During the years 1795-1800 Schiller wrote a large number of short poems in which he gave expression to his matured philosophy of life. His best ballads also belong to this period. Pure song he did not often attempt, his philosophic bent predisposing him to what the Germans call the lyric of thought. Perhaps his invalidism had something to do with it; at any rate the total number of his singable lyrics, such as _The Maiden's Lament_, is but small. As a poet of reflection he is at his best in _The Ideal and Life, The Walk, The Eleusinian Festival_, and the more popular _Song of the Bell_. The first-named of these four, at first called _The Realm of Shades_, is a masterpiece of high thinking, charged with warm emotion and bodied forth in gorgeous imagery. Its doctrine is that only by taking refuge in the realm of the Ideal can we escape from the tyranny of the flesh, the bondage of Nature's law, the misery of struggle and defeat. Yet it is not a doctrine of quietism that is here preached, as if inner peace were the supreme thing in life, but rather one of hopeful endeavor. _The Walk_, one of the finest elegies in the German language, is a pensive retrospect of the origins of civilization, loving contemplation of Nature giving rise to reflections on man and his estate. _The Song of the Bell_, probably the best known of all Schiller's poems, gives expression to his feeling for the dignity of labor and for the poetry of man's social life. Perhaps we may say that the heart of his message is found in this stanza of _The Words of Illusion_: And so, noble soul, forget not the law, And to the true faith be leal; What ear never heard and eye never saw, The Beautiful, the True, they are real. Look not without, as the fool may do; It is in thee and ever created anew.