The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 01, No. 04, February, 1858: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and PoliticsVarious
History
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 01, No. 04, February, 1858: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
Under a larger freedom, we should expect Credit to be organized on a
basis of MUTUAL RESPONSIBILITY AND GUARANTY, which would afford a stable
and beautiful support to the great systolic and disastolic movements
of trade; that it would reduce all paper emissions to their legitimate
character as mere mercantile tokens, and liberate humanity from the
fearful debaucheries of a factitious money; and that Commerce, which
has been compelled hitherto to sit in the markets of the world, like
a courtesan at the gaming-table, with hot eye and panting chest and
painted cheeks, would be regenerated and improved, until it should
become, what it was meant to be, a beneficent goddess, pouring out to
all the nations from her horns of plenty the grateful harvests of the
earth.
THE BUSTS OF GOETHE AND SCHILLER.
This is GOETHE, with a forehead
Like the fabled front of Jove;
In its massive lines the tokens
More of majesty than love.
This is SCHILLER, in whose features,
With their passionate calm regard,
We behold the true ideal
Of the high heroic Bard,
Whom the inward world of feeling
And the outward world of sense
To the endless labor summon,
And the endless recompense.
These are they, sublime and silent,
From whose living lips have rung
Words to be remembered ever
In the noble German tongue:
Thoughts whose inspiration, kindling
Into loftiest speech or song,
Still through all the listening ages
Pours its torrent swift and strong.
As to-day in sculptured marble
Side by side the Poets stand,
So they stood in life's great struggle,
Side by side and hand to hand,
In the ancient German city,
Dowered with many a deathless name,
Where they dwelt and toiled together,
Sharing each the other's fame:
One till evening's lengthening shadows
Gently stilled his faltering lips,
But the other's sun at noonday
Shrouded in a swift eclipse.
There their names are household treasures,
And the simplest child you meet
Guides you where the house of Goethe
Fronts upon the quiet street;
And, hard by, the modest mansion
Where full many a heart has felt
Memories uncounted clustering
Round the words, "Here Schiller dwelt."
In the churchyard both are buried,
Straight beyond the narrow gate,
In the mausoleum sleeping
With Duke Charles in sculptured state.
For the Monarch loved the Poets,
Called them to him from afar,
Wooed them near his court to linger,
And the planets sought the star.
He, his larger gifts of fortune
With their larger fame to blend,
Living, counted it an honor
That they named him as their friend;
Dreading to be all-forgotten,
Still their greatness to divide,
Dying, prayed to have his Poets
Buried one on either side.
But this suited not the gold-laced
Ushers of the royal tomb,
Where the princely House of Weimar
Slumbered in majestic gloom.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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