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 […]

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!

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, […]

(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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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

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 […]

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 […]

(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!

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, […]