Poems, second period | Page 7

grovelling hireling's pay

Thinks to dismiss his glorious
guide--
Or, with the first slave's-place array
Art near the throne his
dream supplied--
Forgive him!--O'er your head to-day
Hovers
perfection's crown in pride,
With you the earliest plant Spring had,

Soul-forming Nature first began;
With you, the harvest-chaplet glad,


Perfected Nature ends her plan.
The art creative, that all-modestly arose
From clay and stone, with
silent triumph throws
Its arms around the spirit's vast domain.
What
in the land of knowledge the discoverer knows,
He knows, discovers,
only for your gain
The treasures that the thinker has amassed,
He
will enjoy within your arms alone,
Soon as his knowledge,
beauty-ripe at last.
To art ennobled shall have grown,--
Soon as
with you he scales a mountain-height,
And there, illumined by the
setting sun,
The smiling valley bursts upon his sight.
The richer ye
reward the eager gaze
The higher, fairer orders that the mind
May
traverse with its magic rays,
Or compass with enjoyment
unconfined--
The wider thoughts and feelings open lie
To more
luxuriant floods of harmony.
To beauty's richer, more majestic
stream,--
The fair members of the world's vast scheme,
That,
maimed, disgrace on his creation bring,
He sees the lofty forms then
perfecting--
The fairer riddles come from out the night--
The richer is the world
his arms enclose,
The broader stream the sea with which he flows--

The weaker, too, is destiny's blind might--
The nobler instincts does
he prove--
The smaller he himself, the greater grows his love.
Thus
is he led, in still and hidden race,
By poetry, who strews his path with
flowers,
Through ever-purer forms, and purer powers,
Through ever
higher heights, and fairer grace.
At length, arrived at the ripe goal of
time,--
Yet one more inspiration all-sublime,
Poetic outburst of
man's latest youth,
And--he will glide into the arms of truth!
Herself, the gentle Cypria,
Illumined by her fiery crown,
Then
stands before her full-grown son
Unveiled--as great Urania;

The
sooner only by him caught,
The fairer he had fled away!
Thus stood,
in wonder rapture-fraught,
Ulysses' noble son that day,
When the
sage mentor who his youth beguiled;
Herself transfigured as Jove's
glorious child!

Man's honor is confided to your hand,--
There let it well protected be!

It sinks with you! with you it will expand!
Poesy's sacred sorcery

Obeys a world-plan wise and good;
In silence let it swell the flood

Of mighty-rolling harmony.
By her own time viewed with disdain,
Let solemn truth in song
remain,
And let the Muses' band defend her!
In all the fullness of
her splendor,
Let her survive in numbers glorious,
More dread,
when veiled her charms appear,
And vengeance take, with strains
victorious,
On her tormentor's ear!
The freest mother's children free,
With steadfast countenance then
rise
To highest beauty's radiancy,
And every other crown despise!

The sisters who escaped you here,
Within your mother's arms ye'll
meet;
What noble spirits may revere,
Must be deserving and
complete.
High over your own course of time
Exalt yourselves with
pinion bold,
And dimly let your glass sublime
The coming century
unfold!
On thousand roads advancing fast
Of ever-rich variety,

With fond embraces meet at last
Before the throne of harmony!
As
into seven mild rays we view
With softness break the glimmer white,

As rainbow-beams of sevenfold hue
Dissolve again in that soft
light,
In clearness thousandfold thus throw
Your magic round the
ravished gaze,--
Into one stream of light thus flow,--
One bond of
truth that ne'er decays!
THE CELEBRATED WOMAN.
AN EPISTLE BY A MARRIED MAN--TO A
FELLOW-SUFFERER.
[In spite of Mr. Carlyle's assertion of Schiller's "total deficiency in
humor," [12] we think that the following poem suffices to show that he
possessed the gift in no ordinary degree, and that if the aims of a genius
so essentially earnest had allowed him to indulge it he would have
justified the opinion of the experienced Iffland as to his capacities for

original comedy.]
Can I, my friend, with thee condole?--
Can I conceive the woes that
try men,
When late repentance racks the soul
Ensnared into the toils
of hymen?
Can I take part in such distress?--
Poor martyr,--most
devoutly, "Yes!"
Thou weep'st because thy spouse has flown
To
arms preferred before thine own;--
A faithless wife,--I grant the
curse,--
And yet, my friend, it might be worse!
Just hear another's
tale of sorrow,
And, in comparing, comfort borrow!
What! dost thou think thyself undone,
Because thy rights are shared
with one!
O, happy man--be more resigned,
My wife belongs to all
mankind!
My wife--she's found abroad--at home;
But cross the
Alps and she's at Rome;
Sail to the Baltic--there you'll find her;

Lounge on the Boulevards--kind and kinder:
In short, you've only just
to drop
Where'er they sell the last new tale,
And, bound and lettered
in the shop,
You'll find my lady up for sale!
She must her fair proportions render
To all whose praise can glory
lend her;--
Within the coach, on board the boat,
Let every pedant
"take a note;"
Endure, for public approbation,
Each critic's "close
investigation,"
And brave--nay, court it as a flattery--
Each
spectacled Philistine's battery.
Just as it suits some scurvy carcase

In which she hails an Aristarchus,
Ready to fly with kindred souls,

O'er blooming flowers or burning coals,
To fame or shame, to shrine
or gallows,
Let him but lead--sublimely callous!
A Leipsic
man--(confound the wretch!)
Has made her topographic sketch,
A
kind of map, as of a town,
Each point minutely dotted down;

Scarce
to myself I dare to hint
What