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| THE SOLEMN, still, and shadowy hour, | |
| When Saturday in Sabbath dies, | |
| O’er Weimar hangs, with clouds that lower, | |
| And veil in black the moon and skies. | |
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| Lo! from yon mansion lights appear, | 5 |
| Pale glimmering through the midnight gloom! | |
| A coffined form is on the bier, | |
| And thence borne forward to the tomb. | |
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| That funeral train,—how sad they go | |
| Behind the cold, unconscious clay; | 10 |
| While sighs and sobs of bitter woe | |
| Sound deep along the silent way! | |
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| Now, as the open grave beside | |
| That dismal bier its bearers rest, | |
| A heavier flood of sorrow’s tide | 15 |
| Rolls o’er each mourner’s burdened breast. | |
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| For him who slumbers in the shroud, | |
| With trembling as they lift the pall, | |
| The moon rends off her veil of cloud, | |
| And o’er him lets her lustre fall. | 20 |
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| She beams her silvery, soft adieu, | |
| And is again in darkness hid, | |
| As if affrighted, thus to view | |
| The name on that dread coffin-lid. | |
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| For ’t is her lover, now no more; | 25 |
| Her friend, that they to dust consign! | |
| And ne’er again is she to pour | |
| Her light for eyes like his to shine! | |
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| ’T is done!—that mournful, final rite, | |
| Too sacred for the glare of day! | 30 |
| Beneath the curtain folds of night | |
| Earth, earth has closed o’er Schiller’s clay! | |
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| And hark! the heavens in thunder groan; | |
| They weep in torrents o’er his bed! | |
| Their searching, fiery bolts are thrown, | 35 |
| As if to find and wake the dead! | |
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| These funeral honors, so sublime, | |
| Befit him well to whom they ’re paid, | |
| And at the birth of holy Time | |
| ’T is meet his dust at rest be laid! | 40 |
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| His spirit, bright with heavenly fire, | |
| Has burned its way through mortal strife, | |
| And gained its high, intense desire | |
| To solve the mystery of life! | |
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| It is the budding month of May; | 45 |
| The passing storm will call the bloom; | |
| A tribute Nature soon will pay, | |
| To dress her deathless poet’s tomb. | |
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