The Poems of Schiller — Third period. Friedrich von Schiller
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The brows of an unworthy crew;
And, ah! how soon Love's happy morning,
When spring had vanished, vanished too!
More silent yet, and yet more weary,
Became the desert path I trod;
And even hope a glimmer dreary
Scarce cast upon the gloomy road.
Of all that train, so bright with gladness,
Oh, who is faithful to the end?
Who now will seek to cheer my sadness,
And to the grave my steps attend?
Thou, Friendship, of all guides the fairest,
Who gently healest every wound;
Who all life's heavy burdens sharest,
Thou, whom I early sought and found!
Employment too, thy loving neighbor,
Who quells the bosom's rising storms;
Who ne'er grows weary of her labor,
And ne'er destroys, though slow she forms;
Who, though but grains of sand she places
To swell eternity sublime,
Yet minutes, days, ay! years effaces
From the dread reckoning kept by Time!
THE YOUTH BY THE BROOK. 3
Beside the brook the boy reclined
And wove his flowery wreath,
And to the waves the wreath consigned —
The waves that danced beneath.
"So fleet mine hours," he sighed, "away
Like waves that restless flow:
And so my flowers of youth decay
Like those that float below."
"Ask not why I, alone on earth,
Am sad in life's young time;
To all the rest are hope and mirth
When spring renews its prime.
Alas! the music Nature makes,
In thousand songs of gladness —
While charming all around me, wakes
My heavy heart to sadness."
"Ah! vain to me the joys that break
From spring, voluptuous are;
For only one 't is mine to seek —
The near, yet ever far!
I stretch my arms, that shadow-shape
In fond embrace to hold;
Still doth the shade the clasp escape —
The heart is unconsoled!"
"Come forth, fair friend, come forth below,
And leave thy lofty hall,
The fairest flowers the spring can know
In thy dear lap shall fall!
Clear glides the brook in silver rolled,
Sweet carols fill the air;
The meanest hut hath space to hold
A happy loving pair!"
TO EMMA
Far away, where darkness reigneth,
All my dreams of bliss are flown;
Yet with love my gaze remaineth
Fixed on one fair star alone.
But, alas! that star so bright
Sheds 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 thou livest —
To my love no answer givest!
Can the sweet hopes love once cherished
Emma, can they transient prove?
What has passed away and perished —
Emma, say, can that be love?
That bright flame of heavenly birth —
Can it die like things of earth?
THE FAVOR OF THE MOMENT
Once more, then, we meet
In the circles of yore;
Let our song be as sweet
In its wreaths as before,
Who claims the first place
In the tribute of song?
The God to whose grace
All our pleasures belong.
Though Ceres may spread
All her gifts on the shrine,
Though the glass may be red
With the blush of the vine,
What boots — if the while
Fall no spark on the hearth;
If the heart do not smile
With the instinct of mirth? —
From the clouds, from God's breast
Must our happiness fall,
'Mid the blessed, most blest
Is the moment of all!
Since creation began
Sung in "The Parasite," a comedy which Schiller translated from Picard — much the best comedy, by the way, that Picard ever wrote.