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.