Works

Lovely he looks, 'tis true, with the light of his torch now extinguished;
But remember that death is not aesthetic, my friends!

By no kind Augustus reared,
To no Medici endeared,
German art arose;
Fostering glory smiled not on her,
Ne'er with kingly smiles to sun her,
Did her blooms unclose.
...

Aphrodite preserves her beauty concealed by her girdle;
That which lends her her charms is what she covers her shame.

Before his lion-court,
Impatient for the sport,
King Francis sat one day;
The peers of his realm sat around,
And in balcony high from the ground
Sat the ladies in beauteous array.
...

Ye in the age gone by,
Who ruled the world a world how lovely then!
And guided still the steps of happy men
In the light leading-strings of careless joy!
Ah, flourished then your service of delight!...

Through the world which the Spirit creative and kind
First formed out of chaos, I fly like the wind,
Until on the strand
Of its billows I land,
My anchor cast forth where the breeze blows no more,...

(SUNG IN A CIRCLE OF FRIENDS.)

With one last bumper let us hail
The wanderer beloved,
Who takes his leave of this still vale
Wherein in youth he roved.

From loving arms, from native home,...

Seerest thou the highest, the greatest!
In that the plant can instruct thee;
What it unwittingly is, be thou of thine own free will!

Who is the bard of the Iliad among you? For since he likes puddings,
Heyne begs he'll accept these that from Gottingen come.
"Give them to me! The kings' quarrel I sang!"...

Ever honor the whole; individuals only I honor;
In individuals I always discover the whole.

The tyrant Dionys to seek,
Stern Moerus with his poniard crept;
The watchful guard upon him swept;
The grim king marked his changeless cheek:
"What wouldst thou with thy poniard? Speak!"...

The Hypochondriacal Pluto. A Romance. Book I.

The sullen mayor who reigns in hell,
By mortals Pluto hight,
Who thrashes all his subjects well,
Both morn and eve, as stories tell,...

Forever fair, forever calm and bright,
Life flies on plumage, zephyr-light,
For those who on the Olympian hill rejoice
Moons wane, and races wither to the tomb,
And 'mid the universal ruin, bloom...

Woman in everything yields to man; but in that which is highest,
Even the manliest man yields to the woman most weak.
But that highest, what is it? The gentle radiance of triumph...

And wilt thou, faithless one, then, leave me,
With all thy magic phantasy,
With all the thoughts that joy or grieve me,
Wilt thou with all forever fly?
Can naught delay thine onward motion,...

Tear forever the garland of Homer, and number the fathers
Of the immortal work, that through all time will survive!
Yet it has but one mother, and bears that mother's own feature,...

Good from the good, to the reason this is not hard of conception;
But the genius has power good from the bad to evoke.
'Tis the conceived alone, that thou, imitator, canst practise;...

Time flies on restless pinions constant never.
Be constant and thou chainest time forever.

Fear with his iron staff may urge the slave onward forever;
Rapture, do thou lead me on ever in roseate chains!

Hark where the bells toll, chiming, dull and steady,
The clock's slow hand hath reached the appointed time.
Well, be it so prepare, my soul is ready,
Companions of the grave the rest for crime!...