10.

But life's flood, that first by close impending Rocks confin'd, in wild descending

Cataracts foam'd, now glides with even flow
Silently through Beauty's shadowy mansion:
And upon its bosom's bright expansion
Hesper and Aurora pictur'd glow.

Here in mutual love their tumults steeping,
Free united in the bonds of Grace,
Rest the reconciled passions sleeping,
And the Foe hath left no trace.

11.

When, to animate the mass imbedded—
With dead matter to be wedded-
Genius burns, on strenuous act intent;
Then be Industry's strong nerves expanded,
And let Thought, in ceaseless conflict banded,
Subject to its laws the element.

Only zeal, impatient of repose,

Finds Truth bubbling from her secret vein;

Only to the chisel's ponderous blows

Yields the marble's stubborn grain.

12.

But to Beauty's sphere once penetrate,
And in dust remains dead weight,

With the senseless matter which it sways.
Not as from the labouring block hard-wrung;
Light and graceful, as from nothing sprung,

Stands the statue to the raptur'd gaze.

There all doubts are hush'd, all conflict vanish'd, In the proud assurance of success;

Thence all witnesses for ever banish'd

When before the Law's majestic terror
Bare ye stand, in conscious error-
When unto The Holy, Guilt draws nigh—
Then may blench, before the beams of real
Truth, your Virtue-then before the Ideal,
Spiritless, your deeds confounded fly.

No created mind hath reach'd this centre.
O'er this terrible abyss profound

May no arch be spann'd-no bark may venture;
And no anchor findeth ground.

14.

But, from bounds of sense deliver'd, soar
To free Thought's unbounded shore-
And the spectre shapes away have flown,
And the eternal Chasm itself shall fill:
Take the Godhead up into your will,
And he steps from his Creation-throne.
Only slavish sense, that spurns compliance,
Crouches at the Law's coercive rod :
Vanishes, if man but cease defiance,

All the terror of a God.

15.

When ye stand begirt with Human woes-
When 'midst agonizing throes,

Priam's son his serpent folds would part,
Then let man arouse him-let it fly
To the vault of Heaven, his piercing cry.
And distract with grief your feeling heart—
Then the formidable voice of Nature
Triumph-and the cheek of Joy turn pale-
And, to subjugate the immortal creature,
Holy Sympathy prevail.

16.

But where 'bide pure Forms-in those bright regions
Tenanted by shadowy legions,

Rude Affliction's storms no longer tear.
There are souls no longer rack'd with anguish,
Weeping eyes no more with sorrow languish,
Only Spirit's firm resolve is there.

Lovely as the hues of Iris, beaming
On the thunder-cloud's refreshing dew,
Through the dusky veil of sadness gleaming,
Peace reveals her heavenly Blue.

17.

To the Despot's abject slave degraded,

In eternal conflict waded

Great Alcides through life's dreary ways,
Hydras binding, Lions fierce enwreathing,

And, to free the lov'd one, plung'd while breathing

In the bark which parted souls conveys.

All the plagues and labours earth can muster
Bids the Goddess's envenom'd hate

On her victim's willing shoulders cluster—
Till the term prescrib'd by Fate—

18.

Till the God, his mortal robe disclaiming,
Tears himself from manhood, flaming,
And the light ætherial vapour drinks.
Joyful, to new Life's unmeasured distance
Soars he upwards; and of earth-existence
Sinks the weary vision-sinks-and sinks.
Harmonies from high Olympus flowing
Greet him, glorious, on the heavenly floors;
And the dimpled Goddess, roseate glowing,
In his cup the Nectar pours.

Die Ideale.

THE IDEALS.

THE following poem, which is so closely connected with the former, not only in point of title, and in order of time, but also by way of contrast, rather than of affinity, to the state of mind in which that was engendered, is disunited from it by Hoffmeister, in order to suit his theory of classification, but is here restored to what appears to be its proper position. It is less general, less metaphysical, more exclusively subjective and personal to the Poet, than either that with which it is thus brought into comparison, or than most of the Author's contemporaneous productions. It was preferred by Goethe to any of those preceding it, probably on

the same grounds which will render it a greater favourite with English readers. Humboldt, who followed Schiller closely in his philosophical tastes and principles, while he fully admits its exceeding beauty of expression, is at a loss how to rank it among his friend's productions, accusing it at the same time of defects which Schiller himself, in his answer, thus excuses: "What you say of Die Ideale, that it wants force and fire, is very true; but I wonder that you should impute this as a fault. The Ideale is a plaintive poem, in which strength and compression of sentiment would be out of place; and there is no poem of the same class to which your objection would not with equal justice apply. The language of Complaint is always diffuse; and the Poem ought to be regarded rather as the cry of Nature-a Naturlaut, as Herder would term it-and as an expression of pain, which is inartificial and comparatively formless."

The remainder of this piece of self-criticism—as indeed the whole of Schiller's correspondence with Humboldt on the subject of his poetry of this period-is well worth the attention of the German student, but must be here omitted; since the poem itself requires no further explanation to render its design quite intelligible. Humboldt, with great shew of reason, objects to the personification of Beschaftigung-here rendered Employment-in the concluding stanzas, and proposes Thatigkeit, or Activity, as more expressive of the state of mind to which it is meant to refer; but Schiller refuses to adopt the suggestion. Here also, as in the former poem, two or three stanzas were struck out by the Author in the Edition of his collected Poetry, but are now again restored, and are those included in brackets.

1.

THUS wilt thou, faithless, from me sever ?.

With all thy phantoms of delight, Thy cares, thy joys-with all, for ever,

Inexorable, take thy flight?