Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

Turnips and other roots are the principal food of cattle in the winter: a preliminary chapter, therefore, is devoted to the "drawing and storing of turnips and other roots." Had we our article to begin again, we could devote several pages, agreeably to ourselves, and not without interest, we believe, or without instruction, to our reader, in discussing a few of those points connected with the feeding of cattle, upon which, though the means of information are within their reach, practical men have hitherto permitted themselves to remain wholly ignorant. Of these points Mr. Stephens adverts to several, and suggests the advantage of additional experiments; but the whole subject requires revision, and, under the guidance of persons able to direct, who are acquainted with all that is yet known, or has as yet been done either in our own or in foreign countries, experiments will hereafter, no doubt, be made, by which many new truths, both theoretically and practically valuable, are sure to be elucidated.

We may advert, as an illustration, to the feeding properties of the turnip. It is usual to reckon the value of a crop of turnips by the number of tons per acre which it is found to yield when so many square yards of the produce are weighed. But this may be very fallacious in many ways. If they are white turnips, for instance, nine tons of small will contain as much nourishment as ten tons of large--or twenty-seven tons an acre of small turnips will feed as many sheep as thirty tons per acre of large turnips. Or if the crop be Swedes, the reverse will be the case, twenty-seven tons of large will feed as much stock as thirty tons of small.--(Vol. ii., p. 20.) Mr. Stephens points out other fallacies also, to which we cannot advert. One, however, he has passed over, of equal, we believe of greater, consequence than any other--we allude to the variable quantity of water which the turnip grown on different soils in different seasons is found to contain.

It is obvious, that in so far as the roots of the turnip, the carrot, and the potatoe, consist of water, they can serve the purposes of drink only--they cannot feed the animals to which they are given. Now, the quantity of water in the turnip is so great, that 100 _tons sometimes contain only nine tons of dry feeding matter_--more than nine-tenths of their weight consisting of water. But again, their constitution is so variable, that 100 _tons sometimes contain more than twenty tons of dry food_--or less than four-fifths of their weight of water. It is possible, therefore, that one acre of turnips, on which only twenty tons are growing, may feed as many sheep as another on which forty tons are produced. What, therefore, can be more uncertain than the feeding value of an acre of turnips as estimated by the weight? How much in the dark are buyers and sellers of this root? What wonder is there, that different writers should estimate so very differently the weight of turnips which ought to be given for the purpose of sustaining the condition, or of increasing the weight, of the several varieties of stock? Other roots exhibit similar differences; and even the potatoe, while it sometimes contains thirty tons of food in every hundred of raw roots, at others, contains no more than twenty--the same weight, namely, which exists at times in the turnip. [4]

[Footnote 4: For our authority on this subject, we refer to Johnston's _Suggestion for Experiments in Practical Agriculture_, No. 111. pp. 62 and 64, of which we have been favoured with an early copy by the author.]

This latter fact, shows the very slippery ground on which the assertion rests, that has lately astonished the weak minds of our Southern cattle-feeding brethren, from the mouth of one of their talented but hasty lecturers--that the potatoe contains two or three times the weight of nourishment which exists in the turnip. It is true that _some_ varieties of potatoes contain three times as much as _some_ varieties of turnip--but, on the other hand, some turnips contain as much nourishment as an equal weight of potatoes. But no man can tell, by bare inspection, as yet, to which class of turnips, the more or less watery, his own may belong--whether that which is apparently the most prolific may not in reality be the least so--whether that mode of manuring his land which gives him the greatest weight of raw roots may not give him the smallest weight of real substantial food for his stock. What a wide field, therefore, for experiment? To what useful results might they not be expected to lead? If any of our readers wish to undertake such experiments, or to learn how they are to be performed, we refer them to the pamphlet mentioned in the note.

In connexion with the chapter "on the feeding of sheep," we could have wished to advert to the advantages of shelter, in producing the largest weight of meat from a given weight of turnips, or other food--as illustrated by the experiments of Mr. Childers, Lord Western, and others; but we must refer our readers to the passage itself, (vol. ii. p. 51,) as we must also to the no less important comparative view of the advantages of feeding cattle in close byres and in open hammels, (vol. ii. p. 129,) and to the interesting details regarding the use of raw and steamed food, contained in the chapter upon the feeding of cattle, (vol. ii. p. 120 to 148.)

But our author is so cunning in the qualities of mutton--which, as we have already seen, he can "kill so gently," performing the operation without pain--that we think our readers will enjoy the following passage:--

