The Present Generation.

Was it always as now? This race I truly can't fathom.
Nothing is young but old age; youth, alas! only is old.

Friedrich Schiller

Friedrich Schiller was a renowned German poet, philosopher, physician, historian, and playwright. Born on November 10, 1759, in Marbach am Neckar, and passing away on May 9, 1805, in Weimar, Schiller is considered one of the most important figures in German literature. His works, including 'Ode to Joy' and 'William Tell', have left a lasting impact on Western literature and thought.

Friedrich Schiller

The Artifice.

Friedrich Schiller, Simple Poetry

The Meeting.

Friedrich Schiller, Simple Poetry

The Winter Night.

Friedrich Schiller, Simple Poetry

Dithyramb. [23]

Friedrich Schiller, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

The Moment.

Doubtless an epoch important has with the century risen;
But the moment so great finds but a race of small worth.

Friedrich Schiller

The Sunday Children.

Years has the master been laboring, but always without satisfaction;
To an ingenious race 'twould be in vision conferred.
What they yesterday learned, to-day they fain would be teaching:
Small compassion, alas, is by those gentlemen shown!

Friedrich Schiller

To My Friends.

Yes, my friends! that happier times have been
Than the present, none can contravene;
That a race once lived of nobler worth;
And if ancient chronicles were dumb,
Countless stones in witness forth would come
From the deepest entrails of the earth.
But this highly-favored race has gone,
Gone forever to the realms of night.
We, we live! The moments are our own,
And the living judge the right.

Brighter zones, my friends, no doubt excel
This, the land wherein we're doomed to dwell,
As the hardy travellers proclaim;
But if Nature has denied us much,
Art is yet responsive to our touch,
And our hearts can kindle at her flame.
If the laurel will not flourish here
If the myrtle is cold winter's prey,
Yet the vine, to crown us, year by year,
Still pu...

Friedrich Schiller

A Generation (1917)

    There was a time that's gone
    And will not come again,
    We knew it was a pleasant time,
    How good we never dreamed.

    When, for a whimsy's sake,
    We'd even play with pain,
    For everything awaited us
    And life immortal seemed.

    It seemed unending then
    To forward-looking eyes,
    No thought of what postponement meant
    Hung dark across our mirth;

    We had years and strength enough
    For any enterprise,
    Our numerous companionship
    Were heirs to all the earth.

    But now all memory
    Is one ironic truth,
    We look like strangers at the boys
    We were so long ago;

    For half of us are dead,
    And half have lost their youth,
    And our hearts are scar...

John Collings Squire, Sir

Hope.

We speak with the lip, and we dream in the soul,
Of some better and fairer day;
And our days, the meanwhile, to that golden goal
Are gliding and sliding away.
Now the world becomes old, now again it is young,
But "The better" 's forever the word on the tongue.

At the threshold of life hope leads us in
Hope plays round the mirthful boy;
Though the best of its charms may with youth begin,
Yet for age it reserves its toy.

Friedrich Schiller

The World's Age

Who will say the world is dying?
    Who will say our prime is past?
Sparks from Heaven, within us lying,
    Flash, and will flash till the last.
Fools! who fancy Christ mistaken;
    Man a tool to buy and sell;
Earth a failure, God-forsaken,
    Anteroom of Hell.

Still the race of Hero-spirits
    Pass the lamp from hand to hand;
Age from age the Words inherits -
    'Wife, and Child, and Fatherland.'
Still the youthful hunter gathers
    Fiery joy from wold and wood;
He will dare as dared his fathers
    Give him cause as good.

While a slave bewails his fetters;
    While an orphan pleads in vain;
While an infant lisps his letters,
    Heir of all the age's gain;
While a lip grows ripe for kissing;
    While a moan from ...

Charles Kingsley