The Poems of Schiller - Third period Part 23

[55] Where is no miracle, why there no bliss!

Grow, change, and ripen all that mortal be, Shapened from form to form, by toiling time; The blissful and the beautiful are born Full grown, and ripened from eternity-- No gradual changes to their glorious prime, No childhood dwarfs them, and no age has worn.-- Like heaven's, each earthly Venus on the sight Comes, a dark birth, from out an endless sea; Like the first Pallas, in maturest might, Armed, from the thunderer's--brow, leaps forth each thought of light.

BOOKSELLER'S ANNOUNCEMENT.

Naught is for man so important as rightly to know his own purpose; For but twelve groschen hard cash 'tis to be bought at my shop!

GENIUS.

"Do I believe," sayest thou, "what the masters of wisdom would teach me, And what their followers' band boldly and readily swear?

Cannot I ever attain to true peace, excepting through knowledge, Or is the system upheld only by fortune and law?

Must I distrust the gently-warning impulse, the precept That thou, Nature, thyself hast in my bosom impressed, Till the schools have affixed to the writ eternal their signet, Till a mere formula's chain binds down the fugitive soul?

Answer me, then! for thou hast down into these deeps e'en descended,-- Out of the mouldering grave thou didst uninjured return.

Is't to thee known what within the tomb of obscure works is hidden, Whether, yon mummies amid, life's consolations can dwell?

Must I travel the darksome road? The thought makes me tremble; Yet I will travel that road, if 'tis to truth and to right."

Friend, hast thou heard of the golden age? Full many a story Poets have sung in its praise, simply and touchingly sung-- Of the time when the holy still wandered over life's pathways,-- When with a maidenly shame every sensation was veiled,-- When the mighty law that governs the sun in his...o...b..t, And that, concealed in the bud, teaches the point how to move, When necessity's silent law, the steadfast, the changeless, Stirred up billows more free, e'en in the bosom of man,-- When the sense, unerring, and true as the hand of the dial, Pointed only to truth, only to what was eternal?

Then no profane one was seen, then no initiate was met with, And what as living was felt was not then sought 'mongst the dead; Equally clear to every breast was the precept eternal, Equally hidden the source whence it to gladden us sprang; But that happy period has vanished! And self-willed presumption Nature's G.o.dlike repose now has forever destroyed.

Feelings polluted the voice of the deities echo no longer, In the dishonored breast now is the oracle dumb.

Save in the silenter self, the listening soul cannot find it, There does the mystical word watch o'er the meaning divine; There does the searcher conjure it, descending with bosom unsullied; There does the nature long-lost give him back wisdom again.

If thou, happy one, never hast lost the angel that guards thee, Forfeited never the kind warnings that instinct holds forth; If in thy modest eye the truth is still purely depicted; If in thine innocent breast clearly still echoes its call; If in thy tranquil mind the struggles of doubt still are silent, If they will surely remain silent forever as now; If by the conflict of feelings a judge will ne'er be required; If in its malice thy heart dims not the reason so clear, Oh, then, go thy way in all thy innocence precious!

Knowledge can teach thee in naught; thou canst instruct her in much!

Yonder law, that with brazen staff is directing the struggling, Naught is to thee. What thou dost, what thou mayest will is thy law, And to every race a G.o.dlike authority issues.

What thou with holy hand formest, what thou with holy mouth speakest, Will with omnipotent power impel the wondering senses; Thou but observest not the G.o.d ruling within thine own breast, Not the might of the signet that bows all spirits before thee; Simple and silent thou goest through the wide world thou hast won.

HONORS.

[Dignities would be the better t.i.tle, if the word were not so essentially unpoetical.]

When the column of light on the waters is gla.s.sed, As blent in one glow seem the s.h.i.+ne and the stream; But wave after wave through the glory has pa.s.sed, Just catches, and flies as it catches, the beam So honors but mirror on mortals their light; Not the man but the place that he pa.s.ses is bright.

THE PHILOSOPHICAL EGOTIST.

Hast thou the infant seen that yet, unknowing of the love Which warms and cradles, calmly sleeps the mother's heart above-- Wandering from arm to arm, until the call of pa.s.sion wakes, And glimmering on the conscious eye--the world in glory breaks?

And hast thou seen the mother there her anxious vigil keep?

Buying with love that never sleeps the darling's happy sleep?

With her own life she fans and feeds that weak life's trembling rays, And with the sweetness of the care, the care itself repays.

And dost thou Nature then blaspheme--that both the child and mother Each unto each unites, the while the one doth need the other?-- All self-sufficing wilt thou from that lovely circle stand-- That creature still to creature links in faith's familiar band?

Ah! dar'st thou, poor one, from the rest thy lonely self estrange?

Eternal power itself is but all powers in interchange!

THE BEST STATE CONSt.i.tUTION.

I can recognize only as such, the one that enables Each to think what is right,--but that he thinks so, cares not.

THE WORDS OF BELIEF.

Three words will I name thee--around and about, From the lip to the lip, full of meaning, they flee; But they had not their birth in the being without, And the heart, not the lip, must their oracle be!

And all worth in the man shall forever be o'er When in those three words he believes no more.

Man is made free!--Man by birthright is free, Though the tyrant may deem him but born for his tool.

Whatever the shout of the rabble may be-- Whatever the ranting misuse of the fool-- Still fear not the slave, when he breaks from his chain, For the man made a freeman grows safe in his gain.

And virtue is more than a shade or a sound, And man may her voice, in this being, obey; And though ever he slip on the stony ground, Yet ever again to the G.o.dlike way, To the science of good though the wise may be blind, Yet the practice is plain to the childlike mind.

And a G.o.d there is!--over s.p.a.ce, over time, While the human will rocks, like a reed, to and fro, Lives the will of the holy--a purpose sublime, A thought woven over creation below; Changing and s.h.i.+fting the all we inherit, But changeless through all one immutable spirit

Hold fast the three words of belief--though about From the lip to the lip, full of meaning, they flee; Yet they take not their birth from the being without-- But a voice from within must their oracle be; And never all worth in the man can be o'er, Till in those three words he believes no more.

THE WORDS OF ERROR.

Three errors there are, that forever are found On the lips of the good, on the lips of the best; But empty their meaning and hollow their sound-- And slight is the comfort they bring to the breast.

The fruits of existence escape from the clasp Of the seeker who strives but those shadows to grasp--

So long as man dreams of some age in this life When the right and the good will all evil subdue; For the right and the good lead us ever to strife, And wherever they lead us the fiend will pursue.

And (till from the earth borne, and stifled at length) The earth that he touches still gifts him with strength! [56]

So long as man fancies that fortune will live, Like a bride with her lover, united with worth; For her favors, alas! to the mean she will give-- And virtue possesses no t.i.tle to earth!

That foreigner wanders to regions afar, Where the lands of her birthright immortally are!

So long as man dreams that, to mortals a gift, The truth in her fulness of splendor will s.h.i.+ne; The veil of the G.o.ddess no earth-born may lift, And all we can learn is--to guess and divine!

Dost thou seek, in a dogma, to prison her form?

The spirit flies forth on the wings of the storm!

O, n.o.ble soul! fly from delusions like these, More heavenly belief be it thine to adore; Where the ear never hearkens, the eye never sees, Meet the rivers of beauty and truth evermore!