[Only the concluding lines of this long and beautiful poem are given, in which Schiller embodies his conceptions of the mission of art (in its broadest sense, including poetry and all creations of the imagination), and of its relations to philosophy and science.]
F ON the course of Thought, now barrier-free,
Sweeps the glad search of bold Philosophy;
And with self-pæans and a vain renown
Would claim the praise and arrogate the crown,
Holding but as a soldier in her band
The nobler Art that did in truth command;
And grants, beneath her visionary throne,
To Art, her queen, the slave's first rank alone,—
Pardon the vaunt! For you Perfection all
Her star-gems weaves in one bright coronal!
With you, the first blooms of the spring, began
Awakening Nature in the soul of man!
With you fulfilled, when Nature seeks repose,
Autumn's exulting harvests ripely close.
If Art rose plastic from the stone and clay,
To mind from matter ever sweeps its sway;
Silent, but conquering in its silence, lo,
How o'er the spiritual world its triumphs go!
What in the land of knowledge, wide and far,
Keen science teaches, for you discovered are:
First in your arms the wise their wisdom learn,—
They dig the mine you teach them to discern;
And when that wisdom ripens to the flower
And crowning time of Beauty,-to the power
From whence it rose new stores it must impart,
The toils of science swell the wealth of art.
When to one height the sage ascends with you,
And spreads the vale of matter round his view
In the mild twilight of serene repose,-
The more the artist charms, the more the thinker knows.
The more the shapes in intellectual joy
Linked by the genii which your spells employ,
The more the thought with the emotion blends,-
The more upbuoyed by both the soul ascends
To loftier harmonies and heavenlier things,
And tracks the stream of beauty to its springs.