Thou hast produced mighty monarchs, of whom thou art not unworthy, For the obedient alone make him who governs them great. But, O Germany, try if thou for thy rulers canst make it...
See you the towers, that, gray and old, Frown through the sunlight's liquid gold, Steep sternly fronting steep? The Hellespont beneath them swells, And roaring cleaves the Dardanelles,...
We speak with the lip, and we dream in the soul, Of some better and fairer day; And our days, the meanwhile, to that golden goal Are gliding and sliding away....
Since thou readest in her what thou thyself hast there written, And, to gladden the eye, placest her wonders in groups; Since o'er her boundless expanses thy cords to extend thou art able,...
Joy, thou goddess, fair, immortal, Offspring of Elysium, Mad with rapture, to the portal Of thy holy fame we come! Fashion's laws, indeed, may sever, But thy magic joins again;...
'Twixt the heavens and earth, high in the airy ocean, In the tempest's cradle I'm borne with a rocking motion; Clouds are towering, Storms beneath me are lowering, Giddily all the wonders I see,...
Once to a horse-fair, it may perhaps have been Where other things are bought and sold, I mean At the Haymarket, there the muses' horse A hungry poet brought to sell, of course. ...
What wonder this? we ask the lympid well, O earth! of thee and from thy solemn womb What yieldest thou? is there life in the abyss Doth a new race beneath the lava dwell?...
Wilt thou not the lambkins guard? Oh, how soft and meek they look, Feeding on the grassy sward, Sporting round the silvery brook! "Mother, mother, let me go On yon heights to chase the roe!" ...
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,...