"The gigot is the handsomest and most valuable part of the carcass, and on that account fetches the highest price. It is either a roasting or a boiling piece. Of black-faced mutton it makes a fine roast, and the piece of fat in it called the _pope's eye_, is considered a delicate _morceau_ by epicures. A gigot of Leicester, Cheviot, or Southdown mutton makes a beautiful 'boiled leg of mutton,' which is prized the more the fatter it is, as this part of the carcass is never overloaded with fat. The loin is almost always roasted, the flap of the flank being skewered up, and it is a juicy piece. For a small family, the black-faced mutton is preferable; for a large, the Southdown and Cheviot. Many consider this piece of Leicester mutton roasted as too rich, and when warm, this is probably the case; but a cold roast loin is an excellent summer dish. The back-ribs are divided into two, and used for very different purposes. The fore-part, the neck, is boiled and makes sweet barley-broth, and the meat, when well boiled, or rather the whole pottage simmered for a considerable time _beside_ the fire, eats tenderly. The back-ribs make an excellent roast; indeed, there is not a sweeter or more varied one in the carcass, having both ribs and shoulder. The shoulder-blade eats best cold, and the ribs warm. The ribs make excellent chops. The Leicester and Southdowns afford the best mutton-chops. The breast is mostly a roasting-piece, consisting of rib and shoulder, and is particularly good when cold. When the piece is large, as of Southdown or Cheviot, the gristly part of the ribs may be divided from the true ribs, and helped separately. The breast is an excellent piece in black-faced mutton, and suitable to small families, the shoulder being eaten cold, while the ribs and brisket are sweet and juicy when warm. This piece also boils well; or, when corned for eight days, and served with onion sauce, with mashed turnip in it, there are few more savoury dishes at a farmer's table. The shoulder is separated before being dressed, and makes an excellent roast for family use, and may be eaten warm or cold, or corned and dressed as the breast mentioned above. The shoulder is best from a large carcass of Southdown, Cheviot, or Leicester, the black-faced being too thin for the purpose; and it was probably because English mutton is usually large that the practice of removing it originated. The neckpiece is partly laid bare by the removal of the shoulder, the fore-part being fitted for boiling and making into broth, and the best end for roasting or broiling into chops. On this account this is a good family piece, and in such request among the tradesmen of London that they prefer it to any part of the hind-quarter."--(Vol. ii. p. 98.)

Nor is he less skilful in the humble food and cooking of the farm-labourer; indeed, he seems never satisfied until he fairly exhausts all the useful matter contained in every subject upon which he touches. He not only breeds, and feeds, and kills, and cooks, but he does the latter with such relish, that we have several times fancied that we could actually see him eating his own mutton, beef, and pork. And, whether he luxuriates over a roast of the back-ribs of mutton, "so sweet and so varied," or complains that "the hotel-keepers have a trick of seasoning brown-soup, or rather beef-tea, with a few joints of tail, and passing it off for genuine ox-tail soup,"--(vol. ii. p. 169,) or describes the "_famous fat brose_, for which Scotland has long been celebrated," as formed by skimming off the fat when boiling the hough, pouring it upon oatmeal, and seasoning with pepper and salt; or indulges in the humbler brose of the ploughman in his bothy, he evidently enjoys every thing set before him so much, that we are sure he must lay on the fat kindly. We should not wonder if he is himself already _nicked_; and we cannot more warmly testify our good wishes, than by expressing a hope, that, when he is fully _ripe_, the grim surgeon will operate upon him _without pain_, and kill him _gently_.

One of Mr. Stephens's humbler dishes is the following:--

"The only time Scotch farm-servants indulge in butcher-meat is when a sheep _falls_, as it is termed; that is, when it is killed before being affected with an unwholesome disease, and the mutton is sold at a reduced price. Shred down the suet small, removing any flesh or cellular membrane adhering to it; then mix amongst it intimately 1/2 oz. of salt and a tea-spoonful of pepper to every pound of suet; put the mixture into an earthen jar, and tie up tightly with bladder. One table spoonful of seasoned suet will, at any time, make good barley-broth or potato-soup for two persons. The lean of the mutton may be shred down small, and seasoned in a similar manner, and used when required; or it may be corned with salt, and used as a joint." --Vol. ii. p. 105.

How much of the natural habits and manners of a country, and of the circumstances and inner life of the various classes of its inhabitants, is to be learned from a study of their cookery!

Reader, what a mystery hangs over the _handling_ of a fat beast! A feeder approaches a well filled short-horn--he touches it here--he pinches it there--he declares it to have many good _points_ about it; but pronounces the existence of defects, where the uninitiated see only beauties. The points of a fat ox, how mysterious they are, how difficult to make out! The five points of Arminianism, our old vicar used to say, were nothing to them. But here, too, Mr. Stephens is at home. Listen to his simple explanation of the whole:

"The first point usually _handled_ is the end of the rump at the tail-head, although any fat here is very obvious, and sometimes attains to an enormous size, amounting even to deformity. The hook-bone gets a touch, and when well covered, is right.... To the hand, or rather to the points of the fingers of the right hand, when laid upon the ribs, the flesh should feel soft and thick and the form be round when all is right, but if the ribs are flat the flesh will feel hard and thin from want of fat. The skin, too, on a rounded rib, will feel soft and mobile, the hair deep and mossy, both indicative of a kindly disposition to lay on flesh. The hand then grasps the flank, and finds it thick, when the existence of internal tallow is indicated.... The palm of the hand laid along the line of the back will point out any objectionable hard piece on it, but if all is soft and pleasant, then the shoulder-top is good. A hollowness behind the shoulder is a very common occurrence; but when it is filled up with a layer of fat, the flesh of all the fore-quarter is thereby rendered very much more valuable. You would scarcely believe that such a difference could exist in the flesh between a lean and a fat shoulder. A high narrow shoulder is frequently attended with a ridged back-bone, and lowset narrow hooks, a form which gets the appropriate name of _razor-back_, with which will always be found a deficiency of flesh in all the upper part of the animal, where the best flesh always is. If the shoulder-point is covered, and feels soft like the point of the hook-bone, it is good, and indicates a well filled neck-vein, which runs from that point to the side of the head. The shoulder-point, however, is often bare and prominent. When the neck-vein is so firmly filled up as not to permit the points of the fingers inside of the shoulder-point, this indicates a well tallowed animal; as also does the filling up between the brisket and inside of the fore legs, as well as a full, projecting, well covered brisket in front. When the flesh comes down heavy upon the thighs, making a sort of double thigh, it is called _lyary_, and indicates a tendency of the flesh to grow on the lower instead of the upper part of the body. These are all the _points_ that require _touching when the hand is used_; and in a high-conditioned ox, they may be gone over very rapidly."--Vol. ii. p. 165.

