Hark to the music-the drum and the fife, How they ring with the triumph that follows the strife! Farewell, fallen brothers, though this life be o'er, There's another, in which we shall meet you once more ! ROUSSEAU. MONUMENT of Shame to this our time! Hail! Grave of Rousseau!-here thy troubles cease! Thy life one search for Freedom and for Peace : sage The same in darkness or in light his fate, In Rousseau, Christians marked their victim-when FRIENDSHIP; From Letters of Julius to Raphael, an unpublished Novel. (The Translation does not adhere to the meter in the original, which would be very unmusical in English.) NEW rules suffice the Mighty Architect, FEW O Friend!—So out upon the thinkers small, Forging the dull laws that their pains dissect! A single wheel impels the springs of All, Matter and spirit—yea, that simple Law Which, called ATTRACTION, here, my Newton saw. This taught the spheres, slaves to one golden rein, All spirits, streaming to the spiritual Sun,- Did not the same strong mainspring urge and guide Our Hearts to that eternal bond of love? Linked to thine arm, O Raphael, by thy side Ev'n I would win to that bright goal above; And, through perfection, mine own soul complete For that last light where all perfections meet. Happy, O happy-I have found thee!—I Have out of millions found thee, and embraced; Thee, out of millions, mine!—Let earth and sky Return to darkness, and the antique waste- Do I not find within thy radiant eyes Of lovely earth seem lovelier painted there; Sadness casts off its load, and gayly goes From the intolerant storm, to rest awhile Does not ev'n joy, tormented by its smile, In all Creation did I stand alone, Still to the rocks my dreams a soul should find, Mine arms should wreathe themselves around the stone, My grief should feel a listener in the wind; My joy-its echo in the caves should be! Fool, if ye will-Fool, for sweet Sympathy! We are dead groups of matter when we hate; All spirits lower than the Sire of all 1 Lo! arm in arm, through every upward grade, And Heaven's last Seraph)—everywhere we seek Union and bond--till in one sea sublime Of Love be merged all measure and all time! Friendless, the Maker ruled His lonely sky; 1 "All spirits one degree lower than the infinite spirit are my peers, since we all obey one principle."-SCHILLER'S Philosophical Letters from Julius to Raphael. 2 A literal translation of the last two lines would be unintelligible. and, indeed, their latent meaning and connection with the argument in the preceding verses are not perceptible in the original, and have perplexed most of the commentators. I have therefore resorted to Schiller's own construction of his general intention, as it is found in the Philosophical Letters from Julius to Raphael, in which the poem was first inserted. 'Every perfection in the universe is united in God. The existing form of Nature is an optic glass, and all the activities of spirits are only an infinite color-play of that divine ray. Should it ever please the Almighty to shatter this prism, then the barrier betwixt Himself and the world would fall to ruin; all spirits would disappear into one infinite spirit. The attraction of the elements gave to Nature its material form; the attraction of spirits, multiplied and continued to infinity, must finally lead to the abolition of that separation. Such an attraction is Love. Love is the ladder on which we climb to a likeness with God."-Philosophical Letters. The reader who would thoroughly comprehend all the various meanings in this poem, must examine with care these Philosophical Letters; especially those upon Love and GOD, in which the poem (with the poet's own commentary) occurs. A GROUP IN TARTARUS. HARK, as hoarse murmurs of a gathering sea As brooks that howling through black gorges go, Groans sullen, hollow, and eternally, One wailing Woe! Sharp Anguish shrinks the shadows there; And blasphemous Despair Yells its wild curse from jaws that never close; Pine for the bridge athwart the fordless River, Swelling with tears the wave that mourning flows, And ask each other, with parched lips that writhe Into a whisper, "When the end shall be ?" The end!-Lo, broken in Time's hand the scythe, And round and round revolves Eternity! 33 |