'Mystery of Reminiscence', we hear of a cosmic golden age in which
Laura, one with her poet, was a part of the Godhead. One and yet two,
they swept through space in unimaginable ecstasy. Somehow,--the point is
not made very clear,--there came a great cataclysm and separated them.
Now they are beautiful fragments of the God, evermore yearning to
restore the lost unity:

Darum Laura dieses Wutverlangen,
Ewig starr an deinen Mund zu hangen,
Und die Wollust deinen Hauch zu trinken,
In dein Wesen, wenn sich Blicke winken,
Sterbend zu versinken.[39]

Without lingering longer over the erotic poems of the 'Anthology', one
may say that they are characterized, like 'The Robbers', by a fiery
intensity of expression which, in the search after the sublime,
occasionally passes the bounds of good taste. Their author already has
at his command a gorgeous poetic diction that is all his own. One is
often amazed at his mere command of words, the audacity of his tropes,
the sweep of his imagination. But he does not convince. When at his best
he only produces an impression of magnificent feigning. The reader soon
sees that, notwithstanding all the impassioned hyperboles, it is really
intellectual poetry,--a youth philosophizing about his passion. And the
philosophy is little more than a matter of fine-sounding but vacuous
analogies that have no root in the facts of experience.[40] And so the
poetry does not take hold of one. Nor does it charm with its music;
there is vigor and sweep and swing, but the subtler elements of
melodious verse are lacking.

These qualities of the youthful Schiller's poetry foretell that he will