The Ideal And The Actual Life Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: AABCCBDEDE FFGHHGEIEIJJKJJKLMLM JJNOONEPEP QQORROSTST PPOUUOVWVW EEEJJEXYXY EEREERZA2ZA2 HHTB2B2TENEN C2D2UEEUTETE E2F2G2NNG2EH2EH2 PPNI2I2NEGEQ UUNRRNENEN EEEJJEJ2NJ2N JJJ2LLJ2OTOT

Forever fair forever calm and brightA
Life flies on plumage zephyr lightA
For those who on the Olympian hill rejoiceB
Moons wane and races wither to the tombC
And 'mid the universal ruin bloomC
The rosy days of Gods With man the choiceB
Timid and anxious hesitates betweenD
The sense's pleasure and the soul's contentE
While on celestial brows aloft and sheenD
The beams of both are blentE
-
Seekest thou on earth the life of gods to shareF
Safe in the realm of death bewareF
To pluck the fruits that glitter to thine eyeG
Content thyself with gazing on their glowH
Short are the joys possession can bestowH
And in possession sweet desire will dieG
'Twas not the ninefold chain of waves that boundE
Thy daughter Ceres to the Stygian riverI
She plucked the fruit of the unholy groundE
And so was hell's foreverI
The weavers of the web the fates but swayJ
The matter and the things of clayJ
Safe from change that time to matter givesK
Nature's blest playmate free at will to strayJ
With gods a god amidst the fields of dayJ
The form the archetype serenely livesK
Would'st thou soar heavenward on its joyous wingL
Cast from thee earth the bitter and the realM
High from this cramped and dungeon being springL
Into the realm of the idealM
-
Here bathed perfection in thy purest rayJ
Free from the clogs and taints of clayJ
Hovers divine the archetypal manN
Dim as those phantom ghosts of life that gleamO
And wander voiceless by the Stygian streamO
Fair as it stands in fields ElysianN
Ere down to flesh the immortal doth descendE
If doubtful ever in the actual lifeP
Each contest here a victory crowns the endE
Of every nobler strifeP
-
Not from the strife itself to set thee freeQ
But more to nerve doth victoryQ
Wave her rich garland from the ideal climeO
Whate'er thy wish the earth has no reposeR
Life still must drag thee onward as it flowsR
Whirling thee down the dancing surge of timeO
But when the courage sinks beneath the dullS
Sense of its narrow limits on the soulT
Bright from the hill tops of the beautifulS
Bursts the attained goalT
-
If worth thy while the glory and the strifeP
Which fire the lists of actual lifeP
The ardent rush to fortune or to fameO
In the hot field where strength and valor areU
And rolls the whirling thunder of the carU
And the world breathless eyes the glorious gameO
Then dare and strive the prize can but belongV
To him whose valor o'er his tribe prevailsW
In life the victory only crowns the strongV
He who is feeble failsW
-
But life whose source by crags around it piledE
Chafed while confined foams fierce and wildE
Glides soft and smooth when once its streams expandE
When its waves glassing in their silver playJ
Aurora blent with Hesper's milder rayJ
Gain the still beautiful that shadow landE
Here contest grows but interchange of loveX
All curb is but the bondage of the graceY
Gone is each foe peace folds her wings aboveX
Her native dwelling placeY
-
When through dead stone to breathe a soul of lightE
With the dull matter to uniteE
The kindling genius some great sculptor glowsR
Behold him straining every nerve intentE
Behold how o'er the subject elementE
The stately thought its march laborious goesR
For never save to toil untiring spokeZ
The unwilling truth from her mysterious wellA2
The statue only to the chisel's strokeZ
Wakes from its marble cellA2
-
But onward to the sphere of beauty goH
Onward O child of art and loH
Out of the matter which thy pains controlT
The statue springs not as with labor wrungB2
From the hard block but as from nothing sprungB2
Airy and light the offspring of the soulT
The pangs the cares the weary toils it costE
Leave not a trace when once the work is doneN
The Artist's human frailty merged and lostE
In art's great victory wonN
-
If human sin confronts the rigid lawC2
Of perfect truth and virtue aweD2
Seizes and saddens thee to see how farU
Beyond thy reach perfection if we testE
By the ideal of the good the bestE
How mean our efforts and our actions areU
This space between the ideal of man's soulT
And man's achievement who hath ever pastE
An ocean spreads between us and that goalT
Where anchor ne'er was castE
-
But fly the boundary of the senses liveE2
The ideal life free thought can giveF2
And lo the gulf shall vanish and the chillG2
Of the soul's impotent despair be goneN
And with divinity thou sharest the throneN
Let but divinity become thy willG2
Scorn not the law permit its iron bandE
The sense it cannot chain the soul to thrallH2
Let man no more the will of Jove withstandE
And Jove the bolt lets fallH2
-
If in the woes of actual human lifeP
If thou could'st see the serpent strifeP
Which the Greek art has made divine in stoneN
Could'st see the writhing limbs the livid cheekI2
Note every pang and hearken every shriekI2
Of some despairing lost LaocoonN
The human nature would thyself subdueE
To share the human woe before thine eyeG
Thy cheek would pale and all thy soul be trueE
To man's great sympathyQ
-
But in the ideal realm aloof and farU
Where the calm art's pure dwellers areU
Lo the Laocoon writhes but does not groanN
Here no sharp grief the high emotion knowsR
Here suffering's self is made divine and showsR
The brave resolve of the firm soul aloneN
Here lovely as the rainbow on the dewE
Of the spent thunder cloud to art is givenN
Gleaming through grief's dark veil the peaceful blueE
Of the sweet moral heavenN
-
So in the glorious parable beholdE
How bowed to mortal bonds of oldE
Life's dreary path divine Alcides trodE
The hydra and the lion were his preyJ
And to restore the friend he loved to dayJ
He went undaunted to the black browed godE
And all the torments and the labors soreJ2
Wroth Juno sent the meek majestic oneN
With patient spirit and unquailing boreJ2
Until the course was runN
-
Until the god cast down his garb of clayJ
And rent in hallowing flame awayJ
The mortal part from the divine to soarJ2
To the empyreal air Behold him springL
Blithe in the pride of the unwonted wingL
And the dull matter that confined beforeJ2
Sinks downward downward downward as a dreamO
Olympian hymns receive the escaping soulT
And smiling Hebe from the ambrosial streamO
Fills for a god the bowlT

Friedrich Schiller



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