Compulsive Duty's hallow'd sway,

The harsh commands by Fate relentless dealt—
How shall He bear, who truth's mild yoke disdains,
Necessity's despotic chains?"

Thus thou exclaim'st, and look'st, my friend severe,
From the safe portal of experienc'd science;
Casting away all things that but appear.
Scar'd by thy words of stern defiance,

The tender Loves have taken flight

The Muses' choir is mute-the Hours their dance forbear

The sister goddesses, in mournful plight,
The wreath unbind from their loose-flowing hair-
Apollo breaks his golden lyre in two,

And Hermes his enchanting rod

The veil that Fancy wraps in roseate hue,
Falling, displays Life's pallid face to view-
The World looks like itself, a burial sod.
Cythera's son unlooses from his eyes

The magic band. No longer Love is blind-
But in his children of celestial kind
Beholds mortality, and affrighted flies.
The youthful form of Beauty waxes old;
Ev'n on thy very lips grows cold

The kiss of Love; and thou art turn'd to stone 'Midst Pleasure's soft vibration.

Das Spiel des Lebens.

LIFE'S RAREE-SHOW.

In this little trifling production, the prosaic view of Life in a manner of which Goethe probably supplied the Idea in his Wilhelm Meister, and which also reminds us of Jaques's stage-comparison in "As you like it." It needs no further illustration.

INTO my box, come girls! who'll spy?
-The game of Life-the world in little.
There now it suits you to a tittle;
Only you must not stand too nigh.
'Tis by Love's wax-lights you must view it,
And only Cupid's torch set to it.

Look here!-our boards are never void,

So now they bring the child before you—
There skips the lad-the youth storms far and wide-
The soldier fights, and ventures all for glory.

Here each one may his fortune find,
Tho' narrow is the path for turning.

The chariot rolls-the axle burning.

The Hero presses on-the Dastard lags behind-
The proud man stumbles-laughter marks his fall.
The wise man overtakes them all.

Next see the ladies at the barrier stand,
With favouring smile and gracious hand-
See them dispense, 'mid loud acclaim,
His guerdon to the Victor in the game.

Der Metaphysiker.

THE METAPHYSICIAN.

THIS, as well as the kindred poem, Die Weltweisen, which has been felt, or thought, from the very abstract nature of the language and expressions, to be untranslateable, is intended to throw ridicule on the poet's abandon'd philosophical studies, or, at least on certain professors of them; and it is generally understood that the satire of this particular poem is levelled at Fichte, and what was termed by Kant his fruchtlose Spitzfindigkeiten, or barren subtleties. The general design is to expose the vanity of a Philosophy which elevates itself above experience. The Weltweisen on the other hand, was addressed to Goethe, and calculated to shew that Genius and Courage find themselves in the right without the aid of Philosophy-that the powers which decide the course of events are little influenced by systems of morality, and that the exigencies of human nature had laid the foundations of the social fabric "long before Puffendorf and Feder pronounced their fiat."

"How low the world beneath me liesI scarce can see those human atoms roll. How near my Art exalts me to the pole

That props the fabric of the skies!"
Thus, sitting on his turret roof astride,
Exclaims the Tiler-so that little mighty man,
Hans Metaphysicus, from closet six feet wide.
Say on, thou creature of a span!

That tower, from whence thine eye looks down
with such disdain,

Whereof whereon is't built? The cause explain, How thou thyself didst mount. Its height so vast

in shew

What serves it, but to peep into the vale below?

Klage der Ceres,

LAMENT OF CERES.

To this enigmatical or emblematic class of poetry belongs also, in an especial manner, the following remarkable production, which, on account of its importance in the scale of poetical merit, has been reserved to the close of the strictly Lyrical portion of the present period. Two or three smaller compositions of the years 1795-6 have been left for a place among those of more recent date to which they appear more properly to belong. The Klage der Ceres has been ranked by Hoffmeister with the Tanz, a poem of the Elegiac metre, with respect to its subject; and, "as in the latter poem the evolutions of the national German Dance are rendered typical of the order and disposition of the Universe, so, in this, the well-known myth of the Daughter ravished from the Mother, and of the symbolic plants, is made to figure the natural longing of Human Nature after the Eternal, and its mysterious union with the invisible world of spirits. The lamentations and enquiries of the goddess for her daughter Persephone, or Proserpine, are significative of the unsatisfied desires of the soul for that Eternal Truth, veiled in darkness, from which in our earthly existence, we are separated by the same inexorable necessity as that which hid from the eye of the mother, the darksome abode of her ravished daughter. Must man then be entirely separated from this Eternal Truth,

G

even in his mortal existence? Far from it-all that he enjoys in life of the Good and the Beautiful more often proceeds, only in a mysterious way, out of this Ideal world; even as the variously painted flowers which glitter in the bright region of colour, derive their existence from the dark womb of earth."

Is the gracious Spring appearing?
Has the Earth herself renew'd?
Sunny hills fresh green are wearing,
And free flows the loosen'd flood.
On the Stream's bright mirror Jove
Laughs through fields of cloudless blue;
Soft the wings of Zephyr move;
Budding shoots burst forth to view.
Wake to song the leafy bowers,
And the Oread pours the strain—
"See! return thy blooming flowers-
But thy daughter ne'er again."

Ah! how long have I been straying,
Seeking her from place to place!
Titan! all thy shafts essaying,
Have I sent, her steps to trace.
None has ever to mine ear

Tidings of the lov'd one brought:
Day's broad eye that shines so clear
Her, the lost one, findeth not.

Jove!-is't thou hast from me torn her?

Or, enraptur'd with her charms,

Is't the king of shades hath borne her

To black Orcus in his arms?