paint her cheeks at night,While, with untiring ardor, […]

To The Fates

Story type: Poetry

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Not in the crowd of masqueraders gay,Where coxcombs’ wit with wondrous splendor flares,And, easier than the Indian’s net the prey,The virtue of young beauties snares;– Not at the toilet-table of the fair,Where vanity, as if before an idol, bows,And often breathes a warmer prayerThan when to heaven it pays its vows; And not behind the […]

(WHEN THEIR MINIATURES WERE HANGING SIDE BY SIDE.) In truth, when I have crossed dark Lethe’s river,The man upon the right I’ll love forever,For ’twas he first that wrote for me.For all the world the left man wrote, full clearly,And so we all should love him dearly;Come, left man! I must needs kiss thee!

BOOK I . The sullen mayor who reigns in hell,By mortals Pluto hight,Who thrashes all his subjects well,Both morn and eve, as stories tell,And rules the realms of night,All pleasure lost in cursing once,All joy in flogging, for the nonce. The sedentary life he ledUpon his brazen chairMade his hindquarters very red,While pricks, as from […]

Once the nine all weeping cameTo the god of song“Oh, papa!” they there exclaim–“Hear our tale of wrong! “Young ink-lickers swarm aboutOur dear Helicon;There they fight, manoeuvre, shout,Even to thy throne. “On their steeds they galop hardTo the spring to drink,Each one calls himself a bard–Minstrels–only think! “There they–how the thing to name!Would our persons […]

the Simple Peasant. [1] MATTHEW.Gossip, you’ll like to hear, no doubt!A learned work has just come out–Messias is the name ’twill bear;The man has travelled through the air,And on the sun-beplastered roadsHas lost shoe-leather by whole loads,–Has seen the heavens lie open wide,And hell has traversed with whole hide.The thought has just occurred to meThat […]

Maiden, stay!–oh, whither wouldst thou go?Do I still or pride or grandeur show?Maiden, was it right?Thou the giant mad’st a dwarf once more,Scattered’st far the mountains that of yoreClimbed to glory’s sunny height. Thou hast doomed my flowerets to decay,All the phantoms bright hast blown away,Whose sweet follies formed the hero’s trust;All my plans that […]

Nuptial Ode

Story type: Poetry

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Nuptial Ode. [1] Fair bride, attended by our blessing,Glad Hymen’s flowery path ‘gin pressing!We witnessed with enraptured eyeThe graces of thy soul unfolding,Thy youthful charms their beauty mouldingTo blossom for love’s ecstasy.A happy fate now hovers round thee,And friendship yields without a smartTo that sweet god whose might hath bound thee;–He needs must have, he […]

The Common Fate

Story type: Poetry

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See how we hate, how we quarrel, how thought and how feeling divide us!But thy locks, friend, like mine, meanwhile are bleachening fast.

Where will a place of refuge, noble friend,For peace and freedom ever open lie!The century in tempests had its end,The new one now begins with murder’s cry. Each land-connecting bond is torn away,Each ancient custom hastens to decline;Not e’en the ocean can war’s tumult stay.Not e’en the Nile-god, not the hoary Rhine. Two mighty nations […]

I chanced the other eve,–But how I ne’er will tell,–The paper to receive.That’s published down in hell. In general one may guess,I little care to seeThis free-corps of the pressGot up so easily; But suddenly my eyesA side-note chanced to meet,And fancy my surpriseAt reading in the sheet:– “For twenty weary springs”(The post from Erebus,Remark […]

A maiden blush o’er every feature straying,The Muse her gentle harp now lays down here,And stands before thee, for thy judgment praying,–She waits with reverence, but not with fear;Her last farewell for his kind smile delaying.Whom splendor dazzles not who holds truth dear.The hand of him alone whose soaring spiritWorships the beautiful, can crown her […]

Spinosa

Story type: Poetry

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A mighty oak here ruined lies,Its top was wont to kiss the skies,Why is it now o’erthrown?–The peasants needed, so they said,Its wood wherewith to build a shed,And so they’ve cut it down.

