through the various stages of his spiritual education, and indicate each step in the progress.  In this division, effort is no less discernible than power—­both in language and thought there is a struggle at something not yet achieved, and not, perhaps, even yet definite and distinct to the poet himself.  Here may be traced, though softened by the charm of genius, (which softens all things,) the splendid errors that belong to a passionate youth, and that give such distorted grandeur to the giant melodrama of “The Robbers.”  But here are to be traced also, and in far clearer characters, the man’s strong heart, essentially human in its sympathies—­the thoughtful and earnest intellect, not yet equally developed with the fancy, but giving ample promise of all it was destined to receive.  In these earlier poems, extravagance is sufficiently noticeable—­yet never the sickly eccentricities of diseased weakness, but the exuberant overflowings of a young Titan’s strength.  There is a distinction, which our critics do not always notice, between the extravagance of a great genius, and the affectation of a pretty poet.

FIRST PERIOD

HECTOR AND ANCROMACHE. [11]

[Footnote 11:  This and the following poem are, with some alterations, introduced in the play of “The Robbers.”]

ANDROMACHE.

Will Hector leave me for the fatal plain,
Where, fierce with vengeance for Patroclus slain,
Stalks Peleus’ ruthless son? 
Who, when thou glidest amid the dark abodes,
To hurl the spear and to revere the Gods,
Shall teach shine Orphan One?

HECTOR.

Woman and wife beloved—­cease thy tears;
My soul is nerved—­the war-clang in my ears! 
Be mine in life to stand
Troy’s bulwark, fighting for our hearths—­to go,
In death, exulting to the streams below,
Slain for my fatherland!

ANDROMACHE.

No more I hear thy martial footsteps fall—­
Thine arms shall hang, dull trophies, on the wall—­
Fallen the stem of Troy! 
Thou go’st where slow Cocytus wanders—­where
Love sinks in Lethe, and the sunless air
Is dark to light and joy!

HECTOR.

Sinew and thought—­yea, all I feel and think
May in the silent sloth of Lethe sink,
But my love not! 
Hark, the wild swarm is at the walls!—­I hear! 
Gird on my sword—­beloved one, dry the tear—­
Lethe for love is not!

AMALIA.

Fair as an angel from his blessed hall—­
Of every fairest youth the fairest he! 
Heaven-mild his look, as maybeams when they fall,
Or shine reflected from a clear blue sea! 
His kisses—­feelings rife with paradise! 
Ev’n as two flames, one on the other driven—­
Ev’n as two harp-tones their melodious sighs
Blend in some music that seems born of heaven;
So rush’d, mix’d, melted—­life