Works

See how, like lightest waves at play, the airy dancers fleet;
And scarcely feels the floor the wings of those harmonious feet.
Ob, are they flying shadows from their native forms set free?...

Why are taste and genius so seldom met with united?
Taste of strength is afraid, genius despises the rein.

Merely because thou hast made a good verse in a language poetic,
One which composes for thee, thou art a poet forsooth!

"What knight or what vassal will be so bold
As to plunge in the gulf below?
See! I hurl in its depths a goblet of gold,
Already the waters over it flow.
The man who can bring back the goblet to me,...

"Take the world!" Zeus exclaimed from his throne in the skies
To the children of man "take the world I now give;
It shall ever remain as your heirloom and prize,
So divide it as brothers, and happily live."
...

Ever strive for the whole; and if no whole thou canst make thee,
Join, then, thyself to some whole, as a subservient limb!

Wreathe in a garland the corn's golden ear!
With it, the Cyane [31] blue intertwine
Rapture must render each glance bright and clear,
For the great queen is approaching her shrine,...

Giddily onward it bears thee with resistless impetuous billows;
Naught but the ocean and air seest thou before or behind.

If thou never hast gazed upon beauty in moments of sorrow,
Thou canst with truth never boast that thou true beauty hast seen.
If thou never hast gazed upon gladness in beauteous features,...

Work as much as thou wilt, alone thou'lt be standing forever,
Till by nature thou'rt joined forcibly on to the whole.

Once more, then, we meet
In the circles of yore;
Let our song be as sweet
In its wreaths as before,
Who claims the first place
In the tribute of song?
The God to whose grace...

Fame with the vulgar expires; but, Muse immortal, thou bearest
Those whom thou lovest, who love thee, into Mnemosyne's arms.

Priam's castle-walls had sunk,
Troy in dust and ashes lay,
And each Greek, with triumph drunk,
Richly laden with his prey,
Sat upon his ship's high prow,
On the Hellespontic strand,...

Why run the crowd? What means the throng
That rushes fast the streets along?
Can Rhodes a prey to flames, then, be?
In crowds they gather hastily,
And, on his steed, a noble knight...

Ye offspring of the morning sun,
Ye flowers that deck the smiling plain,
Your lives, in joy and bliss begun,
In Nature's love unchanged remain.
With hues of bright and godlike splendor...

Ah! happy he, upon whose birth each god
Looks down in love, whose earliest sleep the bright
Idalia cradles, whose young lips the rod
Of eloquent Hermes kindles to whose eyes,...

Woman, never judge man by his individual actions;
But upon man as a whole, pass thy decisive decree.

Trust me, 'tis not a mere tale, the fountain of youth really runneth,
Runneth forever. Thou ask'st, where? In the poet's sweet art!

The goblet is sparkling with purpled-tinged wine,
Bright glistens the eye of each guest,
When into the hall comes the Minstrel divine,
To the good he now brings what is best;...

The air is perfumed with the morning's fresh breeze,
From the bush peer the sunbeams all purple and bright,
While they gleam through the clefts of the dark-waving trees,...