Twirl him! twirl him! blind and dumbDeaf and dumb,Twirl the cane so troublesome!Sprigs of fashion by the dozenThou dost bring to book, good cousin.Cousin, thou art not in clover;Many a head that’s filled with smokeThou hast twirled and well-nigh broke,Many a clever one perplexed,Many a stomach sorely vexed,Turning it completely over;Many a hat put on […]

(SUNG IN A CIRCLE OF FRIENDS.) With one last bumper let us hailThe wanderer beloved,Who takes his leave of this still valeWherein in youth he roved. From loving arms, from native home,He tears himself away,To yonder city proud to roam,That makes whole lands its prey. Dissension flies, all tempests end,And chained is strife abhorred;We in […]

Thou’rt welcome in my box to peep!Life’s puppet-show, the world in little,Thou’lt see depicted to a tittle,–But pray at some small distance keep!‘Tis by the torch of love alone,By Cupid’s taper, it is shown. See, not a moment void the stage is!The child in arms at first they bring,–The boy then skips,–the youth now storms […]

TO AMANDA. Woman in everything yields to man; but in that which is highest,Even the manliest man yields to the woman most weak.But that highest,–what is it? The gentle radiance of triumphAs in thy brow upon me, beauteous Amanda, it beams.When o’er the bright shining disk the clouds of affliction are fleeting,Fairer the image appears, […]

William Tell

Story type: Poetry

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William Tell. [1] When hostile elements with rage resound,And fury blindly fans war’s lurid flame,–When in the strife of party quarrel drowned,The voice of justice no regard can claim,–When crime is free, and impious hands are foundThe sacred to pollute, devoid of shame,And loose the anchor which the state maintains,–No subject there we find for […]

Trust me, ’tis not a mere tale,–the fountain of youth really runneth,Runneth forever. Thou ask’st, where? In the poet’s sweet art!

Into life’s ocean the youth with a thousand masts daringly launches;Mute, in a boat saved from wreck, enters the gray-beard the port.

Severe the proof the Grecian youth was doomed to undergo,Before he might what lurks beneath the Eleusinia know–Art thou prepared and ripe, the shrine–the inner shrine–to win,Where Pallas guards from vulgar eyes the mystic prize within?Knowest thou what bars thy way? how dear the bargain thou dost make,When but to buy uncertain good, sure good […]

“Who would himself with shadows entertain,Or gild his life with lights that shine in vain,Or nurse false hopes that do but cheat the true?–Though with my dream my heaven should be resigned–Though the free-pinioned soul that once could dwellIn the large empire of the possible,This workday life with iron chains may bind,Yet thus the mastery […]

The Present

Story type: Poetry

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Ring and staff, oh to me on a Rhenish flask ye are welcome!Him a true shepherd I call, who thus gives drink to his sheep.Draught thrice blest! It is by the Muse I have won thee,–the Muse, too,Sends thee,–and even the church places upon thee her seal.

Thou, by whom, freed from rules constrained and wrong,On truth and nature once again we’re placed,–Who, in the cradle e’en a hero strong,Stiffest the serpents round our genius laced,–Thou whom the godlike science has so longWith her unsullied sacred fillet graced,–Dost thou on ruined altars sacrificeTo that false muse whom we no longer prize? This […]

Once wisdom dwelt in tomes of ponderous size,While friendship from a pocketbook would talk;But now that knowledge in small compass lies,And floats in almanacs, as light as cork,Courageous man, thou dost not hesitateTo open for thy friends this house so great!Hast thou no fear, I seriously would ask,That thou may’st thus their patience overtask?

Two are the roads that before thee lie open from life to conduct thee;To the ideal one leads thee, the other to death.See that while yet thou art free, on the first thou commencest thy journey,Ere by the merciless fates on to the other thou’rt led!

Years has the master been laboring, but always without satisfaction;To an ingenious race ‘twould be in vision conferred.What they yesterday learned, to-day they fain would be teaching:Small compassion, alas, is by those gentlemen shown!

(HERR VON MECHELN OF BASLE.) Nature in charms is exhaustless, in beauty ever reviving;And, like Nature, fair art is inexhaustible too.Hail, thou honored old man! for both in thy heart thou preservestLiving sensations, and thus ne’er-ending youth is thy lot!

I, too, at length discerned great Hercules’ energy mighty,–Saw his shade. He himself was not, alas, to be seen.Round him were heard, like the screaming of birds,the screams of tragedians,And, with the baying of dogs, barked dramaturgists around.There stood the giant in all his terrors; his bow was extended,And the bolt, fixed on the string, […]

Danube In —-

Story type: Poetry

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Round me are dwelling the falcon-eyed race, the Phaeacian people;Sunday with them never ends; ceaselessly moves round the spit.

The Rivers Rhine

Story type: Poetry

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True, as becometh a Switzer, I watch over Germany’s borders;But the light-footed Gaul jumps o’er the suffering stream.

