Friendship

Friedrich Schiller 1759 (Marbach am Neckar) – 1805 (Weimar)



Friend!--the Great Ruler, easily content,
 Needs not the laws it has laborious been
The task of small professors to invent;
 A single wheel impels the whole machine
Matter and spirit;--yea, that simple law,
Pervading nature, which our Newton saw.

This taught the spheres, slaves to one golden rein,
 Their radiant labyrinths to weave around
Creation's mighty hearts: this made the chain,
 Which into interwoven systems bound
All spirits streaming to the spiritual sun
As brooks that ever into ocean run!

Did not the same strong mainspring urge and guide
 Our hearts to meet in love's eternal bond?
Linked to thine arm, O Raphael, by thy side
 Might I aspire to reach to souls beyond
Our earth, and bid the bright ambition go
To that perfection which the angels know!

Happy, O happy--I have found thee--I
 Have out of millions found thee, and embraced;
Thou, out of millions, mine!--Let earth and sky
 Return to darkness, and the antique waste--
To chaos shocked, let warring atoms be,
Still shall each heart unto the other flee!

Do I not find within thy radiant eyes
 Fairer reflections of all joys most fair?
In thee I marvel at myself--the dyes
 Of lovely earth seem lovelier painted there,
And in the bright looks of the friend is given
A heavenlier mirror even of the heaven!

Sadness casts off its load, and gayly goes
 From the intolerant storm to rest awhile,
In love's true heart, sure haven of repose;
 Does not pain's veriest transports learn to smile
From that bright eloquence affection gave
To friendly looks?--there, finds not pain a grave?

In all creation did I stand alone,
 Still to the rocks my dreams a soul should find,
Mine arms should wreathe themselves around the stone,
 My griefs should feel a listener in the wind;
My joy--its echo in the caves should be!
Fool, if ye will--Fool, for sweet sympathy!

We are dead groups of matter when we hate;
 But when we love we are as gods!--Unto
The gentle fetters yearning, through each state
 And shade of being multiform, and through
All countless spirits (save of all the sire)--
Moves, breathes, and blends, the one divine desire.

Lo! arm in arm, through every upward grade,
 From the rude mongrel to the starry Greek,
Who the fine link between the mortal made,
 And heaven's last seraph--everywhere we seek
Union and bond--till in one sea sublime
Of love be merged all measure and all time!

Friendless ruled God His solitary sky;
 He felt the want, and therefore souls were made,
The blessed mirrors of his bliss!--His eye
 No equal in His loftiest works surveyed;
And from the source whence souls are quickened, He
Called His companion forth--ETERNITY!

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 27, 2023

2:18 min read
300

Quick analysis:

Scheme AXAXBB CDCDEE FGFGHH IJIJKK LMLMEE NONOPP QRQRKK STSTUU VWVWXX IVIVKK
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 2,570
Words 456
Stanzas 10
Stanza Lengths 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6

Friedrich Schiller

Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller was a German poet philosopher historian and playwright During the last seventeen years of his life Schiller struck up a productive if complicated friendship with already famous and influential Johann Wolfgang Goethe with whom he frequently discussed issues concerning aesthetics and encouraged Goethe to finish works he left merely as sketches this relationship and these discussions led to a period now referred to as Weimar Classicism They also worked together on Die Xenien The Xenies a collection of short but harshly satirical poems in which both Schiller and Goethe verbally attacked those persons they perceived to be enemies of their aesthetic agenda. more…

All Friedrich Schiller poems | Friedrich Schiller Books

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