The treatment of horses follows that of cattle, and this chapter is fitted to be of extensive use among our practical farmers. There are few subjects to which the attention of our small farmers requires more to be drawn than to the treatment of their horses--few in which want of skill causes a more general and _constant_ waste. The economy of _prepared_ food is ably treated of, and we select the following passage as containing at once sound theoretical and important practical truths:

"It appears at first sight somewhat surprising that the idea of preparing food for farm-horses should only have been recently acted on; but I have no doubt that the practice of the turf and of the road, of maintaining horses on large quantities of oats and dry ryegrass hay, has had a powerful influence in retaining it on farms. But now that a more natural treatment has been adopted by the owners of horses on fast work, farmers, having now the example of post-horses standing their work well on prepared food, should easily be persuaded that, on slow work, the same sort of food should have even a more salutary effect on their horses. How prevalent was the notion, at one time, that horses could not be expected to do work at all, unless there was _hard meat_ in them! 'This is a very silly and erroneous idea, if we inquire into it,' as Professor Dick truly observes, 'for whatever may be the consistency of the food when taken into the stomach, it must, before the body can possibly derive any substantial support or benefit from it, be converted into _chyme_--a pultacious mass; and this, as it passes onward from the stomach into the intestinal canal, is rendered still more fluid by the admixture of the secretions from the stomach, the liver, and the pancreas, when it becomes of a milky appearance, and is called _chyle_. It is then taken into the system by the lacteals, and in this _fluid_, this _soft_ state--_and in this state only_--mixes with the blood, and passes through the circulating vessels for the nourishment of the system.' Actuated by these rational principles, Mr. John Croall, a large coach-proprietor in Edinburgh, now supports his coach horses on 8 lb. of chopped hay and 16 lb. of bruised oats; so does Mr. Isaac Scott, a postmaster, who gives 10 lb. or 12 lb. of chopped hay and 16 lb. of bruised oats, to large horses: and to carry the principle still further into practice, Captain Cheyne found his post-horses work well on the following mixture, the proportions of which are given for each horse every day; and this constitutes the second of the formulæ alluded to above."

In the day,
8 lb. of bruised oats.
3 lb. of bruised beans.
4 lb. of chopped straw.
------
15 lb.

At night
22 lb. of steamed potatoes.
1-1/2 lb. of fine barley dust.
2 lb. of chopped straw.
2 oz. of salt.
----------
25-1/2 lb.

"Estimating the barley-dust at 10d. per stone; chopped straw, 6d. per stone, potatoes, steamed, at 7s. 6d. per cwt.; and the oats and beans at ordinary prices, the cost of supper was 6d., and for daily food, 1s. with cooking, in all 1s. 6d. a horse each day."--Vol. ii. p. 194.

The reader will also peruse with interest the following paragraph, illustrative at once of the habits of the horse, and of our author's familiarity with the race:--

"The horse is an intelligent animal, and seems to delight in the society of man. It is remarked by those who have much to do with blood-horses, that, when at liberty, and seeing two or more people standing conversing together, they will approach, and seem, as it were, to wish to listen to the conversation. The farm-horse will not do this; but he is quite obedient to call, and distinguishes his name readily from that of his companion, and will not stir when desired to stand until _his own name_ is pronounced. He distinguishes the various sorts of work he is put to, and will apply his strength and skill in the best way to effect his purpose, whether in the thrashing-mill, the cart, or the plough. He soon acquires a perfect sense of his work. I have seen a horse walk very steadily towards a feering pole, and halt when his head had reached it. He seems also to have a sense of time. I have heard another neigh almost daily about ten minutes before the time of loosening in the evening, whether in summer or winter. He is capable of distinguishing the tones of the voice, whether spoken in anger or otherwise; and can even distinguish between musical notes. There was a work-horse of my own, when even at his corn, would desist eating, and listen attentively, with pricked and moving ears and steady eyes, the instant he heard the note of low G sounded, and would continue to listen as long as it was sustained; and another, that was similarly affected by a particular high note. The recognition of the sound of the bugle by a trooper, and the excitement occasioned in the hunter when the pack give tongue, are familiar instances of the extraordinary effects of particular sounds on horses."--Vol. ii. p. 216.

We recollect in our younger days, when we used to drive home from Penrith market, our friend would say, "come, let us give the horse a song--he will go home so briskly with us." And it really was so, or seemed so at least, be the principle what it may.

