These last-named poems belong to a type which the Germans sometimes call the 'lyric of thought',--a name which is fairly appropriate to a goodly number of Schiller's shorter effusions. Other examples--to mention a few of the best--are 'Light and Warmth', 'Breadth and Depth' and 'Hope'. They might be called lyrics of culture, since they regard the perfection of the individual,--the equipoise of heart and head, steadfast seriousness as opposed to showy sciolism, the preservation of hope and faith,--as a noble object of emotion. They are not intellectual in the opprobrious sense of the word as applied to poetry; they are suffused with warm feeling and their language is simple and natural. On the other hand they _are_ argumentative: they state propositions and draw conclusions the value of which must in the end be gauged by the mind. For this reason one who has no sympathy with Schiller's idealism,--one who either never felt it or has lost it in the stress of life,--will not be touched by these poems, but will regard them as hollow. Yet they are no more hollow than the lyrics of Goethe or Heine or Shelley, though the illusion of sincerity is less perfect than in the work of these great lyrists. A pure lyric effusion, of the kind that seems to sing itself without help or let from the brooding philosopher, was not often attempted by Schiller. Perhaps his very best achievement in this sort is 'The Maiden's Lament', of which the first two stanzas, translated as closely as possible with reference to both substance and form, run as follows: The oak-wood moans, the clouds float o'er, The maiden sits by the green sea-shore. The waves are breaking with might, with might, And she breathes out a sigh in the gloom of the night, And her eyes are dim with weeping. 'My heart is dead, the world is naught, It brings nothing more to my longing thought, I have lived and loved,--earth's fortune was mine, Thou Holy One, take this child of thine, Take her back into thine own keeping.'[112] Such verses, and one might adduce further the admirable songs in 'William Tell', show that Schiller had in him, when he could find it and let it have its way, a lyric gift of a high order. As a rule, however, when he attempted to sing, the attempt resulted in a philosophic evaluation of the feelings expressed. Thus in his well-known 'Punch Song', he is mainly concerned with the ethical symbolism of the four elements,--the lemon-juice, the sugar, the water and the spirits. In other cases he suggests an allegorical symbolism, and leaves the reader puzzling over an intellectual query that may or may not be worth puzzling over. Examples are 'The Maiden from Afar', 'The Youth at the Brook', 'The Mountain Song'. He even wrote a number of professed poetic riddles,--which may be left without commentary to those who like that sort of poetry.