The Poems of Goethe by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (ebook reader with highlight function txt) 📖

this feeling?

What oppresseth thee so sore? What strange life is o'er me stealing!

I acknowledge thee no more. Fled is all that gave thee gladness, Fled the cause of all thy sadness,

Fled thy peace, thine industry--

Ah, why suffer it to be?

Say, do beauty's graces youthful,

Does this form so fair and bright, Does this gaze, so kind, so truthful,

Chain thee with unceasing might? Would I tear me from her boldly, Courage take, and fly her coldly,

Back to her. I'm forthwith led

By the path I seek to tread.

By a thread I ne'er can sever,

For 'tis 'twined with magic skill, Doth the cruel maid for ever

Hold me fast against my will. While those magic chains confine me, To her will I must resign me.

Ah, the change in truth is great!

Love! kind love! release me straight!

1775. -----

TO BELINDA.

[This song was also written for Lily. Goethe mentions, at the end of his Autobiography, that he overheard her singing it one evening after he had taken his last farewell of her.]

WHEREFORE drag me to yon glittering eddy,

With resistless might? Was I, then, not truly blest already

In the silent night?

In my secret chamber refuge taking,

'Neath the moon's soft ray, And her awful light around me breaking,

Musing there I lay.

And I dream'd of hours with joy o'erflowing,

Golden, truly blest, While thine image so beloved was glowing

Deep within my breast.

Now to the card-table hast thou bound me,

'Midst the torches glare? Whilst unhappy faces are around me,

Dost thou hold me there?

Spring-flow'rs are to me more rapture-giving,

Now conceal'd from view; Where thou, angel, art, is Nature living,

Love and kindness too.

1775. -----

MAY SONG.

How fair doth Nature

Appear again! How bright the sunbeams!

How smiles the plain!

The flow'rs are bursting

From ev'ry bough, And thousand voices

Each bush yields now.

And joy and gladness

Fill ev'ry breast! Oh earth!--oh sunlight!

Oh rapture blest!

Oh love! oh loved one!

As golden bright, As clouds of morning

On yonder height!

Thou blessest gladly

The smiling field,-- The world in fragrant

Vapour conceal'd.

Oh maiden, maiden,

How love I thee! Thine eye, how gleams it!

How lov'st thou me!

The blithe lark loveth

Sweet song and air, The morning flow'ret

Heav'n's incense fair,

As I now love thee

With fond desire, For thou dost give me

Youth, joy, and fire,

For new-born dances

And minstrelsy. Be ever happy,

As thou lov'st me!

1775.* -----

WITH A PAINTED RIBBON.

LITTLE leaves and flow'rets too,

Scatter we with gentle hand, Kind young spring-gods to the view,

Sporting on an airy band.

Zephyr, bear it on the wing,

Twine it round my loved one's dress; To her glass then let her spring,

Full of eager joyousness.

Roses round her let her see,

She herself a youthful rose. Grant, dear life, one look to me!

'Twill repay me all my woes,

What this bosom feels, feel thou.

Freely offer me thy hand; Let the band that joins us now

Be no fragile rosy band!

1770. -----

WITH A GOLDEN NECKLACE.

THIS page a chain to bring thee burns,

That, train'd to suppleness of old, On thy fair neck to nestle, yearns,

In many a hundred little fold.

To please the silly thing consent!

'Tis harmless, and from boldness free; By day a trifling ornament,

At night 'tis cast aside by thee.

But if the chain they bring thee ever,

Heavier, more fraught with weal or woe, I'd then, Lisette, reproach thee never

If thou shouldst greater scruples show.

1775.* -----

ON THE LAKE,

[Written on the occasion of Goethe's starting with his friend Passavant on a Swiss Tour.]

I DRINK fresh nourishment, new blood

From out this world more free; The Nature is so kind and good

That to her breast clasps me! The billows toss our bark on high,

And with our oars keep time, While cloudy mountains tow'rd the sky

Before our progress climb.

Say, mine eye, why sink'st thou down? Golden visions, are ye flown?

Hence, thou dream, tho' golden-twin'd;

Here, too, love and life I find.

Over the waters are blinking

Many a thousand fair star; Gentle mists are drinking

Round the horizon afar. Round the shady creek lightly

Morning zephyrs awake, And the ripen'd fruit brightly

Mirrors itself in the lake.

1775. -----

FROM THE MOUNTAIN.

[Written just after the preceding one, on a mountain overlooking the Lake of Zurich.]

IF I, dearest Lily, did not love thee,

How this prospect would enchant my sight! And yet if I, Lily, did not love thee,

Could I find, or here, or there, delight?

1775. -----

FLOWER-SALUTE.