The Metaphysician

Story type: Poetry

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“How far beneath me seems the earthly ball!The pigmy race below I scarce can see;How does my art, the noblest art of all,Bear me close up to heaven’s bright canopy!”So cries the slater from his tower’s high top,And so the little would-be mighty man,Hans Metaphysicus, from out his critic-shop.Explain, thou little would-be mighty man!The tower […]

The principle by which each thingToward strength and shape first tended,–The pulley whereon Zeus the ringOf earth, that loosely used to swing,With cautiousness suspended,–he is a clever man, I vow,Who its real name can tell me now,Unless to help him I consent–‘Tis: ten and twelve are different! Fire burns,–’tis chilly when it snows,Man always is […]

Knowledge

Story type: Poetry

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Knowledge to one is a goddess both heavenly and high,–to anotherOnly an excellent cow, yielding the butter he wants.

Once to a horse-fair,–it may perhaps have beenWhere other things are bought and sold,–I meanAt the Haymarket,–there the muses’ horseA hungry poet brought–to sell, of course. ‘The hippogriff neighed shrilly, loudly,And reared upon his hind-legs proudly;In utter wonderment each stood and cried:“The noble regal beast!” But, woe betide!Two hideous wings his slender form deface,The finest […]

The Imitator

Story type: Poetry

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Good from the good,–to the reason this is not hard of conception;But the genius has power good from the bad to evoke.‘Tis the conceived alone, that thou, imitator, canst practise;Food the conceived never is, save to the mind that conceives.

The Inquirers

Story type: Poetry

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Men now seek to explore each thing from within and without too!How canst thou make thy escape, Truth, from their eager pursuit?That they may catch thee, with nets and poles extended they seek theeBut with a spirit-like tread, glidest thou out of the throng.

Geniality

Story type: Poetry

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How does the genius make itself known? In the way that in natureShows the Creator himself,–e’en in the infinite whole.Clear is the ether, and yet of depth that ne’er can be fathomed;Seen by the eye, it remains evermore closed to the sense.

The Law Of Nature

Story type: Poetry

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It has ever been so, my friend, and will ever remain so:Weakness has rules for itself,–vigor is crowned with success. CHOICE. If thou canst not give pleasure to all by thy deeds and thy knowledge,Give it then, unto the few; many to please is but vain.

The Philosophers

Story type: Poetry

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PUPIL.I am rejoiced, worthy sirs, to find you in pleno assembled;For I have come down below, seeking the one needful thing. ARISTOTLE.Quick to the point, my good friend! For the Jena Gazette comesto hand here,Even in hell,–so we know all that is passing above. PUPIL.So much the better! So give me (I will not depart […]

Jeremiads

Story type: Poetry

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All, both in prose and in verse, in Germany fast is decaying;Far behind us, alas, lieth the golden age now!For by philosophers spoiled is our language–our logic by poets,And no more common sense governs our passage through life.From the aesthetic, to which she belongs, now virtue is driven,And into politics forced, where she’s a troublesome […]

The Homerides

Story type: Poetry

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Who is the bard of the Iliad among you? For since he likes puddings,Heyne begs he’ll accept these that from Gottingen come.“Give them to me! The kings’ quarrel I sang!”–“I, the fight near the vessels!”–“Hand me the puddings!I sang what upon Ida took place!”Gently! Don’t tear me to pieces! The puddings will not be sufficient;He […]

My Antipathy

Story type: Poetry

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I have a heartfelt aversion for crime,–a twofold aversion,Since ’tis the reason why man prates about virtue so much.“What! thou hatest, then, virtue?”–I would that by all it were practised,So that, God willing, no man ever need speak of it more.

“I Have sacrificed all,” thou sayest, “that man I might succor;Vain the attempt; my reward was persecution and hate.”Shall I tell thee, my friend, how I to humor him manage?Trust the proverb! I ne’er have been deceived by it yet.Thou canst not sufficiently prize humanity’s value;Let it be coined in deed as it exists in […]

My Faith

Story type: Poetry

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Which religion do I acknowledge? None that thou namest.“None that I name? And why so?”–Why, for religion’s own sake?

To Astronomers

Story type: Poetry

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Prate not to me so much of suns and of nebulous bodies;Think ye Nature but great, in that she gives thee to count?Though your object may be the sublimest that space holds within it,Yet, my good friends, the sublime dwells not in the regions of space.

Friend And Foe

Story type: Poetry

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Dearly I love a friend; yet a foe I may turn to my profit;Friends show me that which I can; foes teach me that which I should.

Thou in truth shouldst be one, yet not with the whole shouldst thou be so.‘Tis through the reason thou’rt one,–art so with it through the heart.Voice of the whole is thy reason, but thou thine own heart must be ever;If in thy heart reason dwells evermore, happy art thou.

