From far, with din of ceaseless bustle Is labouring heard the toilsome day, And midst the busy crowd's low rustle, I mark the ponderous hammer's sway. So man scarce wrings from niggard Heaven, With pain, his lot of weal or woe, While from the Immortals' lap, free given, Descends the light-earn'd Bliss below. That silent Bliss, our souls possessing- Gently on tiptoe comes it stealing; Die Gunst des Augenblicks. 1802. THIS poem also, though a few years later in date, is here inserted on account of analogy. "The Favour of the Moment" is a title which seems hardly adequate to the whole sense implied by the Original; but it is not easy to find one more appropriate. It should be added that it was composed for a circle of friends, male and female, who were then accustomed to meet together, constituting one of the latest charms of the Poet's existence. So once more we're met together To what power celestial bring we Him, before all others, sing we, Since what boots it Ceres, spreading If from Heaven the spark awake not, If the soul its fires partake not, And the heart's springs ne'er o'erflow? From the clouds must Fortune light ye- IS THE MOMENT. It is ours. From creation's earliest minute, Slowly in the lapse of ages Grows the mass of bedded stone; As the gorgeous tapestry woven So all fairest things are fleeting, Die Antiken zu Paris. 1800. IN these two stanzas the Poet gives vent to his indignation against the rapacity of the French invaders of Italy in their removal to Paris of the most glorious and beautiful works of ancient art; while the Poem immediately following, and which was produced about the same time, exhibits a fine burst of the national enthusiasm then beginning to embody itself in the form which was destined, thirteen years later, to break the power of French usurpation, and establish the force of the Germanic confederacy on a firm and lasting basis. Both poems need no further comment. WHAT the Grecian art created, To that tasteless brood they speak not— Die Deutsche Muse. 1800. No Augustan age hath flower'd- By Teutonia's noblest races By the throne Great Frederick graces— Thus to loftier arch extending, Pours the German minstrel's song; Punschlied. 1803. WE have here again a pair of poems, which, though of later date, appear to claim insertion next after the preceding, on account of their truly national spirit, emblematically clothed in a convivial garb. The first indeed only represents Human Life under the symbol of the four elements which compose the favourite liquor of the Germans; the second converts it to a theme of patriotic exultation over the natural productions of more genial climates. Both, it is evident, were intended to be set to music, and have, no doubt, enlivened many a compotation held long since the death of their Author, and in his celebration. 1. FOUR primal Elements Fashion man's life,' And the Universe build. |