Pigs and poultry succeed to cattle and horses, and the author is equally at home in regard to the management of these as of the more valued varieties of stock--as learned in their various breeds, and as skilful in the methods of fattening, killing, and cutting up. How much truth is contained in the following remarks, and how easily and usefully might the evil be amended:--

"Of all the animals reared on a farm, there are none so much neglected by the farmer, both in regard to the selection of their kind, and their qualifications to fatten, as all the sorts of domesticated fowls found in the farm-yard. Indeed, the very supposition that _he_ would devote any of _his_ time to the consideration of poultry, is regarded as a positive affront on his manhood. Women, in his estimation, may be fit enough for such a charge, and doubtless they would do it well, provided they were not begrudged every particle of food bestowed upon those useful creatures. The consequence is what might be expected in the circumstances, that go to most farm-steads, and the surprise will be to meet a single fowl of any description in _good_ condition, that is to say, in such condition that it may be killed at the instant in a fit state for the table, which it might be if it had been treated as a fattening animal from its birth."--Vol. ii. p. 246.

The methods of fattening them are afterwards described; and for a mode _of securing a new-laid egg to breakfast every winter morning_, a luxury which our author "enjoyed for as many years as he lived in the country," we refer the reader to page 256 of the second volume.

Besides the feeding of stock, one other in-door labour demands the attention of the farmer, when the severity of winter weather has put a stop to the ploughing and the draining of his land. His grain crops are to be thrashed out, and sent to the market or the mill. In this part of his work Mr. Stephens has again availed himself of the valuable assistance of Mr. Slight, who, in upwards of 100 pages of closely printed matter, has figured and described nearly all the more useful instruments employed in the preparation of the food of cattle, and in separating the grain of the corn crops. The thrashing machine, so valuable an addition to the working establishment of a modern farm-steading, is minutely explained--the varieties in its construction illustrated by wood-cuts--and the respective merits of the different forms of the machine examined and discussed. With the following, among his other conclusions, we cordially concur.

"I cannot view these two machines without feeling impressed with a conviction that both countries would soon feel the advantage of an amalgamation between the two forms of the machine. The drum of the Scotch thrashing-machine would most certainly be improved by a transfusion from the principles of the English machine; and the latter might be equally improved by the adoption of the manufacturing-like arrangements and general economy of the Scotch system of thrashing. That such interchange will ere long take place, I am thoroughly convinced; and as I am alike satisfied that the advantages would be mutual, it is to be hoped that these views will not stand alone. It has not been lost sight of, that each machine may be said to be suited to the system to which it belongs, and that here, where the corn is cut by the sickle, the machine is adapted to that; while the same may be said of the other, where cutting by the scythe is so much practised. Notwithstanding all this, there appears to be good properties in both that either seems to stand in need of." --Vol. ii. p. 329.

Other scientific, especially chemical information, connected with the different varieties of grain, and the kind and quantity of food they respectively yield, is incorporated in the chapters upon "wheat, flour, and oat and bean meal," to which we can only advert, as further illustrations of the intimate manner in which science and skilful or enlightened practice are invariably, necessarily, and every where interwoven.

* * * * *

And now the dreary months of winter are ended--and the labours of the farmer take a new direction.

"Salvitur acris hiems gratâ vice veris et Favoni,"

* * * * *

"Ac neque jam stabulis gaudet pecus, aut arator igni."

But we cannot follow Mr. Stephens through the cheerful labours of the coming year. Our task is so far ended, and from the way in which the whole of the long weeks of winter are described, the reader must judge of Mr. Stephens's ability to lead him safely and surely through the rest of the year.

A closing observation or two, however, we beg to offer. We look upon a good book on agriculture as something more than a lucky speculation for the publisher, or a profitable occupation of his time for the author. _It is a gain to the community at large,--a new instrument of national wealth_. The first honour or praise in reference to every such instrument, is, no doubt, due to the maker or inventor--but he who brings is into general use, merits also no little approbation. Such is our case with respect to the book before us. We shall be glad to learn that our analysis of it contributes to a wider circulation among the practical farmers of the empire, of the manifold information which the book contains, not so much for the sake of the author, as with a view to the common good of the country at large. It is to the more general diffusion of sound agricultural literature among our farmers, that we look for that more rapid development of the resources of our varied soils which the times so imperatively demand. To gain this end no legitimate means ought to be passed by, and we have detained our readers so long upon the book before us, in the hope that they may be induced to lend us _their_ aid also in attaining so desirable an object.

We do not consider _The Book of the Farm_ a perfect work: the author indulges now and then in loose and careless writing; and this incorrectness has more frequently struck us in the later portions of the work, no doubt from the greater haste of composition. He sets out by slighting the aids of science to agriculture; and yet, in an early part of his book, tells the young farmer that he "must become acquainted with the agency of _electricity_ before he can understand the variations of the weather," and ends by making his book, as we have said, a running commentary upon the truth we have already several times repeated, that SKILFUL PRACTICE IS APPLIED SCIENCE.

These, and no doubt other faults the book has--as what book is without them?--but as a practical manual for those who wish to be good farmers, it is the best book we know. It contains more of the practical applications of modern science, and adverts to more of those interesting questions from which past improvements have sprung, and from the discussion of which future ameliorations are likely to flow, than any other of the newer works which have come under our eye. Where so many excellences exist, we are not ill-natured enough to magnify a few defects.

