The dark account that life incurs with Heaven, 'Tis that our Vices are thy Wooers, Hell! In turn those Vices are embraced by Shame Destruction marries its dark self to Pride, The very Future to the Past but flies Upon the wings of Love-as I to thee; When-so I heard the oracle declare When Saturn once shall clasp that bride sublime Wide-blazing worlds shall light his nuptials there— 'Tis thus Eternity shall wed with Time. In those shall be our nuptials! ours to share 1 "Und entbunden von den gold'nen Kindern, Strahlt das Auge sonnenpracht." Schiller, in his earlier poems, strives after poetry in expression, as our young imitators of Shelley and Keats do, sanctioned generally by our critics, who quote such expressions in italics with three notes of admiration! He here, for instance, calls tears "the Golden Children of the Eye." In his later poems, Schiller had a much better notion of true beauty of diction. The general meaning of this poem is very obscure: it implies that Love rules all things in the inanimate or animate creation; that, even in the moral world, opposite emotions or principles meet and embrace each other. The idea is pushed into an extravagance natural to the youth, and redeemed by the passion, of the Author. But the connecting links are so slender, nay, so frequently omitted, in the original, that a certain degree of paraphrase in many of the stanzas, is absolutely necessary to supply them, and render the general sense and spirit of the poem intelligible to the English reader. W TO LAURA PLAYING. HEN o'er the chords thy fingers steal, And now a soul set free! Thou rulest over life and death, Then the vassal airs that woo thee, In delight and in devotion, Pausing from her whirling motion, Nature, in enchanted calm, Silently drinks the floating balm. Sorceress, her heart with thy tone Chaining as thine eyes my own! O'er the transport-tumult driven, From the strings, as from their heaven, As when from Chaos' giant arms set free, Sprang sparkling forth the Orbs of Light— Soft-gliding now, as when o'er pebbles glancing, The silver wave goes dancing; Now with majestic swell, and strong, As thunder peals in organ-tones along ; And now with stormy gush, As down the rock, in foam, the whirling torrents rush; To a whisper now Melts it amorously, Like the breeze through the bough Of the aspen-tree ; Heavily now, and with a mournful breath, Like midnight's wind along those wastes of death, Where Awe the wail of ghosts lamenting hears, And slow Cocytus trails the stream whose waves are tears. Speak, maiden, speak!-Oh, art thou one of those Spirits more lofty than our region knows? Should we in thine the mother-language seek, 1 "The Sorcery."-In the original, Schiller, with very questionable taste, compares Laura to a conjurer of the name of Philadelphia, who exhibited before Frederick the Great. L TO LAURA; RAPTURE. AURA-above this world methinks I fly, And my soul drinks a more ethereal air, A lyre-sound from the Paradise afar, A harp-note trembling from some gracious star, And my muse feels the Golden Shepherd-hours, I see the young Loves flutter on the wing- Wild life to forests gave; Swifter the globe's swift circle seems to fly, Thy looks, when there Love's smiles their glad ness wreathe, Could life itself to lips of marble breathe; My wildest dreams a life would take, indeed, WHO, and what gave to me the wish to woo Still, lip to lip, to cling for aye unto thee? As from the conqueror's unresisted glave, Why from its lord doth thus my soul depart ?- Or were they brothers in the days of yore, |