Can nought, thou fleeting one, detain thee, Thou golden hour of vernal pride? Ah no! Time's billows swift entrain thee Down to Eternity's full tide.
Extinguish'd are the suns that lighted My path of youth with ray serene, And all the gay IDEALS blighted
That swell'd my ravish'd heart yestreen. [The beauteous fruit already perish'd, Ere yet it quite had ceas'd to flower; And those glad dreams in slumber cherish'd, Rude startled by the Present Hour.
Reality's stern barrier crushes
The captive spirit, bound and pent; The world of Thought to ruin rushes, And Poësy's fair veil is rent.] 'Tis fled the sweet belief, that rested On forms creative Fancy dream'd; By Truth of all those charms divested That late so fair, so godlike seem'd.
As erst with passionate imploring Pygmalion clasp'd the chisell'd stone, Till floods of warm sensation pouring Through all its marble features shone;
So I-with Love's fond arms enwreathing— In youthful ardour Nature press'd, Until, to new existence breathing, She kindled on my Poet-breast.
Oh! then her bosom's mutual burning The Dumb-one made by language known, And, Love's enraptur'd kiss returning, Gave back my heart its deepest tone. Then Life was in the tree-the flower; The silver fount in music fell; Whilst ev'n the inanimate had power The soul's responsive notes to swell.
The breast, its narrow confines leaving, Burst forth a world wide circling round— For life with mightiest impulse heaving In act and word, in shape and sound. How vast that world by Fancy moulded, Whilst lurking in the bud unseen! How little when its flower unfolded !— That little-ah! how vile and mean!
[As from its mountain-source slow welling, First, drop by drop, the streamlet pours, But soon, with kingly grandeur swelling, O'erflows, and bursts its lofty shores;
Huge stones and rocks, in wild commotion,
And forests wide its course molest; Yet rolls it onward to the Ocean,
Proud navies floating on its breast;]
So, wing'd for flight of loftiest boldness, And rapt in dreams to Fancy dear, Uncheck'd by doubt, or caution's coldness, The youth sprang forth on Life's career. That venturous flight his soul supported To Æther's faintest twinkling star, And for the joys his pinions courted Was nought too high, and nought too far.
How light the car of Life upbore him, With nought his mounting flight to stay, Whilst in bright escort danced before him The aerial comrades of his way. Love with his sweet rewards attending, Fortune, with wreath of golden gleam, Glory, her radiant star-crown lending, And Truth, enrobed in sunny beam.
But ah! the fickle troop already Dispers'd, ere half the race was run, Veer'd round in wavering flight unsteady, And vanish'd, faithless, one by one.
Away light-footed Fortune bounded;
Unquench'd the thirst of knowledge stay'd; And Doubt's deep-lowering storm surrounded Truth's sun-bright form with gloomiest shade.
I saw the hallow'd wreath of glory Profan'd by brows of vulgar clay; Love all too soon had told his story, And vanish'd with the flowers of May. And ever stiller grew, and ever
More lonely yet, the rugged road, And scarcely Hope one faint endeavour To light the dreamy path bestow'd.
Of all the tribe so swift careering, Who kindly stay'd with me to dwell? Who still abides, my death-bed cheering, And follows to the darksome cell? Thou, Friendship, thou, who gently bearest The healing touch for every wound— Thou, who Life's burthen kindly sharest— The early sought and lasting found.
Thou too, his mate, with him conspiring To quell the bosom's rising storm, Employment-thou, the never-tiring,
Who toilsome shap'st, nor break'st the form!
Eternity's huge pile increasing,
As grain on grain the fabrick rears, And, from Time's mighty debt, unceasing, Still striking minutes, days and years!
THE force of this Poem, even more than that of the " Ideal und Leben," is made to depend on Antithesis; and the contrast, is here exhibited in alternate stanzas of different metres, which, however agreeable it may have been rendered by habit to German ears, is, it must be confessed, a style of poetical composition so artificial as to be somewhat displeasing to our English taste. Like the above poem, and many others of the Author's productions, especially those of comparatively early date, it suffered great curtailment from his hands in preparing it for his final collection; and there is so much sameness of sentiment in the omitted stanzas, that the not now restoring them will be easily pardoned. The German Critics, however, concur in giving the highest praise both to this poem and that entitled Die Erwartung, which is similarly constructed; and Madame de Stael appears heartily to join in the commendations they have bestowed. It is observed by Hoffmeister that even the sentiment is the same, although in a narrower sphere of operation, with that of the Ideal und Leben, woman being considered as the perfection of Human Nature, under the Platonic Idea of Beauty. The omitted stanzas, he remarks, are especially drawn from Schiller's own moral conceptions of the Universe-which, if it be so, renders the fact of
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