The Poems of Schiller — Third period. Friedrich von Schiller

Yet half with life they share the beams;

         My heralds from the dreary deep,

          Soft voices from the solemn streams, —

         Like her, so them, awhile entombs,

          Stern Orcus, in his dismal reign,

         Yet spring sends forth their tender blooms

          With such sweet messages again,

         To tell, — how far from light above,

          Where only mournful shadows meet,

         Memory is still alive to love,

          And still the faithful heart can beat!

         Joy to ye children of the field!

          Whose life each coming year renews,

         To your sweet cups the heaven shall yield

          The purest of its nectar-dews!

         Steeped in the light's resplendent streams,

          The hues that streak the Iris-bow

         Shall trim your blooms as with the beams

          The looks of young Aurora know.

         The budding life of happy spring,

          The yellow autumn's faded leaf,

         Alike to gentle hearts shall bring

          The symbols of my joy and grief.

      THE ELEUSINIAN FESTIVAL

         Wreathe in a garland the corn's golden ear!

          With it, the Cyane 17 blue intertwine

         Rapture must render each glance bright and clear,

          For the great queen is approaching her shrine, —

         She who compels lawless passions to cease,

          Who to link man with his fellow has come,

         And into firm habitations of peace

          Changed the rude tents' ever-wandering home.

         Shyly in the mountain-cleft

          Was the Troglodyte concealed;

         And the roving Nomad left,

          Desert lying, each broad field.

         With the javelin, with the bow,

          Strode the hunter through the land;

         To the hapless stranger woe,

          Billow-cast on that wild strand!

         When, in her sad wanderings lost,

          Seeking traces of her child,

         Ceres hailed the dreary coast,

          Ah, no verdant plain then smiled!

         That she here with trust may stay,

          None vouchsafes a sheltering roof;

         Not a temple's columns gay

          Give of godlike worship proof.

         Fruit of no propitious ear

          Bids her to the pure feast fly;

         On the ghastly altars here

          Human bones alone e'er dry.

         Far as she might onward rove,

          Misery found she still in all,

         And within her soul of love,

          Sorrowed she o'er man's deep fall.

         "Is it thus I find the man

          To whom we our image lend,

         Whose fair limbs of noble span

          Upward towards the heavens ascend?

         Laid we not before his feet

          Earth's unbounded godlike womb?

         Yet upon his kingly seat

          Wanders he without a home?"

         "Does no god compassion feel?

          Will none of the blissful race,

         With an arm of miracle,

          Raise him from his deep disgrace?

         In the heights where rapture reigns

          Pangs of others ne'er can move;

         Yet man's anguish and man's pains

          My tormented heart must prove."

         "So that a man a man may be,

          Let him make an endless bond

         With the kind earth trustingly,

          Who is ever good and fond

         To revere the law of time,

          And the moon's melodious song

         Who, with silent step sublime,

          Move their sacred course along."

         And she softly parts the cloud

          That conceals her from the sight;

         Sudden, in the savage crowd,

          Stands she, as a goddess bright.

         There she finds the concourse rude

          In their glad feast revelling,

         And the chalice filled with blood

          As a sacrifice they bring.

         But she turns her face away,

          Horror-struck, and speaks the while

         "Bloody tiger-feasts ne'er may

          Of a god the lips defile,

         He needs victims free from stain,

          Fruits matured by autumn's sun;

         With the pure gifts of the plain

          Honored is the Holy One!"

         And she takes the heavy shaft

          From the hunter's

17

The corn-flower.