The excellence of Scottish agriculture may be said by some to give rise to the excellent agricultural books which Scotland, time after time, has produced. But it may with equal truth be said, that the existence of good books, and their diffusion among a reading population, are the sources of the agricultural distinction possessed by the northern parts of the island. It is beyond our power, as individuals, to convert the entire agricultural population of our islands into a reading body, but we can avail ourselves of the tendency wherever it exists; and by writing, or diffusing, or aiding to diffuse, good books, we can supply ready instruction to such as _now_ wish for it, and can put it in the way of those in whom other men, by other means, are labouring to awaken the dormant desire for knowledge. Reader, do _you_ wish to improve agriculture? --then buy you a good book, and place it in the hands of your tenant or your neighbouring farmer; if he be a reading man, he will thank you, and his children may live to bless you; if he be not a reader, you may have the gratification of wakening a dormant spirit; and though you may appear to be casting your bread upon the waters, yet you shall find it again after many days.

* * * * *

POEMS AND BALLADS OF SCHILLER.

No. VII.

(The two following poems, "The Ideal," and, "The Ideal and Life," are essentially distinct in their mode of treatment. The first is simple and tender, and expresses feelings in which all can sympathize. As a recent and able critic, in the Foreign Quarterly Review, has observed, this poem, "still little known, contains a regret for the period of youthful faith," and may take its place among the most charming and pathetic of all those numberless effusions of genius in which individual feeling is but the echo of the universal heart. But the poem on "The Ideal and Life" is highly mystical and obscure;-- "it is a specimen," says the critic we have just quoted, "of those poems which were the immediate results of Schiller's metaphysical studies. Here the subject is purely supersensual, and does not descend to the earth at all. The very tendency of the poem is to recommend a life not in the actual world, but in the world of appearances [5]--that is, in the aesthetical world."

It requires considerable concentration of mind to follow its meaning through the cloud of its dark and gigantic images. Schiller desired his friend Humboldt to read it in perfect stillness, 'and put away from him all that was profane.' Humboldt, of course, admired it prodigiously; and it is unquestionably full of thought expressed with the power of the highest genius. But, on the other hand, its philosophy, even for a Poet or Idealist, is more than disputable, and it incurs the very worst fault which a Poet can commit, viz. obscurity of idea as well as expression. When the Poet sets himself up for the teacher, he must not forget that the teacher's duty is to be clear; and the higher the mystery he would expound, the more pains he should bestow on the simplicity of the elucidation. For the true Poet does not address philosophical coteries, but an eternal and universal public. Happily this fault is rare in Schiller, and more happily still, his great mind did not long remain a groper amidst the 'Realm of Shadow.' The true Ideal is quite as liable to be lost amidst the maze of metaphysics, as in the actual thoroughfares of work-day life. A plunge into Kant may do more harm to a Poet than a walk through Fleet Street. Goethe, than whom no man had ever more studied the elements of the diviner art, was right as an artist in his dislike to the over-cultivation of the aesthetical. The domain of the Ideal is the heart, and through the heart it operates on the soul. It grows feebler and dimmer in proportion as it seeks to rise above human emotion.... Longinus does not err, when he asserts that Passion (often erroneously translated Pathos) is the best part of the Sublime.)

[Footnote 5: Rather, according to Aesthetical Philosophy, is the _actual_ world to be called the _world of appearances_, and the Ideal the world of substance.]

TO THE IDEAL.

Then wilt thou, with thy fancies holy--
Wilt thou, faithless, fly from me?
With thy joy, thy melancholy,
Wilt thou thus relentless flee?
O Golden Time, O Human May,
Can nothing, Fleet One, thee restrain?
Must thy sweet river glide away
Into the eternal Ocean-Main?

The suns serene are lost and vanish'd
That wont the path of youth to gild,
And all the fair Ideals banish'd
From that wild heart they whilome fill'd.
Gone the divine and sweet believing
In dreams which Heaven itself unfurl'd!
What godlike shapes have years bereaving
Swept from this real work-day world!

As once, with tearful passion fired,
The Cyprian Sculptor clasp'd the stone,
Till the cold cheeks, delight-inspired,
Blush'd--to sweet life the marble grown;
So Youth's desire for Nature!--round
The Statue, so my arms I wreathed,
Till warmth and life in mine it found
And breath that poets breathe--it breathed.

With my own burning thoughts it burn'd;--
Its silence stirr'd to speech divine;--
Its lips my glowing kiss return'd;--
Its heart in beating answer'd mine!
How fair was then the flower--the tree!--
How silver-sweet the fountain's fall!
The soulless had a soul to me!
My life its own life lent to all!

The Universe of Things seem'd swelling
The panting heart to burst its bound,
And wandering Fancy found a dwelling
In every shape--thought--deed, and sound.
Germ'd in the mystic buds, reposing,
A whole creation slumber'd mute,
Alas, when from the buds unclosing,
How scant and blighted sprung the fruit!

How happy in his dreaming error,
His own gay valour for his wing,
Of not one care as yet in terror,
Did Youth upon his journey spring;
Till floods of balm, through air's dominion,
Bore upward to the faintest star--
For never aught to that bright pinion
Could dwell too high, or spread too far.

Though laden with delight, how lightly
The wanderer heavenward still could soar,
And aye the ways of life how brightly
The airy Pageant danced before!--
Love, showering gifts (life's sweetest) down,
Fortune, with golden garlands gay,
And Fame, with starbeams for a crown,
And Truth, whose dwelling is the Day.

