The Poems of Schiller — First period
bush peer the sunbeams all purple and bright, While they gleam through the clefts of the dark-waving trees, And the cloud-crested mountains are golden with light. With joyful, melodious, ravishing, strain, The lark, as he wakens, salutes the glad sun, Who glows in the arms of Aurora again, And blissfully smiling, his race 'gins to run. All hail, light of day! Thy sweet gushing ray Pours down its soft warmth over pasture and field; With hues silver-tinged The meadows are fringed, And numberless suns in the dewdrop revealed. Young Nature invades The whispering shades, Displaying each ravishing charm; The soft zephyr blows, And kisses the rose, The plain is sweet-scented with balm. How high from yon city the smoke-clouds ascend! Their neighing, and snorting, and bellowing blend The horses and cattle; The chariot-wheels rattle, As down to the valley they take their mad way; And even the forest where life seems to move, The eagle, and falcon, and hawk soar above, And flutter their pinions, in heaven's bright ray. In search of repose From my heart-rending woes, Oh, where shall my sad spirit flee? The earth's smiling face, With its sweet youthful grace, A tomb must, alas, be for me! Arise, then, thou sunlight of morning, and fling O'er plain and o'er forest thy purple-dyed beams! Thou twilight of evening, all noiselessly sing In melody soft to the world as it dreams! Ah, sunlight of morning, to me thou but flingest Thy purple-dyed beams o'er the grave of the past! Ah, twilight of evening, thy strains thou but singest To one whose deep slumbers forever must last! 

             TO MINNA. Do I dream? can I trust to my eye? My sight sure some vapor must cover? Or, there, did my Minna pass by—     My Minna—and knew not her lover? On the arm of the coxcomb she crossed, Well the fan might its zephyr bestow; Herself in her vanity lost, That wanton my Minna?—Ah, no! In the gifts of my love she was dressed, My plumes o'er her summer hat quiver; The ribbons that flaunt in her breast Might bid her—remember the giver! And still do they bloom on thy bosom, The flowerets I gathered for thee! Still as fresh is the leaf of each blossom,     'Tis the heart that has faded from me! Go and take, then, the incense they tender; Go, the one that adored thee forget! Go, thy charms to the feigner surrender, In my scorn is my comforter yet! Go, for thee with what trust and belief There beat not ignobly a heart That has strength yet to strive with the 
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