The veil, rose-woven by the young Desire

With dreams, drops from the hueless cheeks of Life.
The world seems what it is-A Grave! and Love
Casts down the bandage wound his eyes above,
And sees!-He sees but images of clay

Where he dream'd gods; and sighs-and glides away.1

The youngness of the Beautiful grows old,
And on thy lips the bride's sweet kiss seems cold ;
And in the crowd of joys-upon thy throne

Thou sitt'st in state, and hardenest into stone.

THE ANTIQUE AT PARIS.

(FREE TRANSLATION.)

WHAT the Greek wrought, the vaunting Frank may gain,
And waft the pomp of Hellas to the Seine;
His proud museums may with marble groan,
And Gallia gape on glories not her own;
But ever silent in the ungenial halls
Shall stand the Statues on their pedestals.

By him alone the Muses are possest,

Who warms them from the marble-at his breast;
Bright, to the Greek, from stone each goddess grew—
Vandals, each goddess is but stone to you!

1 These four lines are slightly altered from the original, in which Love is doubly typified by Cytherea and her son Cupid; and by the double type the idea itself becomes confused.

THEKLA;

A SPIRIT VOICE.

IT was objected to Schiller's Wallenstein, that he had suffered Thekla to disappear from the Play without any clear intimation of her fate. These stanzas are his answer to the objection. We have no metre exactly correspondent to the original, and all attempts at servile imitation in English forfeit all claim to rhythm and melody upon an ear that can distinguish between verse and prose.

WHERE does my shadow fleet,

As from thy vision rapt, aloft I soar?

Is not my destiny complete,

Have I not lived? have I not loved ?-What more?

Ask'st thou, where pass away

The Nightingales that did enrapture air

With Music's soul in thy young happy May?
They loved, and only while they loved, they were !

Is the Lost found again?

With him, believe me, I at last am wed;

Where hearts, once joined, are never rent in twain,
Where tears, once dried, can never more be shed.

Thou unto us shalt win,

Thou-if thy love shall equal that we knew ; There is my father,1 free from every sin,

Where the red Murder can no more pursue.

1 Wallenstein. The next stanza alludes to his belief in Astrology-of which such beautiful uses have been made by Schiller in his solemn tragedy.

Him no delusion won

To feed his upward gaze on starry spheres ;
For every faith (nor least the boldest one)
To Heaven aspiring-still the Holy nears.

To each belief that smiled

On life to beautify-some truth is given !
O dare to err and dare to dream !-the child
Has oft the loftiest instinct of the Heaven!

WILLIAM TELL.

Lines accompanying the copy of Schiller's Drama of William Tell, presented to the Arch-Chancellor Von Dalberg.

I.

IN that fell strife, when force with force engages,
And Wrath stirs bloodshed-Wrath with blindfold eyes-
When, midst the war which raving Faction wages,
Lost in the roar-the voice of Justice dies,
When, but for license, Sin, the shameless, rages,
Against the Holy when the Wilful rise,

When lost the Anchor which makes Nations strong
Amidst the storm,-there, is no theme for song.

II.

But when a Race, tending by vale and hill

Free flocks, contented with its rude domain

Bursts the hard bondage with its own great will,
Lets fall the sword when once it rends the chain,
And, flush'd with Victory, can be human still-

There blest the strife, and then inspired the strain.
Such is my theme to thee not strange, 'tis true:
Thou in the Great canst never find the New.1

ARCHIMEDES.

To Archimedes once a scholar came,

"Teach me," he said, "the Art that won thy fame ;-
The godlike Art which gives such boons to toil,
And showers such fruit upon thy native soil;—
The godlike Art that girt the town when all
Rome's vengeance burst in thunder on the wall!"
"Thou call'st Art godlike-it is so, in truth,
And was," replied the Master to the youth,
"Ere yet its secrets were applied to use―
Ere yet it served beleaguered Syracuse :—
Ask'st thou from Art, but what the Art is worth?
The fruit for fruit go cultivate the Earth.-
He who the goddess would aspire unto,

Must not the goddess as the woman woo!"

1 The concluding point in the original requires some paraphrase in translation. Schiller's lines are

"Und solch ein Bild darf ich dir freudig zeigen,

Du kennst's-denn alles Grosse ist dein eigen."

THE MAID OF ORLEANS.

To flaunt the fair shape of Humanity,

Lewd Mockery dragg'd thee through the mire it trod.1 Wit wars with Beauty everlastingly

Yearns for no Angel—and adores no God—

Views the heart's wealth-to steal it as the thief

Assails Delusion, but to kill Belief.

Yet the true Poetry-herself, like thee,

Childlike; herself, like thee, a shepherd maid

Gives thee her birthright of Divinity,

And lifts unto the stars thy starry shade. Thy brows receive the auriole of her sky; The Heart created thee-thou canst not die.

The mean world loves to darken what is bright,
To see to dust each loftier image brought;
But fear not-souls there are that can delight

In the high Memory and the stately Thought;
To ribald mirth let Momus rouse the mart,
But forms more noble glad the noble heart.

1 Voltaire, in The Pucelle.