The Philosophical Egotist

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



Hast thou the infant seen that yet, unknowing of the love
Which warms and cradles, calmly sleeps the mother's heart above--
Wandering from arm to arm, until the call of passion wakes,
And glimmering on the conscious eye--the world in glory breaks?

And hast thou seen the mother there her anxious vigil keep?
Buying with love that never sleeps the darling's happy sleep?
With her own life she fans and feeds that weak life's trembling rays,
And with the sweetness of the care, the care itself repays.

And dost thou Nature then blaspheme--that both the child and mother
Each unto each unites, the while the one doth need the other?--
All self-sufficing wilt thou from that lovely circle stand--
That creature still to creature links in faith's familiar band?

Ah! dar'st thou, poor one, from the rest thy lonely self estrange?
Eternal power itself is but all powers in interchange!

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

47 sec read
58

Quick analysis:

Scheme AABB CCDD EEFF GG
Closest metre Iambic heptameter
Characters 873
Words 153
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 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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