Understanding, indeed, can repeat what already existed,–That which Nature has built, after her she, too, can build.Over Nature can reason build, but in vacancy only:But thou, genius, alone, nature in nature canst form.

Variety

Story type: Poetry

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Many are good and wise; yet all for one only reckon,For ’tis conception, alas, rules them, and not a fond heart.Sad is the sway of conception,–from thousandfold varying figures,Needy and empty but one it is e’er able to bring.But where creative beauty is ruling, there life and enjoymentDwell; to the ne’er-changing One, thousands of new […]

Do what is good, and humanity’s godlike plant thou wilt nourish;Plan what is fair, and thou’lt strew seeds of the godlike around.

Wouldst thou, my friend, mount up to the highest summit of wisdom,Be not deterred by the fear, prudence thy course may derideThat shortsighted one sees but the bank that from thee is flying,Not the one which ere long thou wilt attain with bold flight. p>

If thou anything hast, let me have it,–I’ll pay what is proper;If thou anything art, let us our spirits exchange.

(TO BE SUNG IN NORTHERN COUNTRIES.) On the mountain’s breezy summit,Where the southern sunbeams shine,Aided by their warming vigor,Nature yields the golden wine. How the wondrous mother formeth,None have ever read aright;Hid forever is her working,And inscrutable her might. Sparkling as a son of Phoebus,As the fiery source of light,From the vat it bubbling springeth,Purple, […]

Wreathe in a garland the corn’s golden ear!With it, the Cyane [1] blue intertwineRapture must render each glance bright and clear,For the great queen is approaching her shrine,–She who compels lawless passions to cease,Who to link man with his fellow has come,And into firm habitations of peaceChanged the rude tents’ ever-wandering home. Shyly in the […]

The Complaint of Ceres. [1] Does pleasant spring return once more?Does earth her happy youth regain?Sweet suns green hills are shining o’er;Soft brooklets burst their icy chain:Upon the blue translucent riverLaughs down an all-unclouded day,The winged west winds gently quiver,The buds are bursting from the spray;While birds are blithe on every tree;The Oread from the […]

Once to the song and chariot-fight,Where all the tribes of Greece uniteOn Corinth’s isthmus joyously,The god-loved Ibycus drew nigh.On him Apollo had bestowedThe gift of song and strains inspired;So, with light staff, he took his roadFrom Rhegium, by the godhead fired. Acrocorinth, on mountain high,Now burns upon the wanderer’s eye,And he begins, with pious dread,Poseidon’s […]

The Ring of Polycrates. [1] Upon his battlements he stood,And downward gazed in joyous mood,On Samos’ Isle, that owned his sway,“All this is subject to my yoke;”To Egypt’s monarch thus he spoke,–“That I am truly blest, then, say!” “The immortals’ favor thou hast known!Thy sceptre’s might has overthrownAll those who once were like to thee.Yet […]

Play on thy mother’s bosom, babe, for in that holy isleThe error cannot find thee yet, the grieving, nor the guile;Held in thy mother’s arms above life’s dark and troubled wave,Thou lookest with thy fearless smile upon the floating grave.Play, loveliest innocence!–Thee yet Arcadia circles round,A charmed power for thee has set the lists of […]

Dithyramb

Story type: Poetry

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Dithyramb.[1] Believe me, togetherThe bright gods come ever,Still as of old;Scarce see I Bacchus, the giver of joy,Than comes up fair Eros, the laugh-loving boy,And Phoebus, the stately, behold! They come near and nearer,The heavenly ones all–The gods with their presenceFill earth as their hall! Say, how shall I welcome,Human and earthborn,Sons of the sky?Pour […]

The Alpine Hunter

Story type: Poetry

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Wilt thou not the lambkins guard?Oh, how soft and meek they look,Feeding on the grassy sward,Sporting round the silvery brook!“Mother, mother, let me goOn yon heights to chase the roe!” Wilt thou not the flock compelWith the horn’s inspiring notes?Sweet the echo of yon bell,As across the wood it floats!“Mother, mother, let me goOn yon […]

The clouds fast gather,The forest-oaks roar–A maiden is sittingBeside 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 belowI have […]

The goblet is sparkling with purpled-tinged wine,Bright glistens the eye of each guest,When into the hall comes the Minstrel divine,To the good he now brings what is best;For when from Elysium is absent the lyre,No joy can the banquet of nectar inspire. He is blessed by the gods, with an intellect clear,That mirrors the world […]