Ah! midway soon, lost evermore,
Afar the blithe companions stray;
In vain their faithless steps explore,
As, one by one, they glide away.
Fleet Fortune was the first escaper--
The thirst for wisdom linger'd yet;
But doubts with many a gloomy vapour
The sun-shape of the Truth beset!

The holy crown which Fame was wreathing,
Behold! the mean man's temples wore!
And but for one short spring-day breathing,
Bloom'd Love--the Beautiful--no more!
And ever stiller yet, and ever
The barren path more lonely lay,
Till waning Hope could scarcely quiver
Along the darkly widening way.

Who, loving, linger'd yet to guide me,
When all her boon companions fled?
Who stands consoling still beside me,
And follows to the House of Dread?
_Thine_, Friendship! _thine_, the hand so tender--
Thine the balm dropping on the wound--
Thy task--the load more light to render,
O, earliest sought and soonest found!

And _thou_, so pleased with her uniting
To charm the soul-storm into peace,
Sweet _Toil_![6] in toil itself delighting,
That more it labor'd, less could cease:
Though but by grains, thou aid'st the pile
The vast Eternity uprears--
At least thou strik'st from Time, the while,
Life's debt--the minutes, days, and years![7]

[Footnote 6: That is to say--the Poet's occupation--The Ideal.]

[Footnote 7: Though the Ideal images of youth forsake us--the Ideal still remains to the Poet.--Nay, it is his task and his companion; unlike the worldly fantasies of fortune--fame, and love--the fantasies the Ideal creates are imperishable. While, as the occupation of his life, it pays off the debt of time; as the exalter of life, it contributes to the building of eternity.]

* * * * *

THE IDEAL AND THE ACTUAL LIFE.

The _first title_ of this Poem was "The Realm of Shadow." Perhaps in the whole range of German poetry there exists no poem which presents greater difficulties to the English translator. The chief object of the present inadequate version has been to render the sense intelligible as well as the words. The attempt stands in need of all the indulgence which the German scholar will readily allow that a much abler translator might reasonably require.

1

For ever fair, for ever calm and bright,
Life flies on plumage, zephyr-light,
For those who on the Olympian hill rejoice--
Moons wane, and races wither to the tomb,
And 'mid the universal ruin, bloom
The rosy days of Gods--
With Man, the choice,
Timid and anxious, hesitates between
The sense's pleasure and the soul's content;
While on celestial brows, aloft and sheen,
The beams of both are blent.

2

Seek'st thou on earth the life of Gods to share,
Safe in the Realm of Death?--beware
To pluck the fruits that glitter to thine eye;
Content thyself with gazing on their glow--
Short are the joys Possession can bestow,
And in Possession sweet Desire will die.
'Twas not the ninefold chain of waves that bound
Thy daughter, Ceres, to the Stygian river--
She pluck'd the fruit of the unholy ground,
And so--was Hell's for ever!

3

The weavers of the web--the Fates--but sway
The matter and the things of clay;
Safe from each change that Time to matter gives,
Nature's blest playmate, free at will to stray
With Gods a god, amidst the fields of Day,
The FORM, the ARCHETYPE,[8] serenely lives.
Would'st thou soar heavenward on its joyous wing?
Cast from thee, Earth, the bitter and the real,
High from this cramp'd and dungeon being, spring
Into the Realm of the Ideal!

[Footnote 8: "Die Gestalt"--Form, the Platonic Archetype.]

4

Here, bathed, Perfection, in thy purest ray,
Free from the clogs and taints of clay,
Hovers divine the Archetypal Man!
Like those dim phantom ghosts of life that gleam
And wander voiceless by the Stygian stream,
While yet they stand in fields Elysian,
Ere to the flesh the Immortal ones descend--
If doubtful ever in the Actual life,
Each contest--here a victory crowns the end
Of every nobler strife.

5

Not from the strife itself to set thee free,
But more to nerve--doth Victory
Wave her rich garland from the Ideal clime.
Whate'er thy wish, the Earth has no repose--
Life still must drag thee onward as it flows,
Whirling thee down the dancing surge of Time.
But when the courage sinks beneath the dull
Sense of its narrow limits--on the soul,
Bright from the hill-tops of the Beautiful,
Bursts the attainèd goal!

6

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 Valour 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 valour o'er his tribe prevails;
In life the victory only crowns the strong--
He who is feeble fails.

7

But as some stream, when from its source it gushes,
O'er rocks in storm and tumult rushes,
And smooths its after course to bright repose,
So, through the Shadow-Land of Beauty glides
The Life Ideal--on sweet silver tides
Glassing the day and night star as it flows--
Here, contest is the interchange of Love,
Here, rule is but the empire of the Grace;
Gone every foe, Peace folds her wings above
The holy, haunted place.

8

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 statute only to the chisel's stroke
Wakes from its marble cell.

9

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 labour 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!

10

If human Sin confronts the rigid law
Of perfect Truth and Virtue,[9] 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!

11

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!

12

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.

13

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
Of the spent thunder-cloud, to Art is given,
Gleaming through Grief's dark veil, the peaceful blue
Of the sweet Moral Heaven.

[Footnote 9: The Law, i.e. the Kantian ideal of Truth and Virtue. This stanza and the next embody, perhaps with some exaggeration, the Kantian doctrine of morality.]

