Works

Pale, at its ghastly noon,
Pauses above the death-still wood the moon;
The night-sprite, sighing, through the dim air stirs;
The clouds descend in rain;
Mourning, the wan stars wane,...

Two are the roads that before thee lie open from life to conduct thee;
To the ideal one leads thee, the other to death.
See that while yet thou art free, on the first thou commencest thy journey,...

Into life's ocean the youth with a thousand masts daringly launches;
Mute, in a boat saved from wreck, enters the gray-beard the port.

Oh, how many new foes against truth! My very soul bleedeth
When I behold the owl-race now bursting forth to the light.

Name, my Laura, name the whirl-compelling
Bodies to unite in one blest whole
Name, my Laura, name the wondrous magic
By which soul rejoins its kindred soul!

See! it teaches yonder roving planets...

A maiden blush o'er every feature straying,
The Muse her gentle harp now lays down here,
And stands before thee, for thy judgment praying,
She waits with reverence, but not with fear;...

Man frames his judgment on reason; but woman on love founds her verdict;
If her judgment loves not, woman already has judged.

Enraged against a quondam friend,
To Wisdom once proud Fortune said
"I'll give thee treasures without end,
If thou wilt be my friend instead."

"My choicest gifts to him I gave,...

A gentle was Fridolin,
And he his mistress dear,
Savern's fair Countess, honored in
All truth and godly fear.
She was so meek, and, ah! so good!
Yet each wish of her wayward mood,...

Dearly I love a friend; yet a foe I may turn to my profit;
Friends show me that which I can; foes teach me that which I should.

[From "Letters of Julius to Raphael," an unpublished Novel.]

Friend! the Great Ruler, easily content,
Needs not the laws it has laborious been
The task of small professors to invent;...

Once for the sceptre of Germany, fought with Bavarian Louis
Frederick, of Hapsburg descent, both being called to the throne.
But the envious fortune of war delivered the Austrian...

Hark! like the sea in wrath the heavens assailing,
Or like a brook through rocky basin wailing,
Comes from below, in groaning agony,
A heavy, vacant torment-breathing sigh!...

Which religion do I acknowledge? None that thou namest.
"None that I name? And why so?" Why, for religion's own sake?

[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...

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

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,...

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...