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The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 03
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VI
If worth thy while the glory and the strife
Which fire the lists of Actual Life—
The ardent rush to fortune or to fame,
In the hot field where Strength and Valor are,
And rolls the whirling thunder of the car,
And the world, breathless, eyes the glorious game—
Then dare and strive—the prize can but belong
To him whose valor o'er his tribe prevails;
In life the victory only crowns the strong—
He who is feeble fails.
VII
But Life, whose source, by crags around it pil'd,
Chafed while confin'd, foams fierce and wild,
Glides soft and smooth when once its streams expand,
When its waves, glassing in their silver play,
Aurora blent with Hesper's milder ray,
Gain the Still BEAUTIFUL—that Shadow-Land!
Here, contest grows but interchange of Love;
All curb is but the bondage of the Grace;
Gone is each foe,—Peace folds her wings above
Her native dwelling-place.
VIII
When, through dead stone to breathe a soul of light,
With the dull matter to unite
The kindling genius, some great sculptor glows;
Behold him straining every nerve intent—
Behold how, o'er the subject element,
The stately THOUGHT its march laborious goes!
For never, save to Toil untiring, spoke
The unwilling Truth from her mysterious well—
The statue only to the chisel's stroke
Wakes from its marble cell.
IX
But onward to the Sphere of Beauty—go
Onward, O Child of Art! and, lo,
Out of the matter which thy pains control
The Statue springs!—not as with labor wrung
From the hard block, but as from Nothing sprung—
Airy and light—the offspring of the soul!
The pangs, the cares, the weary toils it cost
Leave not a trace when once the work is done—
The Artist's human frailty merged and lost
In Art's great victory won!
X
If human Sin confronts the rigid law
Of perfect Truth and Virtue, awe
Seizes and saddens thee to see how far
Beyond thy reach, Perfection;—if we test
By the Ideal of the Good, the best,
How mean our efforts and our actions are!
This space between the Ideal of man's soul
And man's achievement, who hath ever past?
An ocean spreads between us and that goal
Where anchor ne'er was cast!
XI
But fly the boundary of the Senses—live
The Ideal life free Thought can give;
And, lo, the gulf shall vanish, and the chill
Of the soul's impotent despair be gone!
And with divinity thou sharest the throne,
Let but divinity become thy will!
Scorn not the Law—permit its iron band
The sense (it cannot chain the soul) to thrall.
Let man no more the will of Jove withstand,
And Jove the bolt lets fall!
XII
If, in the woes of Actual Human Life—
If thou could'st see the serpent strife
Which the Greek Art has made divine in stone—
Could'st see the writhing limbs, the livid cheek,
Note every pang, and hearken every shriek
Of some despairing lost Laocoon,
The human nature would thyself subdue
To share the human woe before thine eye—
Thy cheek would pale, and all thy soul be true
To Man's great Sympathy.
XIII
But in the Ideal Realm, aloof and far,
Where the calm Art's pure dwellers are,
Lo, the Laocoon writhes, but does not groan.
Here, no sharp grief the high emotion knows—
Here, suffering's self is made divine, and shows
The brave resolve of the firm soul alone:
Here, lovely as the rainbow on the dew
If worth thy while the glory and the strife
Which fire the lists of Actual Life—
The ardent rush to fortune or to fame,
In the hot field where Strength and Valor are,
And rolls the whirling thunder of the car,
And the world, breathless, eyes the glorious game—
Then dare and strive—the prize can but belong
To him whose valor o'er his tribe prevails;
In life the victory only crowns the strong—
He who is feeble fails.
VII
But Life, whose source, by crags around it pil'd,
Chafed while confin'd, foams fierce and wild,
Glides soft and smooth when once its streams expand,
When its waves, glassing in their silver play,
Aurora blent with Hesper's milder ray,
Gain the Still BEAUTIFUL—that Shadow-Land!
Here, contest grows but interchange of Love;
All curb is but the bondage of the Grace;
Gone is each foe,—Peace folds her wings above
Her native dwelling-place.
VIII
When, through dead stone to breathe a soul of light,
With the dull matter to unite
The kindling genius, some great sculptor glows;
Behold him straining every nerve intent—
Behold how, o'er the subject element,
The stately THOUGHT its march laborious goes!
For never, save to Toil untiring, spoke
The unwilling Truth from her mysterious well—
The statue only to the chisel's stroke
Wakes from its marble cell.
IX
But onward to the Sphere of Beauty—go
Onward, O Child of Art! and, lo,
Out of the matter which thy pains control
The Statue springs!—not as with labor wrung
From the hard block, but as from Nothing sprung—
Airy and light—the offspring of the soul!
The pangs, the cares, the weary toils it cost
Leave not a trace when once the work is done—
The Artist's human frailty merged and lost
In Art's great victory won!
X
If human Sin confronts the rigid law
Of perfect Truth and Virtue, awe
Seizes and saddens thee to see how far
Beyond thy reach, Perfection;—if we test
By the Ideal of the Good, the best,
How mean our efforts and our actions are!
This space between the Ideal of man's soul
And man's achievement, who hath ever past?
An ocean spreads between us and that goal
Where anchor ne'er was cast!
XI
But fly the boundary of the Senses—live
The Ideal life free Thought can give;
And, lo, the gulf shall vanish, and the chill
Of the soul's impotent despair be gone!
And with divinity thou sharest the throne,
Let but divinity become thy will!
Scorn not the Law—permit its iron band
The sense (it cannot chain the soul) to thrall.
Let man no more the will of Jove withstand,
And Jove the bolt lets fall!
XII
If, in the woes of Actual Human Life—
If thou could'st see the serpent strife
Which the Greek Art has made divine in stone—
Could'st see the writhing limbs, the livid cheek,
Note every pang, and hearken every shriek
Of some despairing lost Laocoon,
The human nature would thyself subdue
To share the human woe before thine eye—
Thy cheek would pale, and all thy soul be true
To Man's great Sympathy.
XIII
But in the Ideal Realm, aloof and far,
Where the calm Art's pure dwellers are,
Lo, the Laocoon writhes, but does not groan.
Here, no sharp grief the high emotion knows—
Here, suffering's self is made divine, and shows
The brave resolve of the firm soul alone:
Here, lovely as the rainbow on the dew
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Книга довольно хорошо написана в виде рассказов старого человека молодому парню, основанных на событиях его реальной жизни, охватывающей период с нача...
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