O'er ocean with a thousand masts sails on the young man bold—
One boat, hard-rescued from the deep, draws into port the old!
* * * * *
TO THE PROSELYTE—MAKER.
"A little Earth from out the Earth, and I
The Earth will move"—so said the sage divine;
Out of myself one little moment try
Myself to take;—succeed, and I am thine.
* * * * *
VALUE AND WORTH.
If thou hast something, bring thy goods, a fair return be
thine!—
If thou art something—bring thy soul, and interchange with mine.
* * * * *
THE FORTUNE-FAVOURED. [10]
[Footnote 10: The first verses in the original of this poem are placed as a motto on Goethe's statue at Weimar.]
Ah! happy He, upon whose birth each god
Looks down in love, whose earliest sleep the bright
Idalia cradles, whose young lips the rod
Of eloquent Hermes kindles—to whose eyes,
Scarce waken'd yet, Apollo steals in light,
While on imperial brows Jove sets the seal of might.
Godlike the lot ordain'd for him to share,
He wins the garland ere be runs the race;
He learns life's wisdom ere he knows life's care,
And, without labour vanquish'd, smiles the Grace.
Great is the man, I grant, whose strength of mind,
Self-shapes its objects and subdues the Fates—
Virtue subdues the Fates, but cannot bind
The fickle Happiness, whose smile awaits
Those who scarce seek it; nor can courage earn
What the Grace showers not from her own free urn!
From aught unworthy, the determined will
Can guard the watchful spirit—there it ends.
The all that's glorious from the heaven descends;
As some sweet mistress loves us, freely still
Come the spontaneous gifts of heaven!—Above
Favour rules Jove, as it below rules Love!
The Immortals have their bias!—Kindly they
See the bright locks of youth enamour'd play,
And where the glad one goes, shed gladness round the way.
It is not they who boast the best to see,
Whose eyes the holy apparitions bless;
The stately light of their divinity
Hath oft but shone the brightest on the blind;—
And their choice spirit found its calm recess
In the pure childhood of a simple mind.
Unask'd they come—delighted to delude
The expectation of our baffled Pride;
No law can call their free steps to our side.
Him whom He loves, the Sire of men and gods,
(Selected from the marvelling multitude,)
Bears on his eagle to his bright abodes;
And showers, with partial hand and lavish, down
The minstrel's laurel or the monarch's crown.
Before the fortune-favour'd son of earth,
Apollo walks—and, with his jocund mirth,
The heart-enthralling Smiler of the skies.
For him grey Neptune smooths the pliant wave—
Harmless the waters for the ship that bore
The Caesar and his fortunes to the shore!
Charm'd, at his feet the crouching lion lies,
To him his back the murmuring dolphin gave;
His soul is born a sovereign o'er the strife—
The lord of all the Beautful of Life;
Where'er his presence in its calm has trod,
It charms—it sways as some diviner god.
Scorn not the Fortune-favour'd, that to him
The light-won victory by the gods is given,
Or that, as Paris, from the strife severe,
The Venus draws her darling,—Whom the heaven
So prospers, love so watches, I revere!
And not the man upon whose eyes, with dim
And baleful night, sits Fate. The Dorian lord,
August Achilles, was not less divine
That Vulcan wrought for him the shield and sword—
That round the mortal hover'd all the hosts
Of all Olympus—that his wrath to grace,
The best and bravest of the Grecian race
Fell by the Trojan steel, what time the ghosts
Of souls untimely slain fled to the Stygian coasts.
Scorn not the Beautiful—if it be fair,
And yet seem useless in thy human sight.
As scentless lilies in the loving air,
Be they delighted—thou in them delight.
If without use they shine, yet still the glow
May thine own eyes enamour. Oh rejoice
That heaven the gifts of Song showers down below—
That what the muse hath taught him, the sweet voice
Of the glad minstrel teaches thee!—the soul
Which the god breathes in him, he can bestow
In turn upon the listener—if his breast
The blessing feel, thy heart is in that blessing blest.
The busy mart let Justice still control,
Weighing the guerdon to the toil!—What then?
A god alone claims joy—all joy is his,
Flushing with unsought light the cheeks of men.
Where is no miracle, why there no bliss!
Grow, change, and ripen all that mortal be,
Shapen'd from form to form, by toiling time;
The Blissful and the Beautiful are born
Full grown, and ripen'd from Eternity—
No gradual changes to their glorious prime,
No childhood dwarfs them, and no age has worn.—
Like Heaven's, each earthly Venus on the sight
Comes, a dark birth, from out an endless sea;
Like the first Pallas, in maturest might,
Arm'd, from the Thunderer's brow, leaps forth each Thought of Light.
* * * * *
We have now, with few exceptions, translated all the principal poems comprised in the third, or maturest period of Schiller's life. We here pass back to the poems of his youth. The contrast in tone, thought, and spirit, between the compositions of the first and the third period, in the great poet's intellectual career, is sufficiently striking. In the former, there is little of that majestic repose of strength so visible in the latter; but there is infinitely more fire and action—more of that lavish and exuberant energy which characterized the earlier tales of Lord Byron, and redeemed, in that wonderful master of animated and nervous style, a certain poverty of conception by a vigour and gusto of execution, which no English poet, perhaps, has ever surpassed. In his poems lies the life, and beats the heart, of Schiller. They conduct us through the various stages of his spiritual education, and indicate each step in the progress. In this division, effort is no less discernible than power—both in language and thought there is a struggle at something not yet achieved, and not, perhaps, even yet definite and distinct to the poet himself. Here may be traced, though softened by the charm of genius, (which softens all things,) the splendid errors that belong to a passionate youth, and that give such distorted grandeur to the giant melodrama of "The Robbers." But here are to be traced also, and in far clearer characters, the man's strong heart, essentially human in its sympathies—the thoughtful and earnest intellect, not yet equally developed with the fancy, but giving ample promise of all it was destined to receive. In these earlier poems, extravagance is sufficiently noticeable—yet never the sickly eccentricities of diseased weakness, but the exuberant overflowings of a young Titan's strength. There is a distinction, which our critics do not always notice, between the extravagance of a great genius, and the affectation of a pretty poet.
