Am I arisen from gloom and from prison ?

Holds me no longer that vault of despair ?
Let me, in full, inexhaustible measures,

Drink of the boundless, the heavenly air I
• • • •

O, thanks, thanks to the green and friendly grove,

That hides that dismal prison- wall from me !
I dreamed in freedom's bliss once more to rove ;

Why wake me from the dream of ecstasy ?
Am I not bosomed in the boundless sky?

My sight, unchained and free,
Roams through unmeasured spaces, far and high.
Those dim, blue, misty mountains, looming yonder,

Mark where my empire's boundaries He ;
And these light, fleecy clouds, that southward wander.
On to thy pleasant ocean, France, they hie.
> See Note 1.
136 SCHILLER.
Clouds that float over me, sailors of air,

Might I but roam with you, sail with you there !

Greet for me kindly the land of my youth.
A poor, lonely captive, in chains here I lie :
O be my messengers ; yours is the sky :
Ye spread your white wings to the breeze, and away ;
This queen has you not in her iron sway !

• * * •
There's a fisherman mooring his boat to the shore ;

That wretched vessel might rescue me:

To friendly cities how soon would I flee !
The poor man never should hunger more ;
I'd load him with treasures o'er and o'er ;

Good luck should he find in his net, if he

Would carry me safely over the sea.
* * • •
Hark ! the wild bugle ! Hear it ringing

Its mighty call to woodland and plain !
O, on the fiery steed to be springing.
