Would that battle-tempests bound me!
Would that spears were whizzing round me In the hotly-raging strife!
Could my courage find fresh life!
How those tones, those voices blest Coil around my bosom burning All the strength within my breast Melting into tender yearning, Into tears of sadness turning!
(The flutes are again heard--she falls into a silent melancholy.)
Gentle crook! oh that I never For the sword had bartered thee!
Sacred oak! why didst thou ever From thy branches speak to me?
Would that thou to me in splendor, Queen of heaven, hadst ne"er come down!
Take--all claim I must surrender,-- Take, oh take away thy crown!
Ah, I open saw yon heaven, Saw the features of the blest!
Yet to earth my hopes are riven, In the skies they ne"er can rest!
Wherefore make me ply with ardor This vocation, terror-fraught?
Would this heart were rendered harder.
That by heaven to feel was taught!
To proclaim Thy might sublime Those select, who, free from crime, In Thy lasting mansions stand; Send Thou forth Thy spirit-band, The immortal, and the pure, Feelingless, from tears secure Never choose a maiden fair, Shepherdess" weak spirit ne"er!
Kings" dissensions wherefore dread I, Why the fortune of the fight?
Guilelessly my lambs once fed I On the silent mountain-height.
Yet Thou into life didst bear me, To the halls where monarchs throne.
In the toils of guilt to snare me-- Ah, the choice was not mine own!
FOOTNOTES.
[62] A pointless satire upon Klopstock and his Messias.
[63] Schiller, who is not very particular about the quant.i.ties of cla.s.sical names, gives this word with the o long--which is, of course, the correct quant.i.ty--in The G.o.ds of Greece.
[64] A well-known general, who died in 1783.
[65] See the play of The Robbers.
[66] Written in consequence of the ill-treatment Schiller experienced at the hands of the Grand Duke Charles of Wirtemberg.
[67] Written in the Suabian dialect.
[68] An allusion to the appointment of regimental surgeon, conferred upon Schiller by the Grand Duke Charles in 1780, when he was twenty-one years of age.
[69] The Landlord on the Mountain.
[70] The year.