Work poems
/ page 323 of 355 /
To My Friends
© Johann Christoph Friedrich Von Schiller
Yes, my friends!--that happier times have been
Than the present, none can contravene;
That a race once lived of nobler worth;
And if ancient chronicles were dumb,
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 Triumph Of Love
© Johann Christoph Friedrich Von Schiller
By love are blest the gods on high,
Frail man becomes a deity
When love to him is given;
'Tis love that makes the heavens shine
With hues more radiant, more divine,
And turns dull earth to heaven!
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 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 Learned Workman
© Johann Christoph Friedrich Von Schiller
Ne'er does he taste the fruit of the tree that he raised with such trouble;
Nothing but taste e'er enjoys that which by learning is reared.
The Lay Of The Bell
© Johann Christoph Friedrich Von Schiller
Fast, in its prison-walls of earth,
Awaits the mould of baked clay.
Up, comrades, up, and aid the birth
The bell that shall be born to-day!
The Iliad
© Johann Christoph Friedrich Von Schiller
Tear forever the garland of Homer, and number the fathers
Of the immortal work, that through all time will survive!
Yet it has but one mother, and bears that mother's own feature,
'Tis thy features it bears,--Nature,--thy features eterne!
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 Favor Of The Moment
© Johann Christoph Friedrich Von Schiller
Once more, then, we meet
In the circles of yore;
Let our song be as sweet
In its wreaths as before,
The Eleusinian Festival
© Johann Christoph Friedrich Von Schiller
Wreathe in a garland the corn's golden ear!
With it, the Cyane [31] blue intertwine
Rapture must render each glance bright and clear,
For the great queen is approaching her shrine,--
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,
Punch Song (To be sung in the Northern Countries)
© Johann Christoph Friedrich Von Schiller
On the mountain's breezy summit,
Where the southern sunbeams shine,
Aided by their warming vigor,
Nature yields the golden wine.
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.
Genius
© Johann Christoph Friedrich Von Schiller
"Do I believe," sayest thou, "what the masters of wisdom would teach me,
And what their followers' band boldly and readily swear?
Cannot I ever attain to true peace, excepting through knowledge,
Or is the system upheld only by fortune and law?
Friendship
© Johann Christoph Friedrich Von Schiller
Friend!--the Great Ruler, easily content,
Needs not the laws it has laborious been
The task of small professors to invent;
A single wheel impels the whole machine
Matter and spirit;--yea, that simple law,
Pervading nature, which our Newton saw.
Fridolin (The Walk To The Iron Factory)
© Johann Christoph Friedrich Von Schiller
A gentle was Fridolin,
And he his mistress dear,
Savern's fair Countess, honored in
All truth and godly fear.
Feast Of Victory
© Johann Christoph Friedrich Von Schiller
Priam's castle-walls had sunk,
Troy in dust and ashes lay,
And each Greek, with triumph drunk,
Richly laden with his prey,
