“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 […]

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.

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 […]

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, […]

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

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

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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

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

(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 […]

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!

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.

“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 […]

[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 […]