To My Friends All

Dear friends of mine, there were ages lovelier,

Than our own now—let there be no quarrel!

And an elder generation lived.

Were the records ever silent on this,

Stones by thousands yet would bear it witness,

That from the womb of Earth have long been digged.

Yet it’s over now, it has all vanished,

That so very highly-favored race.

We, we live here! From our time they’re banished,

And the living have first place.

Dear friends, there are zones more happier,

Than the land, wherein we pass our days here,

As the wanderer much-traveled tells.

But if nature much from us has bated,

Art was ever toward us friendly weighted,

At its light our heart grew warm not else.

Even though the laurel won’t take root here,

Yet the myrtle winter makes our spoil,

And green grows, our temples to accouter,

Us the vine its merry foil.

A greater life there may be all a-bustle,

Where four worlds their treasure larders hustle,

There upon Thames, in the world’s great mart.

Ships by thousands land them there and flee,

There is what is costly to be seen,

And money reigns, that is the god of Earth.

But not in any turbid miry brooklets,

That from wild thundershowers swell,

On the stilly brooklet’s even surface

Does the sun its image tell.

Splendider, than all we in our Northland,

Lives the beggar at the gates of heaven,

Since he dwells in lone eternal Rome!

Him the swarm of beauty’s brightness rings,

And a second Elysium it brings

Rising up Saint Peter’s wondrous dome.

Yet Rome is in all its varied brightness

But a grave of all that’s ever been;

Life alone the greeny plant respires,

That the hour of growth has strewn.

Greater things may happen otherwhither,

Than with us in all our little life here,

New things—sunlight’s never shone upon.

Yet we see the greatness of all ages

On the world-identifying stages,

Filled with meaning pass before us calm.

Everything repeats itself in life here,

Always young is only phantasy;

That at no time anywhere has wavered,

That alone can never tire!

Friedrich von Schiller