Page images
PDF
EPUB

No roof is so lowly, no hovel so base,

But he fills with a Heaven of Celestials the place.*

4.

And as the inventive Son of Jove

On the shield's orb plain and even
The earth, the sea, and the starry cove
Depicted with skill from Heaven,
So a type he imprints of the infinite round
On the fugitive moment's vanishing sound. +

5.

He comes from the new world's infant age,
When men like children sported,

And, whilst on his frolic pilgrimage,

With all races and times consorted:

He has seen already four ages

of

men,

And now he starts with the fifth again.

* Stanza 3, Compare the Dithyrambe; also the Künstler. "Was die Natur auf ihrem grossen Gange," &c.

+ Stanza 4.

"In des Augenblicks fluchtig verrauschenden Schall.”

So, in the Prologue to Wallenstein, the Mimic Art is described as

“Des Augenblicks geschwind verrauschende Schopfung.”

6.

First, Saturn was ruler-the honest and trueThen To-day was the same as To-morrow; Then flourish'd the Shepherds-an innocent crew, Who neither knew labour nor sorrow.

They lov'd-and in sooth they did nothing besideFor the Earth all their sustenance freely supplied.

7.

Next, came Toil and Care-the contest began
With dragons and monstrous giants-

The Heroes, they lorded it over man,

And the Weak with the Strong made alliance. The red bolt on the shores of Scamander was hurl'd, -But Beauty was ever the God of the world.

8.

At length, from Strife came Victory's reign,
And Strength with Softness blended ;*
Then warbled the muses their heavenly strain,
And godlike Forms ascended.

But Fancy's age divine is o'er

It is vanish'd away; it returns never more.

* Stanza 8. Compare Die Geschlechter.

"Nur die gesättige Kraft kehret zur Anmuth zuruck."

Compare also the Götter Griechenlands with this and the following stanza.

9.

The Gods descended from Heaven's throne

Their splendid columns were broken; And then was born the Virgin's Son

For our salvation's token.

Light pleasures of sense were dispossess'd,
And man prob'd, thoughtful, his secret breast.

10.

And the wanton Graces were driven away;
In which the young world delighted;
Monk and Nun plied the scourge, and in iron array
For the jousts was the Ritter dighted;

But though Life thus gloomy and barbarous grew,
Still Love stay'd behind-the lovely and true.

11.

And the Muses their holy altar pure
Maintain'd with silent endeavour;
The noble and good were left to endure
In woman's chaste bosom for ever:
The flame of song, it was kindled again

In the Troubadour's lay, and the Minstrel's strain.

12.

Then may Bards and fair Dames in eternal band
Be conjoin'd, of soft pleasing duty,

Aye working and weaving, hand in hand,
The girdle of Truth and Beauty.

So Love and the Muse, in blest Harmony strung,
Shall make life ever look bright and young.

"

Das Eleusische Fest. 1798.

'Ir was long a favourite thought of Schiller's," says his friend Humboldt, "to give an Epic form to the earliest civilization of Attica by means of foreign immigrations. The' Feast of Eleusis' was substituted in place of this design, which remained never executed according to its original intention." The scheme here referred to has relation to the period of 1795, when Schiller contemplated the abandonment of the Dramatic Art in order to devote himself exclusively to the Epic and Didactic forms of Poetry. It is needless in this place to follow the mind of the Poet through the several changes which led to the results we now have before us. It is equally unnecessary to dilate on the subject of the Poem, which will naturally recall to the Reader, and connect itself in his mind with his earlier production, Die Klage der Ceres. We here see the Goddess, in the course of her wanderings, moved with compassion for the sufferings of savage humanity; and the two parts into which the Poem is naturally divided—the first preceded and the last terminated by a choral stanza in the Trochaic measure, and divided by the interposition of a third stanza, also in the same joyous metre, are designed to exhibit the contrast between Man as in a state of Nature, and as improved by culture, closely following out the similar train of images presented by the Spaziergang, to which its studied resemblance is still further discernible in the name of the Bürgerlied, the title under which the Poem was first published in the Musenalmanach for the year 1799. So that, to conclude, in order to a full understanding of both Poems-the Spaziergang and the Eleusische Fest-they ought to be taken as mutually illustrative of each other.

I.

"BRIGHT golden rays of rich Harvest entwining,
Wreathe with the corn-flower's heavenly Blue,
Joy through every eye be shining,
Now our queen appears in view.
She-the tamer of savage barbarity—
Leaguing mankind in a common consent;
And for fix'd homesteads of peace and charity
Changing the lawless wanderer's tent!"

1.

Deep in mountain caverns hidden
Lurk'd the Afric shepherd shy;
Nomad tribes, that roam'd unbidden,
Let untouch'd the pastures lie.
Arm'd with javelin and with bow,
Strode the Hunter o'er the land;

To the shipwreck'd Stranger, woe,

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

And as stray'd she broken-hearted,
Seeking for her ravish'd child,
Ceres hail'd those coasts deserted-
Ah! there no green pasture smil'd!
Here she finds no sheltering roof
For her pilgrim feet to rest;

No bright Temple's porch, in proof
Vows are to the Gods address'd.

« PreviousContinue »