Works

Thou hast crossed over torrents, and swung through wide-spreading ocean,
Over the chain of the Alps dizzily bore thee the bridge,
That thou might'st see me from near, and learn to value my beauty,...

Wouldst thou give pleasure at once to the children of earth and the righteous?
Draw the image of lust adding the devil as well!

How gracefully, O man, with thy palm-bough,
Upon the waning century standest thou,
In proud and noble manhood's prime,
With unlocked senses, with a spirit freed,...

Hear I the creaking gate unclose?
The gleaming latch uplifted?
No - 'twas the wind that, whirring, rose,
Amidst the poplars drifted!
Adorn thyself, thou green leaf-bowering roof,...

Dost thou desire the good in art? Of the good art thou worthy,
Which by a ne'er ceasing war 'gainst thee thyself is produced?

Earthly gods my lyre shall win your praise,
Though but wont its gentle sounds to raise
When the joyous feast the people throng;
Softly at your pompous-sounding names,...

Say, where is now that glorious race, where now are the singers
Who, with the accents of life, listening nations enthralled,
Sung down from heaven the gods, and sung mankind up to heaven,...

Heavy and solemn,
A cloudy column,
Through the green plain they marching came!
Measure less spread, like a table dread,
For the wild grim dice of the iron game.
The looks are bent on the shaking ground,...

"How can I know the best state?"
In the way that thou know'st the best woman;
Namely, my friend, that the world ever is silent of both.

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

[In spite of Mr. Carlyle's assertion of Schiller's "total deficiency in humor," [12] we think that the following poem suffices to show that he possessed the gift in no ordinary degree, and that if the aims of a genius so essent...

All, thou gentle one, lies embraced in thy kingdom; the graybeard
Back to the days of his youth, childish and child-like, returns.

Where will a place of refuge, noble friend,
For peace and freedom ever open lie!
The century in tempests had its end,
The new one now begins with murder's cry.

Each land-connecting bond is torn away,...

See how we hate, how we quarrel, how thought and how feeling divide us!
But thy locks, friend, like mine, meanwhile are bleachening fast.

Does pleasant spring return once more?
Does earth her happy youth regain?
Sweet suns green hills are shining o'er;
Soft brooklets burst their icy chain:
Upon the blue translucent river...

No! I this conflict longer will not wage,
The conflict duty claims the giant task;
Thy spells, O virtue, never can assuage
The heart's wild fire this offering do not ask
...

How does nature proceed to unite the high and the lowly
In mankind? She commands vanity 'tween them to stand!

At Aix-la-Chapelle, in imperial array,
In its halls renowned in old story,
At the coronation banquet so gay
King Rudolf was sitting in glory.
The meats were served up by the Palsgrave of Rhine,...

Once to the song and chariot-fight,
Where all the tribes of Greece unite
On Corinth's isthmus joyously,
The god-loved Ibycus drew nigh.
On him Apollo had bestowed
The gift of song and strains inspired;...

Into the sieve we've been pouring for years,
o'er the stone we've been brooding;
But the stone never warms, nor does the sieve ever fill.