The Triumph Of Love

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



By love are blest the gods on high,
Frail man becomes a deity
 When love to him is given;
'Tis love that makes the heavens shine
With hues more radiant, more divine,
 And turns dull earth to heaven!

In Pyrrha's rear (so poets sang
 In ages past and gone),
The world from rocky fragments sprang--
 Mankind from lifeless stone.

Their soul was but a thing of night,
 Like stone and rock their heart;
The flaming torch of heaven so bright
 Its glow could ne'er impart.

Young loves, all gently hovering round,
Their souls as yet had never bound
 In soft and rosy chains;
No feeling muse had sought to raise
Their bosoms with ennobling lays,
 Or sweet, harmonious strains.

Around each other lovingly
 No garlands then entwined;
The sorrowing springs fled toward the sky,
 And left the earth behind.

From out the sea Aurora rose
 With none to hail her then;
The sun unhailed, at daylight's close,
 In ocean sank again.

In forests wild, man went astray,
Misled by Luna's cloudy ray--
 He bore an iron yoke;
He pined not for the stars on high,
With yearning for a deity
 No tears in torrents broke.

.....

But see! from out the deep-blue ocean
Fair Venus springs with gentle motion
The graceful Naiad's smiling band
Conveys her to the gladdened strand,

A May-like, youthful, magic power
Entwines, like morning's twilight hour,
Around that form of godlike birth,
The charms of air, sea, heaven, and earth.

The day's sweet eye begins to bloom
Across the forest's midnight gloom;
 Narcissuses, their balm distilling,
 The path her footstep treads are filling.

A song of love, sweet Philomel,
 Soon carolled through the grove;
The streamlet, as it murmuring fell,
 Discoursed of naught but love,

Pygmalion!  Happy one!  Behold!
Life's glow pervades thy marble cold!
Oh, LOVE, thou conqueror all-divine,
Embrace each happy child of thine!

.....

By love are blest the gods on high,--
Frail man becomes a deity
 When love to him is given;
'Tis love that makes the heavens shine
With hues more radiant, more divine,
 And turns dull earth to heaven!

.....

The gods their days forever spend
In banquets bright that have no end,
In one voluptuous morning-dream,
And quaff the nectar's golden stream.

Enthroned in awful majesty
Kronion wields the bolt on high:
In abject fear Olympus rocks
When wrathfully he shakes his locks.

To other gods he leaves his throne,
And fills, disguised as earth's frail son,
 The grove with mournful numbers;
The thunders rest beneath his feet,
And lulled by Leda's kisses sweet,
 The Giant-Slayer slumbers.

Through the boundless realms of light
Phoebus' golden reins, so bright,
Guide his horses white as snow,
While his darts lay nations low.
But when love and harmony
Fill his breast, how willingly
Ceases Phoebus then to heed
Rattling dart and snow-white steed!

See!  Before Kronion's spouse
Every great immortal bows;
Proudly soar the peacock pair
As her chariot throne they bear,
While she decks with crown of might
Her ambrosial tresses bright,

Beauteous princess, ah! with fear
 Quakes before thy splendor, love,
Seeking, as he ventures near,
 With his power thy breast to move!
Soon from her immortal throne
 Heaven's great queen must fain descend,
And in prayer for beauty's zone,
 To the heart-enchainer bend!

.....

By love are blest the gods on high,
Frail man becomes a deity
 When love to him is given;
'Tis love that makes the heavens shine
With hues more radiant, more divine,
 And turns dull earth to heaven!

.....

'Tis love illumes the realms of night,
For Orcus dark obeys his might,
And bows before his magic spell
All-kindly looks the king of hell
At Ceres' daughter's smile so bright,--
Yes--love illumes the realms of night!

In hell were heard, with heavenly sound,
Holding in chains its warder bound,
Thy lays, O Thracian one!
A gentler doom dread Minos passed,
While down his cheeks the tears coursed fast
And e'en around Megaera's face
The serpents twined in fond embrace,
The lashes' work seemed done.

Driven by Orpheus' lyre away,
The vulture left his giant-prey;
With gentler motion rolled along
 Dark Lethe and Cocytus' river,
Enraptured Thracian, by thy song,--
 And love its burden was forever!

By love are blest the gods on high,
Frail man become
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

3:38 min read
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Quick analysis:

Scheme ABCDDC exef ghgh iijkkj blal xmxm nnoabo ccpp qqrr sstt uxuv wwdd ABCDDC xxyy bazz fcx1 1 j ggxubb2 2 xx3 3 gg 4 v4 XFXFx abcddc gguugg iic5 5 6 6 c nn7 q7 q ax
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 4,060
Words 709
Stanzas 24
Stanza Lengths 6, 4, 4, 6, 4, 4, 6, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 6, 4, 4, 6, 8, 6, 8, 6, 6, 8, 6, 2

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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