Suppressed Poems - Friedrich Schiller (popular ebook readers txt) 📗

You only has no sonnet ever wooed,
To win your gold no usurer e'er sighed
No coxcomb e'er with plaints your steps pursued,
For you, Arcadian shepherd ne'er has died.

Your gentle fingers ye forever ply,
Life's nervous thread with care to twist,
Till sound the clanging shears, and fruitlessly
The tender web would then resist.

Since thou my thread of life hast kindly spun,
Thy hand, O Clotho, I now kiss!
Since thou hast spared that life whilst scarce begun,
Receive this nosegay, Lachesis!

Full often thorns upon the thread,
But oftener roses, thou hast strung;
For thorns and roses there outspread,
Clotho, to thee this lay be sung!

Oft did tempestuous passions rise,
And threat to break the thread by force;
Oft projects of gigantic size
Have checked its free, unfettered course.

Oft, in sweet hours of heavenly bliss,
Too fine appeared the thread to me;
Still oftener, when near sorrow's dark abyss,
Too firm its fabric seemed to be.

Clotho, for this and other lies,
Thy pardon I with tears implore;
Henceforth I'll take whatever prize
Sage Clotho gives, and asks no more.

But never let the shears cut off a rose--
Only the thorns,--yet as thou will'st!
Let, if thou will'st, the death-shears, sharply close,
If thou this single prayer fulfill'st!

Oh, goddess! when, enchained to Laura's breath,
My spirit from its shell breaks free,
Betraying when, upon the gates of death,
My youthful life hangs giddily,

Let to infinity the thread extend,
'Twill wander through the realms of bliss,--
Then, goddess, let thy cruel shears descend!
Then let them fall, O Lachesis!


THE PARALLEL.

Her likeness Madame Ramler bids me find;
I try to think in vain, to whom or how
Beneath the moon there's nothing of the kind.--
I'll show she's like the moon, I vow!

The moon--she rouges, steals the sun's bright light,
By eating stolen bread her living gets,--
Is also wont to paint her cheeks at night,
While, with untiring ardor, she coquets.

The moon--for this may Herod give her thanks!--
Reserves her best till night may have returned;
Our lady swallows up by day the francs
That she at night-time may have earned.

The moon first swells, and then is once more lean,
As surely as the month comes round;
With Madame Ramler 'tis the same, I ween--
But she to need more time is found!

The moon to love her silver-horns is said,
But makes a sorry show;
She likes them on her husband's head,--
She's right to have it so


KLOPSTOCK AND WIELAND.

(WHEN THEIR MINIATURES WERE HANGING SIDE BY SIDE.)

In truth, when I have crossed dark Lethe's river,
The man upon the right I'll love forever,
For 'twas he first that wrote for me.
For all the world the left man wrote, full clearly,
And so we all should love him dearly;
Come, left man! I must needs kiss thee!


THE MUSES' REVENGE.

AN ANECDOTE OF HELICON.

Once the nine all weeping came
To the god of song
"Oh, papa!" they there exclaim--
"Hear our tale of wrong!

"Young ink-lickers swarm about
Our dear Helicon;
There they fight, manoeuvre, shout,
Even to thy throne.

"On their steeds they galop hard
To the spring to drink,
Each one calls himself a bard--
Minstrels--only think!

"There they--how the thing to name!
Would our persons treat--
This, without a blush of shame,
We can ne'er repeat;

"One, in front of all, then cries,
'I the army lead!'
Both his fists he wildly plies,
Like a bear indeed!

"Others wakes he in a trice
With his whistlings rude;
But none follow, though he twice
Has those sounds renewed.

"He'll return, he threats, ere long,
And he'll come no doubt!
Father, friend to lyric song,
Please to show him out!"

Father Phoebus laughing hears
The complaint they've brought;
"Don't be frightened, pray, my dears,
We'll soon cut them short!

"One must hasten to hell-fire,
Go, Melpomene!
Let a fury borrow lyre,
Notes, and dress, of thee.

"Let her meet, in this array,
One of these vile crews,
As though she had lost her way,
Soon as night ensues.

"Then with kisses dark, I trust,
They'll the dear child greet,
Satisfying their wild lust
Just as it is meet!"--

Said and done!--Then one from hell
Soon was dressed aright.
Scarcely had the prey, they tell,
Caught the fellow's sight,

Than, as kites a pigeon follow,
They attacked her straight--
Part, not all, though, I can swallow
Of what folks relate.

If fair boys were 'mongst the band,
How came they to be--
This I cannot understand,--
In such company?
. . . . .
The goddess a miscarriage had, good lack!
And was delivered of an--Almanac!


THE HYPOCHONDRIACAL PLUTO.

A ROMANCE.

BOOK I.

The sullen mayor who reigns in hell,
By mortals Pluto hight,
Who thrashes all his subjects well,
Both morn and eve, as stories tell,
And rules the realms of night,
All pleasure lost in cursing once,
All joy in flogging, for the nonce.

The sedentary life he led
Upon his brazen chair
Made his hindquarters very red,
While pricks, as from a nettle-bed,
He felt both here and there:
A burning sun, too, chanced to shine,
And boiled down all his blood to brine.

'Tis true he drank full many a draught
Of Phlegethon's black flood;
By cupping, leeches, doctor's craft,
And venesection, fore and aft,
They took from him much blood.
Full many a clyster was applied,
And purging, too, was also tried.

His doctor, versed in sciences,
With wig beneath his hat,
Argued and showed with wondrous ease,
From Celsus and Hippocrates,
When he in judgment sat,--
"Right worshipful the mayor of hell,
The liver's wrong, I see full well."

"He's but a booby," Pluto said,
"With all his trash and pills!
A man like me--pray where's his head?
A young man yet--his wits have fled!
While youth my veins yet fills!
Unless electuaries he'll bring,
Full in his face my club I'll fling!"

Or right or wrong,--'twas a hard case
To weather such a trial;
(Poor men, who lose a king's good grace!)
He's straight saluted in the face
By every splint and phial.
He very wisely made no fuss;
This hint he learnt of Cerberus.

"Go! fetch the barber of the skies,
Apollo, to me soon!"
An airy courier straightway flies
Upon his beast, and onward hies,
And skims past poles and moon;
As he went off, the clock struck four,
At five his charger reached the door.

Just then Apollo happened--"Heigh-ho!
A sonnet to have made?"
Oh, dear me, no!--upon Miss Io
(Such is the tale I heard from Clio)
The midwife to have played.
The boy, as if stamped out of wax,
Might Zeus as father fairly tax.

He read the letter half asleep,
Then started in dismay:
"The road is long, and hell is deep,
Your rocks I know are rough and steep . . .
Yet like a king he'll pay!"
He dons his cap of mist and furs,
Then through the air the charger spurs.

With locks all frizzled a la mode,
And ruffles smooth and nice,
In gala dress, that brightly glowed
(A gift Aurora had bestowed),
With watch-chains of high price,
With toes turned out, and chapeau bas,
He stood before hell's mighty czar.