Past the despairing wail-- <br />And the bright banquets of the Elysian vale <br /> Melt every care away! <br />Delight, that breathes and moves forever, <br />Glides through sweet fields like some sweet river! <br /> Elysian life survey! <br />There, fresh with youth, o'er jocund meads, <br />His merry west-winds blithely leads <br /> The ever-blooming May! <br />Through gold-woven dreams goes the dance of the hours, <br />In space without bounds swell the soul and its powers, <br /> And truth, with no veil, gives her face to the day. <br />And joy to-day and joy to-morrow, <br /> But wafts the airy soul aloft; <br />The very name is lost to sorrow, <br /> And pain is rapture tuned more exquisitely soft. <br /> <br />Here the pilgrim reposes the world-weary limb, <br />And forgets in the shadow, cool-breathing and dim, <br /> The load he shall bear never more; <br />Here the mower, his sickle at rest, by the streams, <br />Lulled with harp-strings, reviews, in the calm of his dreams, <br />The fields, when the harvest is o'er. <br />Here, he, whose ears drank in the battle roar, <br />Whose banners streamed upon the startled wind <br /> A thunder-storm,--before whose thunder tread <br />The mountains trembled,--in soft sleep reclined, <br /> By the sweet brook that o'er its pebbly bed <br />In silver plays, and murmurs to the shore, <br />Hears the stern clangor of wild spears no more! <br />Here the true spouse the lost-beloved regains, <br />And on the enamelled couch of summer-plains <br /> Mingles sweet kisses with the zephyr's breath. <br />Here, crowned at last, love never knows decay, <br />Living through ages its one bridal day, <br /> Safe from the stroke of death!<br /><br />Friedrich Schiller<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/elysium/
