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Through the green boughs the sun gleams dying,
O’er fields that drink the rosy beam,
The trees’ huge shadows giant seem.
Two strangers on the road are hieing;
And as they fleet beside him flying,
These muttered words his ear dismay:
“Now–now the cross has claimed its prey!”

Despair his winged path pursues,
The anxious terrors hound him on–
There, reddening in the evening sun,
From far, the domes of Syracuse!–
When towards him comes Philostratus
(His leal and trusty herdsman he),
And to the master bends his knee.

“Back–thou canst aid thy friend no more,
The niggard time already flown–
His life is forfeit–save thine own!
Hour after hour in hope he bore,
Nor might his soul its faith give o’er;
Nor could the tyrant’s scorn deriding,
Steal from that faith one thought confiding!”

“Too late! what horror hast thou spoken!
Vain life, since it cannot requite him!
But death with me can yet unite him;
No boast the tyrant’s scorn shall make–
How friend to friend can faith forsake.
But from the double death shall know,
That truth and love yet live below!”

The sun sinks down–the gate’s in view,
The cross looms dismal on the ground–
The eager crowd gape murmuring round.
His friend is bound the cross unto. . . .
Crowd–guards–all bursts he breathless through:
“Me! Doomsman, me!” he shouts, “alone!
His life is rescued–lo, mine own!”

Amazement seized the circling ring!
Linked in each other’s arms the pair–
Weeping for joy–yet anguish there!
Moist every eye that gazed;–they bring
The wondrous tidings to the king–
His breast man’s heart at last hath known,
And the friends stand before his throne.

Long silent, he, and wondering long,
Gazed on the pair–“In peace depart,
Victors, ye have subdued my heart!
Truth is no dream!–its power is strong.
Give grace to him who owns his wrong!
‘Tis mine your suppliant now to be,
Ah, let the band of love–be three!” [1]

FOOTNOTE:
[1] This story, the heroes of which are more properly known to us under the names of Damon and Pythias (or Phintias), Schiller took from Hyginus in whom the friends are called Moerus and Selinuntius. Schiller has somewhat amplified the incidents in the original, in which the delay of Moerus is occasioned only by the swollen stream–the other hindrances are of Schiller’s invention. The subject, like “The Ring of Polycrates,” does not admit of that rich poetry of description with which our author usually adorns some single passage in his narratives. The poetic spirit is rather shown in the terse brevity with which picture after picture is not only sketched but finished–and in the great thought at the close. Still it is not one of Schiller’s best ballads. His additions to the original story are not happy. The incident of the robbers is commonplace and poor. The delay occasioned by the thirst of Moerus is clearly open to Goethe’s objection (an objection showing very nice perception of nature)–that extreme thirst was not likely to happen to a man who had lately passed through a stream on a rainy day, and whose clothes must have been saturated with moisture–nor in the traveller’s preoccupied state of mind, is it probable that he would have so much felt the mere physical want. With less reason has it been urged by other critics, that the sudden relenting of the tyrant is contrary to his character. The tyrant here has no individual character at all. He is the mere personation of disbelief in truth and love–which the spectacle of sublime self-abnegation at once converts. In this idea lies the deep philosophical truth, which redeems all the defects of the piece–for poetry, in its highest form, is merely this–“Truth made beautiful.”