To a Young Friend Devoting Himself to Philosophy
Severe the proof the Grecian youth was doomed to undergo,Before he might what lurks beneath the Eleusinia know--Art thou prepared and ripe, the shrine--the inner shrine--to win,Where Pallas guards from vulgar eyes the mystic prize within?Knowest thou what bars thy way? how dear the bargain thou dost make,When but to buy uncertain good, sure good thou dost forsake?Feel'st thou sufficient strength to brave the deadliest human fray,When heart from reason--sense from thought, shall rend themselves away?Sufficient valor, war with doubt, the hydra-shape, to wage;And that worst foe within thyself with manly soul engage?With eyes that keep their heavenly health--the innocence of youthTo guard from every falsehood, fair beneath the mask of truth?Fly, if thou canst not trust thy heart to guide thee on the way--Oh, fly the charmed margin ere th' abyss engulf its prey.Round many a step that seeks the light, the shades of midnight close;But in the glimmering twilight, see--how safely childhood goes!
Words in this poem
- undergo v. t.
- To go or move below or under. [AS. undergan. See Under, and Go.]
- pallas n.
- Pallas Athene, the Grecian goddess of wisdom, called also Athene, and identified, at a later period, with the Roman Minerva.
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- wage v. i.
- To bind one's self; to engage.
- engulf v. t.
- To absorb or swallow up as in a gulf. [Pref. en- + gulf: cf. OF. engolfer. Cf. Ingulf.]
- childhood n.
- The state of being a child; the time in which persons are children; the condition or time from infancy to puberty. [AS. cildhad; cild child + -had. See Child, and hood.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
To a Young Friend Devoting Himself to Philosophy 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, To a Young Friend Devoting Himself to Philosophy, in The Poems of Schiller: Third Period (1805), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #6796, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/schiller-third-period/to-a-young-friend-devoting-himself-to-philosophy.html, id L21926.
Form and metre
To a Young Friend Devoting Himself to Philosophy is 16 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets. The metre is iambic heptameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%).
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 AABBCCDDEEFFDDGG undergoA · knowA · winB · withinB · makeC · forsakeC · frayD · awayD · wageE · engageE · youthF · truthF · wayD · preyD · closeG · goesG
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Severe the proof the Grecian youth was doomed to undergo, | 14 | ˘/···/˘·····˘/ |
| Before he might what lurks beneath the Eleusinia know-- | 14 | ·············· |
| Art thou prepared and ripe, the shrine--the inner shrine--to win, | 14 | ··˘/·····/˘··· |
| Where Pallas guards from vulgar eyes the mystic prize within? | 14 | ·····/˘··/˘··· |
| Knowest thou what bars thy way? how dear the bargain thou dost make, | 15 | /˘········/˘··· |
| When but to buy uncertain good, sure good thou dost forsake? | 14 | ····˘/˘·····˘/ |
| Feel'st thou sufficient strength to brave the deadliest human fray, | 14 | ··˘/˘····/˘/˘· |
| When heart from reason--sense from thought, shall rend themselves away? | 14 | ···/˘·····˘/˘/ |
| Sufficient valor, war with doubt, the hydra-shape, to wage; | 14 | ˘/˘/˘····/˘··· |
| And that worst foe within thyself with manly soul engage? | 14 | ······˘/·/˘·˘/ |
| With eyes that keep their heavenly health--the innocence of youth | 14 | ·····/˘··/˘˘·· |
| To guard from every falsehood, fair beneath the mask of truth? | 14 | ···/˘/········ |
| Fly, if thou canst not trust thy heart to guide thee on the way-- | 14 | ·············· |
| Oh, fly the charmed margin ere th' abyss engulf its prey. | 14 | ····˘/˘·˘/˘/·· |
| Round many a step that seeks the light, the shades of midnight close; | 14 | ·/·········/·· |
| But in the glimmering twilight, see--how safely childhood goes! | 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.