and the beautiful-who, while they reconcile external nature to our inward perceptions, are our true deliverers from the dominion of the senses, which they do not indeed subvert, but place in affinity with that of the spirit." As compared with the works of our English poets, it is perhaps most calculated to bring to our remembrance, and sustain a comparison with those of Akenside and Wordsworth; and to such as may censure the absence of any decided religious views or impressions in a poem, the object of which is the development of human nature, its present dignity and future prospects, we would recommend the remarks of Dr. Johnson with respect to a similar fault which had been found with the design and tendency of the "Pleasures of Imagination."

In order, however, to a full comprehension of the poet's meaning in several passages, the poem ought to be read in connexion with the Author's own philosophical treatises, as well as with the Esthetic works of the great German writers who were his immediate predecessors and contemporaries: nor is this remark applicable to the Künstler only, but, in a greater or less degree, to all Schiller's poems, by which we are, more constantly than by those of any other poet, of whatever age or country, reminded of the quality which Madame de Stael has so eloquently ascribed to them in a passage already cited-" Ses écrits sont lui."

L. 1.

How like a joyful conqueror standest thou,
O man!—the palm-branch waving in thine hand-
Upon the verging century's brow,

How like a joyful conqueror dost thou stand-
In pride of noble manhood how sublime!
With plenteous wit, with sense expanded free,
In active stillness, gentle gravity,

Maturest Son of Time!

Through reason free-through statute strong

Thro' meekness great-and rich thro' stores that, long,

Thou, all unconscious, didst possess

Of nature lord who in thy chains delights,
Who proves thy prowess in a thousand fights,

And glorious, under thee, arose from wilderness.*

2.

Flush'd with the pride of thy hard-won success,
Forget not yet to praise the hand

That on life's desert strand
Found the forsaken orphan, where it lay,
Weeping, to savage chance a prey—
That to its future spiritual dignity

Did thy young heart in silence early train,
And from Desire's contaminating stain
Thy tender breast kept free-

That power benignant who thy favour'd youth
Its lofty duties taught in sportive lecture,
And Godlike Virtue's deep mysterious truth
By easy riddles led thee to conjecture:
Who into stranger arms her nursling gave,
Only to welcome back in ripen'd state—
Oh fall not off, with will degenerate

* In this introductory stanza, the thought of which is here somewhat expanded, the poet apostrophizes Man, the creature of civilization, as Lord of Nature. He is described as standing on the slope-the commanding point of view-of the century; and Nature, with whom he has still to maintain a constant struggle, as a wild animal in the valley beneathsubdued to the service of Man, and now in a state of willing subjection.

To be of slaves the slave!

Thy praise of diligence the bee out-merits

In skill a worm thou may'st for teacher ownThy wit thou dost but share with higher spiritsArt—Art, O man! is thine alone.*

3.

Only through Beauty's Orient gate Didst thou the realm of science penetrate. The intellect in fields of grace delights, That it may learn to dwell on glory's heights. The strains that, 'waken'd by the sacred chord, Were, sweetly thrilling, wont thy soul to pierce, Rous'd in thy breast the power which after soar'd To the Great Spirit of the Universe.

4.

What, after whole millenniums pass'd away,
Reason, in hoary age, first brought to light,
I'th' beautiful and great prefigur'd lay,
As symbols clear to childhood's mental sight.
The lovely form of virtue love exacted;

A tender sense from vice recoil'd in mute disdain,
Or ever yet a Solon law enacted,

Which brings its feeble blossoms forth with pain: Or ever yet before the thoughtful mind

The bold conception rose of boundless space,

*

Compare Wordsworth's Ode, entitled "Recollections of Early Childhood.".

Who to the starry vault his eyes inclin❜d,

But did the vast design instinctive trace ?*

5.

Fled to her sunny throne,

She who her face 'mid constellations shrouded—

Beheld by spirits of purest sense alone

In awful majesty, unclouded,

Consuming + travels over worlds of light-
Urania, heavenly bright,-

She now-her flaming crown beside her laid—
In Beauty's form before us stands display'd;
And, girdled with the Graces' winning zone,
Becomes herself a child, to be by children known.
That which, as BEAUTY, charm'd our youth,
Will one day meet us in the guise of TRUTH.

6.

When the Creator exil'd from his presence
Weak man to realms of sad mortality,

And, but thro'shades of sense, to light and pleasance
Decreed a toilsome late return to be;

When all the heavenly powers had from him turn'd and vanish'd;

*

She the Benignant-she alone,

Compare again Wordsworth's Ode already cited, and also his "Ode to Duty."

+ "Verzehrend über Sternen geht."-This seems to be an allusion to Deut. ix. 3. "The Lord thy God is he which goeth over before thee as a consuming fire."

In generous pity for the lost one, banish'd,

Remain'd, a common fate to own.

Here hovers she, with wing that droops and faints,
About her darling,* nigh this sensual ball,
And with her sweet illusive pencil paints
Elysium on his prison wall.

7.

Whilst in her gentle arms protective nurs'd,
Yet slumber'd manhood's tender bud,
No flames were stirr'd by holy rage accurst,
And reek'd no innocent blood.†

The heart she freely leads with silken twine
Spurns Duty's servile crew. Her path of light,
Only more beauteous in its waving line,
Blends with the sunny road of moral sight.
Who homage render to her vestal charms,
No sordid impulse tempts, no fate alarms:
As subjects to a Holy Lordship given,

They back receive pure spirit-life from Heaven,
Fair Freedom's hallow'd right.

* Liebling. So, Psalm xxii. 20.

"Deliver my soul from the sword; my darling from the power of the dog."

It may be doubted whether the allusion contained in this passage be to human sacrifices, or, more generally, to wars and persecutions on account of Religion. The remainder of the stanza, of which the sentiment may be found amplified in Schiller's Hexameter and Pentameter poem called Der Genius, seems to embrace those happy beings, who, in St. Paul's language, "having not the law, yet doing by Nature the things contained in the law, are a law unto themselves."