Four elements, joined inHarmonious strife,Shadow the world forth,And typify life. Into the gobletThe lemon’s juice pour;Acid is everLife’s innermost core. Now, with the sugar’sAll-softening juice,The strength of the acidSo burning reduce. The bright sparkling waterNow pour in the bowl;Water all-gentlyEncircles the whole. Let drops of the spiritTo join them now flow;Life to the livingNaught else […]

To My Friends

Story type: Poetry

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Yes, my friends!–that happier times have beenThan 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 comeFrom 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 […]

See, he sitteth on his matSitteth there upright,With the grace with which he satWhile he saw the light. Where is now the sturdy gripe,–Where the breath sedate,That so lately whiffed the pipeToward the Spirit great? Where the bright and falcon eye,That the reindeer’s treadOn the waving grass could spy,Thick with dewdrops spread? Where the limbs […]

The Ideals

Story type: Poetry

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And wilt thou, faithless one, then, leave me,With all thy magic phantasy,–With all the thoughts that joy or grieve me,Wilt thou with all forever fly?Can naught delay thine onward motion,Thou golden time of life’s young dream?In vain! eternity’s wide oceanCeaselessly drowns thy rolling stream. The glorious suns my youth enchantingHave set in never-ending night;Those blest […]

The Pilgrim

Story type: Poetry

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Youth’s gay springtime scarcely knowingWent I forth the world to roam–And the dance of youth, the glowing,Left I in my father’s home,Of my birthright, glad-believing,Of my world-gear took I none,Careless as an infant, cleavingTo my pilgrim staff alone.For I placed my mighty hope inDim and holy words of faith,“Wander forth–the way is open,Ever on the […]

To Emma

Story type: Poetry

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Far away, where darkness reigneth,All my dreams of bliss are flown;Yet with love my gaze remainethFixed on one fair star alone.But, alas! that star so brightSheds no lustre save by night. If in slumbers ending never,Gloomy death had sealed thine eyes,Thou hadst lived in memory ever–Thou hadst lived still in my sighs;But, alas! in light […]

The Youth By the Brook. [1] Beside the brook the boy reclinedAnd wove his flowery wreath,And to the waves the wreath consigned–The waves that danced beneath.“So fleet mine hours,” he sighed, “awayLike waves that restless flow:And so my flowers of youth decayLike those that float below.” “Ask not why I, alone on earth,Am sad in […]

[The scenery of Gotthardt is here personified.] To the solemn abyss leads the terrible path,The life and death winding dizzy between;In thy desolate way, grim with menace and wrath,To daunt thee the spectres of giants are seen;That thou wake not the wild one [1], all silently tread–Let thy lip breathe no breath in the pathway […]

Once more, then, we meetIn the circles of yore;Let our song be as sweetIn its wreaths as before,Who claims the first placeIn the tribute of song?The God to whose graceAll our pleasures belong.Though Ceres may spreadAll her gifts on the shrine,Though the glass may be redWith the blush of the vine,What boots–if the whileFall no […]

The Conflict

Story type: Poetry

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No! I this conflict longer will not wage,The conflict duty claims–the giant task;–Thy spells, O virtue, never can assuageThe heart’s wild fire–this offering do not ask True, I have sworn–a solemn vow have sworn,That I myself will curb the self within;Yet take thy wreath, no more it shall be worn–Take back thy wreath, and leave […]

AN EPISTLE BY A MARRIED MAN–TO A FELLOW-SUFFERER If Faust had really any handIn printing, I can understandThe fate which legends more than hint;–The devil take all hands that print! And what my thanks for all?–a pout–Sour looks–deep sighs; but what about?About! O, that I well divine–That such a pearl should fall to swine–That such […]

The Artists

Story type: Poetry

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How gracefully, O man, with thy palm-bough,Upon the waning century standest thou,In proud and noble manhood’s prime,With unlocked senses, with a spirit freed,Of firmness mild,–though silent, rich in deed,The ripest son of Time,Through meekness great, through precepts strong,Through treasures rich, that time had longHid in thy bosom, and through reason free,–Master of Nature, who thy […]

Sweet friend, the world, like some fair infant blessed,Radiant with sportive grace, around thee plays;Yet ’tis not as depicted in thy breast–Not as within thy soul’s fair glass, its raysAre mirrored. The respectful fealtyThat my heart’s nobleness hath won for thee,The miracles thou workest everywhere,The charms thy being to this life first lent,–To it, mere […]

A HYMN. By love are blest the gods on high,Frail man becomes a deityWhen love to him is given;‘Tis love that makes the heavens shineWith hues more radiant, more divine,And turns dull earth to heaven! In Pyrrha’s rear (so poets sangIn ages past and gone),The world from rocky fragments sprang–Mankind from lifeless stone. Their soul […]