14

So, in the glorious parable, behold
How, bow'd to mortal bonds, of old
Life's dreary path divine Alcides trode:
The hydra and the lion were his prey,
And to restore the friend he loved to day,
He went undaunted to the black-brow'd God;
And all the torments and the labours sore
Wroth Juno sent--meek majestic One,
With patient spirit and unquailing, bore,
Until the course was run--

15

Until the God cast down his garb of clay,
And rent in hallowing flame away
The mortal part from the divine--to soar
To the empyreal air! Behold him spring
Blithe in the pride of the unwonted wing,
And the dull matter that confined before
Sinks downward, downward, downward as a dream!
Olympian hymns receive the escaping soul,
And smiling Hebe, from the ambrosial stream,
Fills for a God the bowl!

* * * * *

THE FAVOUR OF THE MOMENT.

And so we find ourselves once more
A ring, though varying yet serene,
The wreaths of song we wove of yore
Again we'll weave as fresh and green.
But who the God to whom we bring
The earliest tribute song can treasure?
Him, first of all the Gods, we sing
Whose blessing to ourselves is--pleasure!
For boots it on the votive shrine
That Ceres life itself bestows
Or liberal Bacchus gives the wine
That through the glass in purple glows--
If still there come not from the heaven
The spark that sets the hearth on flame;
If to the soul no fire is given,
And the sad heart remain the same?
Sudden as from the clouds must fall,
As from the lap of God, our bliss--
And still the mightiest lord of all,
Monarch of Time, the MOMENT is!
Since endless Nature first began
Whate'er of might the mind hath wrought--
Whate'er of Godlike comes from Man
Springs from one lightning-flash of thought!
For years the marble block awaits
The breath of life, beneath the soil--
A happy thought the work creates,
A moment's glance rewards the toil.
As suns that weave from out their blaze
The various colours round them given;
As Iris, on her arch of rays,
Hovers, and vanishes from heaven;
So fair, so fleeting every prize--
A lightning flash that shines and fades--
The Moment's brightness gilds the skies
And round the brightness close the shades.

EXPECTATION AND FULFILMENT.

O'er ocean with a thousand masts sails on the young man bold--
One boat, hard-rescued from the deep, draws into port the old!

* * * * *

TO THE PROSELYTE--MAKER.

"A little Earth from out the Earth, and I
The Earth will move"--so said the sage divine;
Out of myself one little moment try
Myself to take;--succeed, and I am thine.

* * * * *

VALUE AND WORTH.

If thou _hast_ something, bring thy goods, a fair return be
thine!--
If thou _art_ something--bring thy soul, and interchange with mine.

* * * * *

THE FORTUNE-FAVOURED. [10]

[Footnote 10: The first verses in the original of this poem are placed as a motto on Goethe's statue at Weimar.]

Ah! happy He, upon whose birth each god
Looks down in love, whose earliest sleep the bright
Idalia cradles, whose young lips the rod
Of eloquent Hermes kindles--to whose eyes,
Scarce waken'd yet, Apollo steals in light,
While on imperial brows Jove sets the seal of might.
Godlike the lot ordain'd for him to share,
He wins the garland ere be runs the race;
He learns life's wisdom ere he knows life's care,
And, without labour vanquish'd, smiles the Grace.
Great is the man, I grant, whose strength of mind,
Self-shapes its objects and subdues the Fates--
Virtue subdues the Fates, but cannot bind
The fickle Happiness, whose smile awaits
Those who scarce seek it; nor can courage earn
What the Grace showers not from her own free urn!

From aught _unworthy_, the determined will
Can guard the watchful spirit--there it ends.
The all that's _glorious_ from the heaven descends;
As some sweet mistress loves us, freely still
Come the spontaneous gifts of heaven!--Above
Favour rules Jove, as it below rules Love!
The Immortals have their bias!--Kindly they
See the bright locks of youth enamour'd play,
And where the glad one goes, shed gladness round the way.
It is not they who boast the best to see,
Whose eyes the holy apparitions bless;
The stately light of their divinity
Hath oft but shone the brightest on the blind;--
And their choice spirit found its calm recess
In the pure childhood of a simple mind.
Unask'd they come--delighted to delude
The expectation of our baffled Pride;
No law can call their free steps to our side.
Him whom He loves, the Sire of men and gods,
(Selected from the marvelling multitude,)
Bears on his eagle to his bright abodes;
And showers, with partial hand and lavish, down
The minstrel's laurel or the monarch's crown.

Before the fortune-favour'd son of earth,
Apollo walks--and, with his jocund mirth,
The heart-enthralling Smiler of the skies.
For him grey Neptune smooths the pliant wave--
Harmless the waters for the ship that bore
The Caesar and his fortunes to the shore!
Charm'd, at his feet the crouching lion lies,
To him his back the murmuring dolphin gave;
His soul is born a sovereign o'er the strife--
The lord of all the Beautful of Life;
Where'er his presence in its calm has trod,
It charms--it sways as some diviner god.

Scorn not the Fortune-favour'd, that to him
The light-won victory by the gods is given,
Or that, as Paris, from the strife severe,
The Venus draws her darling,--Whom the heaven
So prospers, love so watches, I revere!
And not the man upon whose eyes, with dim
And baleful night, sits Fate. The Dorian lord,
August Achilles, was not less divine
That Vulcan wrought for him the shield and sword--
That round the mortal hover'd all the hosts
Of all Olympus--that his wrath to grace,
The best and bravest of the Grecian race
Fell by the Trojan steel, what time the ghosts
Of souls untimely slain fled to the Stygian coasts.

