Analysis of The Complaint Of Ceres
Friedrich Schiller 1759 (Marbach am Neckar) – 1805 (Weimar)
Does pleasant spring return once more?
Does earth her happy youth regain?
Sweet suns green hills are shining o'er;
Soft brooklets burst their icy chain:
Upon the blue translucent river
Laughs down an all-unclouded day,
The winged west winds gently quiver,
The buds are bursting from the spray;
While birds are blithe on every tree;
The Oread from the mountain-shore
Sighs, "Lo! thy flowers come back to thee--
Thy child, sad mother, comes no more!"
Alas! how long an age it seems
Since all the earth I wandered over,
And vainly, Titan, tasked thy beams
The loved--the lost one--to discover!
Though all may seek--yet none can call
Her tender presence back to me
The sun, with eyes detecting all,
Is blind one vanished form to see.
Hast thou, O Zeus! hast thou away
From these sad arms my daughter torn?
Has Pluto, from the realms of day,
Enamored--to dark rivers borne?
Who to the dismal phantom-strand
The herald of my grief will venture?
The boat forever leaves the land,
But only shadows there may enter.--
Veiled from each holier eye repose
The realms where midnight wraps the dead,
And, while the Stygian river flows,
No living footstep there may tread!
A thousand pathways wind the drear
Descent;--none upward lead to-day;--
No witness to the mother's ear
The daughter's sorrows can betray.
Mothers of happy human clay
Can share at least their children's doom;
And when the loved ones pass away,
Can track--can join them--in the tomb!
The race alone of heavenly birth
Are banished from the darksome portals;
The Fates have mercy on the earth,
And death is only kind to mortals! [30]
Oh, plunge me in the night of nights,
From heaven's ambrosial halls exiled!
Oh, let the goddess lose the rights
That shut the mother from the child!
Where sits the dark king's joyless bride,
Where midst the dead her home is made;
Oh that my noiseless steps might glide,
Amidst the shades, myself a shade!
I see her eyes, that search through tears,
In vain the golden light to greet;
That yearn for yonder distant spheres,
That pine the mother's face to meet!
Till some bright moment shall renew
The severed hearts' familiar ties;
And softened pity steal in dew,
From Pluto's slow-relenting eyes!
Ah, vain the wish, the sorrows are!
Calm in the changeless paths above
Rolls on the day-god's golden car--
Fast are the fixed decrees of Jove!
Far from the ever-gloomy plain,
He turns his blissful looks away.
Alas! night never gives again
What once it seizes as its prey!
Till over Lethe's sullen swell,
Aurora's rosy hues shall glow;
And arching through the midmost hell
Shine forth the lovely Iris-bow!
And is there naught of her; no token--
No pledge from that beloved hand?
To tell how love remains unbroken,
How far soever be the land?
Has love no link, no lightest thread,
The mother to the child to bind?
Between the living and the dead,
Can hope no holy compact find?
No! every bond is not yet riven;
We are not yet divided wholly;
To us the eternal powers have given
A symbol language, sweet and holy.
When Spring's fair children pass away,
When, in the north wind's icy air,
The leaf and flower alike decay,
And leave the rivelled branches bare,
Then from Vertumnus' lavish horn
I take life's seeds to strew below--
And bid the gold that germs the corn
An offering to the Styx to go!
Sad in the earth the seeds I lay--
Laid at thy heart, my child--to be
The mournful tokens which convey
My sorrow and my love to thee!
But, when the hours, in measured dance,
The happy smile of spring restore,
Rife in the sun-god's golden glance
The buried dead revive once more!
The germs that perished to thine eyes,
Within the cold breast of the earth,
Spring up to bloom in gentler skies,
The brighter for the second birth!
The stem its blossom rears above--
Its roots in night's dark womb repose--
The plant but by the equal love
Of light and darkness fostered--grows!
If half with death the germs may sleep,
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
Scheme | ABCBCDCDEAEA FCFCGEGEDHDH ICICJKJKADXD DLDLMXMXNONO PQPQXRXRSTST UVUVBDWDXYXX ZIZIK1 K1 ZEZE D2 D2 HYHYDEDE 3 A3 ATMTMVJVJ 4 F4 FFBXWVRVX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Etheree (27%) Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 11010111 11010101 111111010 1111101 010101010 111111 01111010 01110101 111111001 0110101 111101111 11110111 01111111 110111010 01010111 010111010 11111111 01010111 01110101 11110111 11111101 11111101 11010111 01011101 11010101 010111110 01010101 11011110 111100101 0111101 010100101 1101111 0101101 01110111 11010101 01010101 10110101 11111101 01011101 11111001 010111001 11010110 01110101 0111011101 11100111 11001011 11010101 11010101 1101111 11010111 1111111 0101101 11011111 01010111 11110101 11010111 11110101 01010101 01010101 11010101 11010101 1001101 11011101 11010111 11010101 11110101 01110101 11110111 1101101 110111 0101011 11010101 011110110 1111011 111101010 111101 11111101 01010111 01010001 11110101 1100111110 111101010 11001010110 010101010 11110101 10011101 010100101 0101101 111101 11111101 01011101 110010111 10010111 11111111 01010101 11001111 110100101 01011101 10011101 01010111 01110111 01011101 11110101 01010101 01110101 11011101 01110101 11010101 11110111 11111101 11010101 11010101 1011011 1101101 11111101 11110001 11111101 1101011 100110111 0101011 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 4,222 |
Words | 762 |
Sentences | 39 |
Stanzas | 10 |
Stanza Lengths | 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12 |
Lines Amount | 120 |
Letters per line (avg) | 28 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 334 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 76 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 3:53 min read
- 60 Views
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"The Complaint Of Ceres" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 30 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/14371/the-complaint-of-ceres>.
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