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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

(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, […]

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.

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.

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 […]

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.

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.

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

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.

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 […]

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 […]