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Home  »  library  »  poem  »  Punch Song

C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Punch Song

By Friedrich von Schiller (1759–1805)

Translation of Lord Edward Bulwer-Lytton

FOUR elements joined in

An emulous strife

Fashion the world and

Constitute life.

From the sharp citron

The starry juice pour:

Acid to life is

The innermost core.

Now let the sugar

The bitter one meet:

Still be life’s bitter

Tamed down to the sweet.

Let the bright water

Flow into the bowl:

Water, the calm one,

Embraces the whole.

Drops from the spirit

Pour quickening within:

Life but its life from

The spirit can win.

Haste while it gloweth,

Your vessel to bring:

The wave has but virtue

Drunk hot from the spring.