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 […]

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 […]

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! […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

[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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]