The Poems and Ballads of Schiller/The Poet to His Friends
THE POET TO HIS FRIENDS;
WRITTEN AT WEIMAR.
Friends! yes, the days of old
I grant more fair than those that we behold;
And there has lived a race of loftier worth.
Could even History cease the past to tell,
A thousand stones that truth would chronicle
Disburied from the bosom of the earth.
But yet that race, if more endowed than ours,
Is gone to dusty graves!—we—we survive,
We have our charter in the present hours,
We have life's right to live.
I grant more fair than those that we behold;
And there has lived a race of loftier worth.
Could even History cease the past to tell,
A thousand stones that truth would chronicle
Disburied from the bosom of the earth.
But yet that race, if more endowed than ours,
Is gone to dusty graves!—we—we survive,
We have our charter in the present hours,
We have life's right to live.
Suns are of happier ray
Than where, not ill, we while our life away,
If the far-wandering traveller speaks aright;
But much which Nature hath to us denied
Art, the kind friend, has lavishly supplied,
And warm'd our hearts with sunshine from her light!
Tho' native not beneath our winters keen,
Or bays or myrtle—still our hands can twine
Wreaths for our temples of as fair a green,
Won from the clustering vine.
Than where, not ill, we while our life away,
If the far-wandering traveller speaks aright;
But much which Nature hath to us denied
Art, the kind friend, has lavishly supplied,
And warm'd our hearts with sunshine from her light!
Tho' native not beneath our winters keen,
Or bays or myrtle—still our hands can twine
Wreaths for our temples of as fair a green,
Won from the clustering vine.
Well may proud hearts take pleasure
Where the four Regions interchange their treasure,
And greedy eyes the pomp of Trade behold,
Where Thames receives the thousand sails unfurl'd
Which seek or leave the market of the world—
And in his splendour reigns the Earth-god,—GOLD.
Yet it is not the streams,—that hurrying pass,
Swell'd by the rains, and troubled as they run,
But the still waters,—that serenely glass
The image of the sun.1
Where the four Regions interchange their treasure,
And greedy eyes the pomp of Trade behold,
Where Thames receives the thousand sails unfurl'd
Which seek or leave the market of the world—
And in his splendour reigns the Earth-god,—GOLD.
Yet it is not the streams,—that hurrying pass,
Swell'd by the rains, and troubled as they run,
But the still waters,—that serenely glass
The image of the sun.1
Prouder and more elate
Than we o' the North, beside the Angel's Gate2
The beggar dwells, and sees eternal Rome!
There to his gaze the Beautiful is given
In all its pomp, and, swelling into heaven,
A second heaven, St Peter's wondrous Dome.
But Rome in all her glory is a grave,
The gorgeous sepulchre of perish'd power.
Life only breathes in the fresh plants that wave,
Strewn by the present hour!
Than we o' the North, beside the Angel's Gate2
The beggar dwells, and sees eternal Rome!
There to his gaze the Beautiful is given
In all its pomp, and, swelling into heaven,
A second heaven, St Peter's wondrous Dome.
But Rome in all her glory is a grave,
The gorgeous sepulchre of perish'd power.
Life only breathes in the fresh plants that wave,
Strewn by the present hour!
Elsewhere are nobler things
Than to our souls our scant existence brings:
The New beneath the sun hath never been!
Yet still we see each grander elder age
Bid its great shades revive upon the stage—
And give the world its mirror in the scene.3
Life but repeats itself, all stale and worn;
Sweet Phantasy alone is young for ever;
What ne'er and nowhere on the earth was born4
Alone grows aged never.
Than to our souls our scant existence brings:
The New beneath the sun hath never been!
Yet still we see each grander elder age
Bid its great shades revive upon the stage—
And give the world its mirror in the scene.3
Life but repeats itself, all stale and worn;
Sweet Phantasy alone is young for ever;
What ne'er and nowhere on the earth was born4
Alone grows aged never.
1 These lines afford one of the many instances of the peculiar tenacity with which Schiller retained certain favourite ideas. At the age of seventeen he had said, "Not on the stormy sea, but on the calm and glassy stream, does the sun reflect itself."—See Hoffmeister, Part iv., p. 39.
2 St Peter's Church.
3 The signification of these lines in the original has been disputed—I accept Hoffmeister's interpretation—Part vi. p. 40.
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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