The Two Guides of Life
Two genii are there, from thy birth through weary life to guide thee;Ah, happy when, united both, they stand to aid beside thee?With gleesome play to cheer the path, the one comes blithe with beauty,And lighter, leaning on her arm, the destiny and duty.With jest and sweet discourse she goes unto the rock sublime,Where halts above the eternal sea the shuddering child of time.The other here, resolved and mute and solemn, claspeth thee,And bears thee in her giant arms across the fearful sea.Never admit the one alone!--Give not the gentle guideThy honor--nor unto the stern thy happiness confide!
Words in this poem
- gleesome a.
- Merry; joyous; gleeful.
- blithe a.
- Gay; merry; sprightly; joyous; glad; cheerful; as, a blithe spirit. [AS. bli blithe, kind; akin to Goth. blei kind, Icel. bli mild, gentle, Dan. & Sw. blid gentle, D. blijd blithe, OHG. blidi kind, blithe.]
- jest n.
- A deed; an action; a gest. [OE. jeste, geste, deed, action, story, tale, OF. geste, LL. gesta, orig., exploits, neut. pl. from L. gestus, p. p. of gerere to bear, carry, accomplish, perfor]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Two Guides of Life is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poems of Schiller — Third period, Project Gutenberg ebook #6796; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Friedrich Schiller, The Two Guides of Life, in The Poems of Schiller: Third Period (1805), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #6796, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/schiller-third-period/the-two-guides-of-life.html, id L21893.
Form and metre
The Two Guides of Life is 10 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets. The metre is iambic heptameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%).
See other poems in rhyming couplets, other poems in iambic heptameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 AABBCCAADD theeA · theeA · beautyB · dutyB · sublimeC · timeC · theeA · seaA · guideD · confideD
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic heptameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Two genii are there, from thy birth through weary life to guide thee; | 15 | ·········/˘···· |
| Ah, happy when, united both, they stand to aid beside thee? | 15 | ·/˘·˘/˘·····˘/· |
| With gleesome play to cheer the path, the one comes blithe with beauty, | 15 | ·/˘··········/˘ |
| And lighter, leaning on her arm, the destiny and duty. | 15 | ·/˘/˘····/˘˘·/˘ |
| With jest and sweet discourse she goes unto the rock sublime, | 14 | ····/˘······˘/ |
| Where halts above the eternal sea the shuddering child of time. | 15 | ·····˘/˘··/˘··· |
| The other here, resolved and mute and solemn, claspeth thee, | 14 | ·/˘·˘/···/˘/˘· |
| And bears thee in her giant arms across the fearful sea. | 14 | ·····/˘·˘/·/˘· |
| Never admit the one alone!--Give not the gentle guide | 14 | /˘˘/··˘/···/˘· |
| Thy honor--nor unto the stern thy happiness confide! | 14 | ·/˘······/˘˘˘/ |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.