The Favor Of The Moment

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



Once more, then, we meet
 In the circles of yore;
Let our song be as sweet
 In its wreaths as before,
Who claims the first place
 In the tribute of song?
The God to whose grace
 All our pleasures belong.
Though Ceres may spread
 All her gifts on the shrine,
Though the glass may be red
 With the blush of the vine,
What boots--if the while
 Fall no spark on the hearth;
If the heart do not smile
 With the instinct of mirth?--
From the clouds, from God's breast
 Must our happiness fall,
'Mid the blessed, most blest
 Is the moment of all!
Since creation began
 All that mortals have wrought,
All that's godlike in man
 Comes--the flash of a thought!
For ages the stone
 In the quarry may lurk,
An instant alone
 Can suffice to the work;
An impulse give birth
 To the child of the soul,
A glance stamp the worth
 And the fame of the whole.
On the arch that she buildeth
 From sunbeams on high,
As Iris just gildeth,
 And fleets from the sky,
So shineth, so gloometh
 Each gift that is ours;
The lightning illumeth--
 The darkness devours!

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 19, 2023

59 sec read
83

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABABCDCDEFEFGHGIJKJKLMLMNONOIPIPHQHQHRHR
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 1,007
Words 196
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 40

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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