Scorn not the Beautiful--if it be fair,
And yet seem useless in thy human sight.
As scentless lilies in the loving air,
Be _they_ delighted--_thou_ in them delight.
If without use they shine, yet still the glow
May thine own eyes enamour. Oh rejoice
That heaven the gifts of Song showers down below--
That what the muse hath taught him, the sweet voice
Of the glad minstrel teaches thee!--the soul
Which the god breathes in him, he can bestow
In turn upon the listener--if his breast
The blessing feel, thy heart is in that blessing blest.

The busy mart let Justice still control,
Weighing the guerdon to the toil!--What then?
A god alone claims joy--all joy is his,
Flushing with unsought light the cheeks of men.
Where is no miracle, why there no bliss!
Grow, change, and ripen all that mortal be,
Shapen'd from form to form, by toiling time;
The Blissful and the Beautiful are born
Full grown, and ripen'd from Eternity--
No gradual changes to their glorious prime,
No childhood dwarfs them, and no age has worn.--
Like Heaven's, each earthly Venus on the sight
Comes, a dark birth, from out an endless sea;
Like the first Pallas, in maturest might,
Arm'd, from the Thunderer's brow, leaps forth each Thought of Light.

* * * * *

We have now, with few exceptions, translated all the principal poems comprised in the third, or maturest period of Schiller's life. We here pass back to the poems of his youth. The contrast in tone, thought, and spirit, between the compositions of the first and the third period, in the great poet's intellectual career, is sufficiently striking. In the former, there is little of that majestic repose of strength so visible in the latter; but there is infinitely more fire and action--more of that lavish and exuberant energy which characterized the earlier tales of Lord Byron, and redeemed, in that wonderful master of animated and nervous style, a certain poverty of conception by a vigour and _gusto_ of execution, which no English poet, perhaps, has ever surpassed. In his poems lies the life, and beats the heart, of Schiller. They conduct us through the various stages of his spiritual education, and indicate each step in the progress. In this division, _effort_ is no less discernible than power--both in language and thought there is a struggle at something not yet achieved, and not, perhaps, even yet definite and distinct to the poet himself. Here may be traced, though softened by the charm of genius, (which softens all things,) the splendid errors that belong to a passionate youth, and that give such distorted grandeur to the giant melodrama of "The Robbers." But here are to be traced also, and in far clearer characters, the man's strong heart, essentially human in its sympathies--the thoughtful and earnest intellect, not yet equally developed with the fancy, but giving ample promise of all it was destined to receive. In these earlier poems, extravagance is sufficiently noticeable--yet never the sickly eccentricities of diseased weakness, but the exuberant overflowings of a young Titan's strength. There is a distinction, which our critics do not always notice, between the _extravagance_ of a great genius, and the _affectation_ of a pretty poet.

FIRST PERIOD

HECTOR AND ANCROMACHE. [11]

[Footnote 11: This and the following poem are, with some alterations, introduced in the play of "The Robbers."]

ANDROMACHE.

Will Hector leave me for the fatal plain,
Where, fierce with vengeance for Patroclus slain,
Stalks Peleus' ruthless son?
Who, when thou glidest amid the dark abodes,
To hurl the spear and to revere the Gods,
Shall teach shine Orphan One?

HECTOR.

Woman and wife belovèd--cease thy tears;
My soul is nerved--the war-clang in my ears!
Be mine in life to stand
Troy's bulwark, fighting for our hearths--to go,
In death, exulting to the streams below,
Slain for my fatherland!

ANDROMACHE.

No more I hear thy martial footsteps fall--
Thine arms shall hang, dull trophies, on the wall--
Fallen the stem of Troy!
Thou go'st where slow Cocytus wanders--where
Love sinks in Lethe, and the sunless air
Is dark to light and joy!

HECTOR.

Sinew and thought--yea, all I feel and think
May in the silent sloth of Lethe sink,
But my love not!
Hark, the wild swarm is at the walls!--I hear!
Gird on my sword--beloved one, dry the tear--
Lethe for love is not!

AMALIA.

Fair as an angel from his blessed hall--
Of every fairest youth the fairest he!
Heaven-mild his look, as maybeams when they fall,
Or shine reflected from a clear blue sea!
His kisses--feelings rife with paradise!
Ev'n as two flames, one on the other driven--
Ev'n as two harp-tones their melodious sighs
Blend in some music that seems born of heaven;
So rush'd, mix'd, melted--life with life united!
Lips, cheeks burn'd, trembled--soul to soul was won!
And earth and heaven seem'd chaos, as delighted
Earth--heaven were blent round the belovèd one!
Now, he is gone! vainly and wearily
Groans the full heart, the yearning sorrow flows--
Gone! and all zest of life, in one long sigh,
Goes with him where he goes.

* * * * *

TO LAURA.

THE MYSTERY OF REMINISCENCE. [12]

[Footnote 12: This most exquisite love-poem is founded on the Platonic notion, that souls were united in a pre-existent state, that love is the yearning of the spirit to reunite with the spirit with which it formerly made one--and which it discovers on earth. The idea has often been made subservient to poetry, but never with so earnest and elaborate a beauty.]