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LINES ON SEEING SCHILLER’S SKULL. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Goethe’s Works, vol. 1 (Poems) [1885]

Edition used:

Goethe’s Works, illustrated by the best German artists, 5 vols. (Philadelphia: G. Barrie, 1885). Vol. 1.

Part of: Goethe’s Works, 5 vols.

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LINES ON SEEING SCHILLER’S SKULL.

  • WITHIN a gloomy charnel-house one day
  • I view’d the countless skulls, so strangely mated,
  • And of old times I thought, that now were gray.
  • Close pack’d they stand that once so fiercely hated,
  • And hardy bones that to the death contended
  • Are lying cross’d,—to lie forever, fated.
  • What held those crooked shoulder-blades suspended?
  • No one now asks; and limbs with vigor fired,
  • The hand, the foot—their use in life is ended.
  • Vainly ye sought the tomb for rest when tired;
  • Peace in the grave may not be yours; ye’re driven
  • Back into daylight by a force inspir’d;
  • But none can love the wither’d husk, though even
  • A glorious noble kernel it contained.
  • To me, an adept, was the writing given
  • Which not to all its holy sense explained,
  • When ’mid the crowd, their icy shadows flinging,
  • I saw a form, that glorious still remained,
  • And even there, where mould and damp were clinging,
  • Gave me a bless’d, a rapture-fraught emotion,
  • As though from death a living fount were springing.
  • What mystic joy I felt! What rapt devotion!
  • That form, how pregnant with a godlike trace!
  • A look, how did it whirl me tow’rd that ocean
  • Whose rolling billows mightier shapes embrace!
  • Mysterious vessel! Oracle how dear!
  • Even to grasp thee is my hand too base,
  • Except to steal thee from thy prison here
  • With pious purpose, and devoutly go
  • Back to the air, free thoughts, and sunlight clear.
  • What greater gain in life can man e’er know
  • Than when God-Nature will to him explain
  • How into Spirit steadfastness may flow,
  • How steadfast, too, the Spirit-Born remain.

Trilogy of Passion.