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ON READING WITH DIFFICULTY SOME OF SCHILLER'S EARLY LOVE POEMS.
When of thy loves, and happy heavenly dreamsOf early life, O Bard! I strive to read,
Thy foreign utterance a riddle seems,
And hardly can I hold thy thought's bright thread.
When of the maiden's guilt, the mother's woe,
And the dark mystery of death and shame,
Thou speakest—then thy terrible numbers flow
As if the tongue we think in were the same.
Ah wherefore! but because all joy and love
Speak unfamiliar, unknown words to me,
A spirit of wishful wonder they may move,
Dreams of what might—but yet shall never be.
But the sharp cry of pain—the bitter moan
Of trust deceived—the horrible despair
Of hope and love for ever overthrown—
These strains of thine need no interpreter.
Ah! 'tis my native tongue! and howsoe'er
In foreign accents writ, that I did ne'er
Or speak, or hear, a woman's agony
Still utters a familiar voice to me.
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