Poems, first period

The Project Gutenberg EBook Poems of The First Period, by Schiller
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Title: Poems of The First Period
Author: Frederich Schiller
Release Date: Oct, 2004 [EBook #6794]?[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]?[This file was first posted on January 31, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
? START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS FIRST PERIOD, SCHILLER ***
This eBook was produced by Tapio Riikonen?and David Widger, [email protected]
POEMS OF THE FIRST PERIOD
By Frederich Schiller
CONTENTS:
Hector and Andromache?Amalia?A Funeral Fantasie?Fantasie--To Laura?To Laura at the Harpsichord?Group from Tartarus?Rapture--To Laura?To Laura (The Mystery of Reminiscence)?Melancholy--To Laura?The Infanticide?The Greatness of the World?Fortune and Wisdom?Elegy on the Death of a Young Man?The Battle?Rousseau?Friendship?Elysium?The Fugitive?To Minna?The Flowers?The Triumph of Love (A Hymn)?To a Moralist?Count Eberhard, the Groaner of Wurtemburg?To the Spring?Semele
HECTOR AND ANDROMACHE.
[This and the following poem are, with some alterations, introduced in the Play of "The Robbers."]
ANDROMACHE.?Will Hector leave me for the fatal plain,?Where, fierce with vengeance for Patroclus slain,
Stalks Peleus' ruthless son??Who, when thou glid'st amid the dark abodes,?To hurl the spear and to revere the gods,
Shall teach thine orphan one?
HECTOR.?Woman and wife beloved--cease thy tears;?My soul is nerved--the war-clang in my ears!
Be mine in life to stand?Troy's bulwark!--fighting for our hearths, to go?In death, exulting to the streams below,
Slain for my fatherland!
ANDROMACHE.?No more I hear thy martial footsteps fall--?Thine arms shall hang, dull trophies, on the wall--
Fallen the stem of Troy!?Thou goest where slow Cocytus wanders--where?Love sinks in Lethe, and the sunless air
Is dark to light and joy!
HECTOR.?Longing and thought--yes, all I feel and think?May in the silent sloth of Lethe sink,
But my love not!?Hark, the wild swarm is at the walls!--I hear!?Gird on my sword--Beloved one, dry the tear--
Lethe for love is not!
AMALIA.
Angel-fair, Walhalla's charms displaying,?Fairer than all mortal youths was he;?Mild his look, as May-day sunbeams straying?Gently o'er the blue and glassy sea.
And his kisses!--what ecstatic feeling!?Like two flames that lovingly entwine,?Like the harp's soft tones together stealing?Into one sweet harmony divine,--
Soul and soul embraced, commingled, blended,?Lips and cheeks with trembling passion burned,?Heaven and earth, in pristine chaos ended,?Round the blissful lovers madly turn'd.
He is gone--and, ah! with bitter anguish?Vainly now I breathe my mournful sighs;?He is gone--in hopeless grief I languish?Earthly joys I ne'er again can prize!
A FUNERAL FANTASIE.
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,?Flickering like dying lamps in sepulchres!?Haggard as spectres--vision-like and dumb,?Dark with the pomp of death, and moving slow,?Towards that sad lair the pale procession come?Where the grave closes on the night below.
With dim, deep-sunken eye,?Crutched on his staff, who trembles tottering by??As wrung from out the shattered heart, one groan?Breaks the deep hush alone!?Crushed by the iron fate, he seems to gather?All life's last strength to stagger to the bier,?And hearken--Do these cold lips murmur "Father?"?The sharp rain, drizzling through that place of fear, Pierces the bones gnawed fleshless by despair,?And the heart's horror stirs the silver hair.
Fresh bleed the fiery wounds?Through all that agonizing heart undone--?Still on the voiceless lips "my Father" sounds,?And still the childless Father murmurs "Son!"?Ice-cold--ice-cold, in that white shroud he lies--?Thy sweet and golden dreams all vanished there--?The sweet and golden name of "Father" dies?Into thy curse,--ice-cold--ice-cold--he lies!?Dead, what thy life's delight and Eden were!
Mild, as when, fresh from the arms of Aurora,?While the air like Elysium is smiling above,?Steeped in rose-breathing odors, the darling of Flora?Wantons over the blooms on his winglets of love.?So gay, o'er the meads, went his footsteps in bliss,?The silver wave mirrored the smile of his face;?Delight, like a flame, kindled up at his kiss,?And the heart of the maid was the prey of his chase.
Boldly he sprang to the strife of the world,?As a deer to the mountain-top carelessly springs;?As an eagle whose plumes to the sun are unfurled,?Swept his hope round the heaven on its limitless wings. Proud as a war-horse that chafes at the rein,?That, kingly, exults in the storm of the brave;?That throws to the wind the wild stream of its