Truth poems
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The Words Of Error
© Johann Christoph Friedrich Von Schiller
Three errors there are, that forever are found
On the lips of the good, on the lips of the best;
But empty their meaning and hollow their sound--
And slight is the comfort they bring to the breast.
The fruits of existence escape from the clasp
Of the seeker who strives but those shadows to grasp--
The Walk
© Johann Christoph Friedrich Von Schiller
Hail to thee, mountain beloved, with thy glittering purple-dyed summit!
Hail to thee also, fair sun, looking so lovingly on!
Thee, too, I hail, thou smiling plain, and ye murmuring lindens,
Ay, and the chorus so glad, cradled on yonder high boughs;
The Veiled Statue At Sais
© Johann Christoph Friedrich Von Schiller
A youth, impelled by a burning thirst for knowledge
To roam to Sais, in fair Egypt's land,
The priesthood's secret learning to explore,
Had passed through many a grade with eager haste,
The Sexes
© Johann Christoph Friedrich Von Schiller
See in the babe two loveliest flowers united--yet in truth,
While in the bud they seem the same--the virgin and the youth!
But loosened is the gentle bond, no longer side by side--
From holy shame the fiery strength will soon itself divide.
The Ring Of Polycrates - A Ballad
© Johann Christoph Friedrich Von Schiller
Upon his battlements he stood,
And downward gazed in joyous mood,
On Samos' Isle, that owned his sway,
"All this is subject to my yoke;"
To Egypt's monarch thus he spoke,--
"That I am truly blest, then, say!"
The Proverbs Of Confucius
© Johann Christoph Friedrich Von Schiller
Threefold is the march of time
While the future slow advances,
Like a dart the present glances,
Silent stands the past sublime.
The Power Of Song
© Johann Christoph Friedrich Von Schiller
The foaming stream from out the rock
With thunder roar begins to rush,--
The oak falls prostrate at the shock,
And mountain-wrecks attend the gush.
The Poetry Of Life
© Johann Christoph Friedrich Von Schiller
"Who would himself with shadows entertain,
Or gild his life with lights that shine in vain,
Or nurse false hopes that do but cheat the true?--
Though with my dream my heaven should be resigned--
The Ideals
© Johann Christoph Friedrich Von Schiller
And wilt thou, faithless one, then, leave me,
With all thy magic phantasy,--
With all the thoughts that joy or grieve me,
Wilt thou with all forever fly?
The Ideal And The Actual Life
© Johann Christoph Friedrich Von Schiller
Forever fair, forever calm and bright,
Life flies on plumage, zephyr-light,
For those who on the Olympian hill rejoice--
Moons wane, and races wither to the tomb,
The Hostage
© Johann Christoph Friedrich Von Schiller
The tyrant Dionys to seek,
Stern Moerus with his poniard crept;
The watchful guard upon him swept;
The grim king marked his changeless cheek:
The Gods Of Greece
© Johann Christoph Friedrich Von Schiller
Ye in the age gone by,
Who ruled the world--a world how lovely then!--
And guided still the steps of happy men
In the light leading-strings of careless joy!
The Fairest Apparition
© Johann Christoph Friedrich Von Schiller
If thou never hast gazed upon beauty in moments of sorrow,
Thou canst with truth never boast that thou true beauty hast seen.
If thou never hast gazed upon gladness in beauteous features,
Thou canst with truth never boast that thou true gladness hast seen.
The Dance
© Johann Christoph Friedrich Von Schiller
See how, like lightest waves at play, the airy dancers fleet;
And scarcely feels the floor the wings of those harmonious feet.
Ob, are they flying shadows from their native forms set free?
Or phantoms in the fairy ring that summer moonbeams see?
The Cranes Of Ibycus
© Johann Christoph Friedrich Von Schiller
Once to the song and chariot-fight,
Where all the tribes of Greece unite
On Corinth's isthmus joyously,
The god-loved Ibycus drew nigh.
The Celebrated Woman - An Epistle By A Married Man
© Johann Christoph Friedrich Von Schiller
If Faust had really any hand
In printing, I can understand
The fate which legends more than hint;--
The devil take all hands that print!
The Artists
© Johann Christoph Friedrich Von Schiller
How gracefully, O man, with thy palm-bough,
Upon the waning century standest thou,
In proud and noble manhood's prime,
With unlocked senses, with a spirit freed,
The Agreement
© Johann Christoph Friedrich Von Schiller
Both of us seek for truth--in the world without thou dost seek it,
I in the bosom within; both of us therefore succeed.
If the eye be healthy, it sees from without the Creator;
And if the heart, then within doubtless it mirrors the world.
Shakespeare's Ghost - A Parody
© Johann Christoph Friedrich Von Schiller
I, too, at length discerned great Hercules' energy mighty,--
Saw his shade. He himself was not, alas, to be seen.
Round him were heard, like the screaming of birds,
the screams of tragedians,
Participation
© Johann Christoph Friedrich Von Schiller
E'en by the hand of the wicked can truth be working with vigor;
But the vessel is filled by what is beauteous alone.