THIS nosegay,--'twas I dress'd it,--

Greets thee a thousand times! Oft stoop'd I, and caress'd it,

Ah! full a thousand times, And 'gainst my bosom press'd it

A hundred thousand times!

1815.* -----

IN SUMMER.

How plain and height With dewdrops are bright! How pearls have crown'd The plants all around! How sighs the breeze Thro' thicket and trees! How loudly in the sun's clear rays The sweet birds carol forth their lays!

But, ah! above, Where saw I my love, Within her room, Small, mantled in gloom, Enclosed around, Where sunlight was drown'd, How little there was earth to me, With all its beauteous majesty!

1776.* -----

MAY SONG.

BETWEEN wheatfield and corn, Between hedgerow and thorn, Between pasture and tree, Where's my sweetheart Tell it me!

Sweetheart caught I

Not at home; She's then, thought I.

Gone to roam. Fair and loving

Blooms sweet May; Sweetheart's roving,

Free and gay.

By the rock near the wave, Where her first kiss she gave, On the greensward, to me,-- Something I see! Is it she?

1812. -----

PREMATURE SPRING.

DAYS full of rapture,

Are ye renew'd ?-- Smile in the sunlight

Mountain and wood?

Streams richer laden

Flow through the dale, Are these the meadows?

Is this the vale?

Coolness cerulean!

Heaven and height! Fish crowd the ocean,

Golden and bright.

Birds of gay plumage

Sport in the grove, Heavenly numbers

Singing above.

Under the verdure's

Vigorous bloom, Bees, softly bumming,

Juices consume.

Gentle disturbance

Quivers in air, Sleep-causing fragrance,

Motion so fair.

Soon with more power

Rises the breeze, Then in a moment

Dies in the trees.

But to the bosom

Comes it again. Aid me, ye Muses,

Bliss to sustain!

Say what has happen'd

Since yester e'en? Oh, ye fair sisters,

Her I have seen!

1802. -----

AUTUMN FEELINGS.

FLOURISH greener, as ye clamber, Oh ye leaves, to seek my chamber,

Up the trellis'd vine on high! May ye swell, twin-berries tender, Juicier far,--and with more splendour

Ripen, and more speedily! O'er ye broods the sun at even As he sinks to rest, and heaven

Softly breathes into your ear All its fertilising fullness, While the moon's refreshing coolness,

Magic-laden, hovers near; And, alas! ye're watered ever

By a stream of tears that rill From mine eyes--tears ceasing never,

Tears of love that nought can still!

1775.* -----

RESTLESS LOVE.

THROUGH rain, through snow, Through tempest go! 'Mongst streaming caves, O'er misty waves, On, on! still on! Peace, rest have flown!

Sooner through sadness

I'd wish to be slain, Than all the gladness

Of life to sustain All the fond yearning

That heart feels for heart, Only seems burning

To make them both smart.

How shall I fly? Forestwards hie? Vain were all strife! Bright crown of life. Turbulent bliss,-- Love, thou art this!

1789. -----

THE SHEPHERD'S LAMENT.

ON yonder lofty mountain

A thousand times I stand, And on my staff reclining,

Look down on the smiling land.

My grazing flocks then I follow,

My dog protecting them well; I find myself in the valley,

But how, I scarcely can tell.

The whole of the meadow is cover'd

With flowers of beauty rare; I pluck them, but pluck them unknowing

To whom the offering to bear.

In rain and storm and tempest,

I tarry beneath the tree, But closed remaineth yon portal;

'Tis all but a vision to me.

High over yonder dwelling,

There rises a rainbow gay; But she from home hath departed

And wander'd far, far away.

Yes, far away bath she wander'd,

Perchance e'en over the sea; Move onward, ye sheep, then, move onward!

Full sad the shepherd must be.

1803.* -----

COMFORT IN TEARS.

How happens it that thou art sad,

While happy all appear? Thine eye proclaims too well that thou

Hast wept full many a tear.

"If I have wept in solitude,

None other shares my grief, And tears to me sweet balsam are,

And give my heart relief."

Thy happy friends invite thee now,--

Oh come, then, to our breast! And let the loss thou hast sustain'd

Be there to us confess'd!

"Ye shout, torment me, knowing not

What 'tis afflicteth me; Ah no! I have sustained no loss,

Whate'er may wanting be."

If so it is, arise in haste!

Thou'rt young and full of life. At years like thine, man's blest with strength.

And courage for the strife.

"Ah no! in vain 'twould be to strive,

The thing I seek is far; It dwells as high, it gleams as fair

As yonder glitt'ring star."

The stars we never long to clasp,

We revel in their light, And with enchantment upward gaze,

Each clear and radiant night.

"And I with rapture upward gaze,

On many a blissful day; Then let me pass the night in tears,

Till tears are wip'd away!