Now hearken, ye who take delightIn boasting of your worth!To many a man, to many a knight,Beloved in peace and brave in fight,The Swabian land gives birth. Of Charles and Edward, Louis, Guy,And Frederick, ye may boast;Charles, Edward, Louis, Frederick, Guy–None with Sir Eberhard can vie–Himself a mighty host! And then young Ulerick, his son,Ha! […]

To A Moralist

Story type: Poetry

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Are the sports of our youth so displeasing?Is love but the folly you say?Benumbed with the winter, and freezing,You scold at the revels of May. For you once a nymph had her charms,And Oh! when the waltz you were wreathing,All Olympus embraced in your arms–All its nectar in Julia’s breathing. If Jove at that moment […]

To The Spring

Story type: Poetry

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Welcome, gentle Stripling,Nature’s darling thou!With thy basket full of blossoms,A happy welcome now!Aha!–and thou returnest,Heartily we greet thee–The loving and the fair one,Merrily we meet thee!Think’st thou of my maidenIn thy heart of glee? I love her yet, the maiden–And the maiden yet loves me!For the maiden, many a blossomI begged–and not in vain!I came […]

She comes, she comes–the burden of the deeps!Beneath her wails the universal sea!With clanking chains and a new god, she sweeps,And with a thousand thunders, unto thee!The ocean-castles and the floating hosts–Ne’er on their like looked the wild water!–WellMay man the monster name “Invincible.”O’er shuddering waves she gathers to thy coasts!The horror that she spreads […]

Hymn To Joy

Story type: Poetry

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Joy, thou goddess, fair, immortal,Offspring of Elysium,Mad with rapture, to the portalOf thy holy fame we come!Fashion’s laws, indeed, may sever,But thy magic joins again;All mankind are brethren ever‘Neath thy mild and gentle reign. CHORUS.Welcome, all ye myriad creatures!Brethren, take the kiss of love!Yes, the starry realms aboveHide a Father’s smiling features! He, that noble […]

Ye in the age gone by,Who ruled the world–a world how lovely then!–And guided still the steps of happy menIn the light leading-strings of careless joy!Ah, flourished then your service of delight!How different, oh, how different, in the dayWhen thy sweet fanes with many a wreath were bright,O Venus Amathusia! Then, through a veil of […]

Elegy On the Death of a Young Man [5] Mournful groans, as when a tempest lowers,Echo from the dreary house of woe;Death-notes rise from yonder minster’s towers!Bearing out a youth, they slowly go;Yes! a youth–unripe yet for the bier,Gathered in the spring-time of his days,Thrilling yet with pulses strong and clear,With the flame that in […]

Rousseau

Story type: Poetry

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Monument of our own age’s shame,On thy country casting endless blame,Rousseau’s grave, how dear thou art to meCalm repose be to thy ashes blest!In thy life thou vainly sought’st for rest,But at length ’twas here obtained by thee! When will ancient wounds be covered o’er?Wise men died in heathen days of yore;Now ’tis lighter–yet they […]

The Battle

Story type: Poetry

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Heavy and solemn,A cloudy column,Through the green plain they marching came!Measure less spread, like a table dread,For the wild grim dice of the iron game.The looks are bent on the shaking ground,And the heart beats loud with a knelling sound;Swift by the breasts that must bear the brunt,Gallops the major along the front–“Halt!”And fettered they […]

The Fugitive

Story type: Poetry

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The air is perfumed with the morning’s fresh breeze,From the bush peer the sunbeams all purple and bright,While they gleam through the clefts of the dark-waving trees,And the cloud-crested mountains are golden with light. With joyful, melodious, ravishing, strain,The lark, as he wakens, salutes the glad sun,Who glows in the arms of Aurora again,And blissfully […]

To Minna

Story type: Poetry

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Do I dream? can I trust to my eye?My sight sure some vapor must cover?Or, there, did my Minna pass by–My Minna–and knew not her lover?On the arm of the coxcomb she crossed,Well the fan might its zephyr bestow;Herself in her vanity lost,That wanton my Minna?–Ah, no! In the gifts of my love she was […]

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 anguishSeek Cocytus’ stream that runs wailing […]

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 […]

From earth I seem to wing my flight,And sun myself in Heaven’s pure light,When thy sweet gaze meets mineI dream I quaff ethereal dew,When my own form I mirrored viewIn those blue eyes divine! Blest notes from Paradise afar,Or strains from some benignant starEnchant my ravished ear:My Muse feels then the shepherd’s hourWhen silvery tones […]

The Infanticide

Story type: Poetry

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Hark where the bells toll, chiming, dull and steady,The clock’s slow hand hath reached the appointed time.Well, be it so–prepare, my soul is ready,Companions of the grave–the rest for crime!Now take, O world! my last farewell–receivingMy parting kisses–in these tears they dwell!Sweet are thy poisons while we taste believing,Now we are quits–heart-poisoner, fare-thee-well! Farewell, ye […]

Laura! a sunrise seems to breakWhere’er thy happy looks may glow.Joy sheds its roses o’er thy cheek,Thy tears themselves do but bespeakThe 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 […]

Through the world which the Spirit creative and kindFirst formed out of chaos, I fly like the wind,Until on the strandOf its billows I land,My anchor cast forth where the breeze blows no more,And Creation’s last boundary stands on the shore.I saw infant stars into being arise,For thousands of years to roll on through the […]

Enraged against a quondam friend,To Wisdom once proud Fortune said“I’ll give thee treasures without end,If thou wilt be my friend instead.” “My choicest gifts to him I gave,And ever blest him with my smile;And yet he ceases not to crave,And calls me niggard all the while.” “Come, sister, let us friendship vow!So take the money, […]

ANDROMACHE.Will Hector leave me for the fatal plain,Where, fierce with vengeance for Patroclus slain,Stalks Peleus’ ruthless son?Who, when thou glid’st amid the dark abodes,To hurl the spear and to revere the gods,Shall teach thine orphan one? HECTOR.Woman and wife beloved–cease thy tears;My soul is nerved–the war-clang in my ears!Be mine in life to standTroy’s bulwark!–fighting […]

Amalia

Story type: Poetry

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Angel-fair, Walhalla’s charms displaying,Fairer than all mortal youths was he;Mild his look, as May-day sunbeams strayingGently o’er the blue and glassy sea. And his kisses!–what ecstatic feeling!Like two flames that lovingly entwine,Like the harp’s soft tones together stealingInto one sweet harmony divine,– Soul and soul embraced, commingled, blended,Lips and cheeks with trembling passion burned,Heaven and […]

Name, my Laura, name the whirl-compellingBodies to unite in one blest whole–Name, my Laura, name the wondrous magicBy which soul rejoins its kindred soul! See! it teaches yonder roving planetsRound the sun to fly in endless race;And as children play around their mother,Checkered circles round the orb to trace. Every rolling star, by thirst tormented,Drinks […]

Pale, at its ghastly noon,Pauses above the death-still wood–the moon;The night-sprite, sighing, through the dim air stirs;The clouds descend in rain;Mourning, the wan stars wane,Flickering like dying lamps in sepulchres!Haggard as spectres–vision-like and dumb,Dark with the pomp of death, and moving slow,Towards that sad lair the pale procession comeWhere the grave closes on the night […]

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 breathReceive by Love’s command! [1] More gently zephyr sighs alongTo listen to thy magic song;The systems formed by heavenly loveTo sing forever as they move,Pause in their endless-whirling […]

THE ANIMAL NATURE STRENGTHENS THE ACTION OF THE SPIRIT. S 2.–Organism of the Operations of the Soul–of its Maintenance and Support–of Generation. All those conditions which we accept as requisite to the perfection of man in the moral and material world may be included in one fundamental sentence: The perfection of man consists in his […]

ANIMAL IMPULSES AWAKEN AND DEVELOP THE IMPULSES OF THE SOUL. S 7.–The Metho. The surest way, perhaps, to throw some light upon this matter is the following: Let us detach from man all idea of what can be called organization,–that is, let the body be separated from the spirit, without, however, depriving the latter of […]

The reason passes, like the heart, through certain epochs and transitions, but its development is not so often portrayed. Men seem to have been satisfied with unfolding the passions in their extremes, their aberration, and their results, without considering how closely they are bound up with the intellectual constitution of the individual. Degeneracy in morals […]

THE WORLD AND THE THINKING BEING. The universe is a thought of God. After this ideal thought-fabric passed out into reality, and the new-born world fulfilled the plan of its Creator–permit me to use this human simile–the first duty of all thinking beings has been to retrace the original design in this great reality; to […]

On The Connection Between The Animal And The Spiritual Nature In Man “It behooves us to clearly realize, as the broad facts which have most wide-reaching consequences in mental physiology and pathology, that all parts of the body, the highest and the lowest, have a sympathy with one another more intelligent than conscious intelligence can […]

The Pathetic

Story type: Essay

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The depicting of suffering, in the shape of simple suffering, is never the end of art, but it is of the greatest importance as a means of attaining its end. The highest aim of art is to represent the super-sensuous, and this is effected in particular by tragic art, because it represents by sensible marks […]

The author of the article which appeared in the eleventh number of “The Hours,” of 1795, upon “The Danger of Aesthetic Manners,” was right to hold as doubtful a morality founded only on a feeling for the beautiful, and which has no other warrant than taste; but it is evident that a strong and pure […]

There are moments in life when nature inspires us with a sort of love and respectful emotion, not because she is pleasing to our senses, or because she satisfies our mind or our taste (it is often the very opposite that happens), but merely because she is nature. This feeling is often elicited when nature […]

The abuse of the beautiful and the encroachments of imagination, when, having only the casting vote, it seeks to grasp the law-giving sceptre, has done great injury alike in life and in science. It is therefore highly expedient to examine very closely the bounds that have been assigned to the use of beautiful forms. These […]

I call vulgar (common) all that does not speak to the mind, of which all the interest is addressed only to the senses. There are, no doubt, an infinite number of things vulgar in themselves from their material and subject. But as the vulgarity of the material can always be ennobled by the treatment, in […]

All the properties by which an object can become aesthetic, can be referred to four classes, which, as well according to their objective differences as according to their different relation with the subject, produce on our passive and active faculties pleasures unequal not only in intensity but also in worth; classes which also are of […]

The Greek fable attributes to the goddess of beauty a wonderful girdle which has the quality of lending grace and of gaining hearts in all who wear it. This same divinity is accompanied by the Graces, or goddesses of grace. From this we see that the Greeks distinguished from beauty grace and the divinities styled […]

On Dignity

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As grace is the expression of a noble soul, so is dignity the expression of elevated feeling. It has been prescribed to man, it is true, to establish between his two natures a unison, to form always an harmonious whole, and to act as in union with his entire humanity. But this beauty of character, […]

The state of passion in itself, independently of the good or bad influence of its object on our morality, has something in it that charms us. We aspire to transport ourselves into that state, even if it costs us some sacrifices. You will find this instinct at the bottom of all our most habitual pleasures. […]

Whatever pains some modern aesthetics give themselves to establish, contrary to general belief, that the arts of imagination and of feeling have not pleasure for their object, and to defend them against this degrading accusation, this belief will not cease: it reposes upon a solid foundation, and the fine arts would renounce with a bad […]

Sulzer has remarked that the stage has arisen from an irresistible longing for the new and extraordinary. Man, oppressed by divided cares, and satiated with sensual pleasure, felt an emptiness or want. Man, neither altogether satisfied with the senses, nor forever capable of thought, wanted a middle state, a bridge between the two states, bringing […]

Semele

Story type: Literature

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IN TWO SCENES. Dramatis Personae. JUNO.SEMELE, Princess of Thebes.JUPITER.MERCURY. SCENE–The Palace of Cadmus at Thebes. SCENE I. JUNO. (Descending from her chariot, enveloped in a cloud.)Away, ye peacocks, with my winged car!Upon Cithaeron’s cloud-capped summit wait![The chariot and cloud vanish.Hail, hail, thou house of my undying anger!A fearful hail to thee, thou hostile roof,Ye hated […]

The Sport Of Destiny

Story type: Literature

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ALOYSIUS VON G—— was the son of a citizen of distinction, in the service of ——-, and the germs of his fertile genius had been early developed by a liberal education. While yet very young, but already well grounded in the principles of knowledge, he entered the military service of his sovereign, to whom he […]

THE BRIDE OF MESSINATranslated by A. Lodge DRAMATIS PERSONAE. ISABELLA, Princess of Messina.DON MANUEL | her Sons.DON CAESAR |BEATRICE.DIEGO, an ancient Servant.MESSENGERS.THE ELDERS OF MESSINA, mute.THE CHORUS, consisting of the Followers of the two Princes. SCENE I. [A spacious hall, supported on columns, with entranceson both sides; at the back of the stage a largefolding-door […]

A poetical work must vindicate itself: if the execution be defective, little aid can be derived from commentaries. On these grounds I might safely leave the chorus to be its own advocate, if we had ever seen it presented in an appropriate manner. But it must be remembered that a dramatic composition first assumes the […]

In the whole history of man there is no chapter more instructive for the heart and mind than the annals of his errors. On the occasion of every great crime a proportionally great force was in motion. If by the pale light of ordinary emotions the play of the desiring faculty is concealed, in the […]