The Poems of Goethe - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (readera ebook reader .txt) 📗

1803.* -----

NIGHT SONG,

WHEN on thy pillow lying,

Half listen, I implore, And at my lute's soft sighing,

Sleep on! what wouldst thou more?

For at my lute's soft sighing

The stars their blessings pour On feelings never-dying;

Sleep on! what wouldst thou more?

Those feelings never-dying

My spirit aid to soar From earthly conflicts trying;

Sleep on! what wouldst thou more?

From earthly conflicts trying

Thou driv'st me to this shore; Through thee I'm thither flying,--

Sleep on! what wouldst thou more?

Through thee I'm hither flying,

Thou wilt not list before In slumbers thou art lying:

Sleep on! what wouldst thou more?

1803.* -----

LONGING.

WHAT pulls at my heart so?

What tells me to roam? What drags me and lures me

From chamber and home? How round the cliffs gather

The clouds high in air! I fain would go thither,

I fain would be there!

The sociable flight

Of the ravens comes back; I mingle amongst them,

And follow their track. Round wall and round mountain

Together we fly; She tarries below there,

I after her spy.

Then onward she wanders,

My flight I wing soon To the wood fill'd with bushes,

A bird of sweet tune. She tarries and hearkens,

And smiling, thinks she: "How sweetly he's singing!

He's singing to me!"

The heights are illum'd

By the fast setting sun; The pensive fair maiden

Looks thoughtfully on; She roams by the streamlet,

O'er meadows she goes, And darker and darker

The pathway fast grows.

I rise on a sudden,

A glimmering star; "What glitters above me,

So near and so far?"

And when thou with wonder

Hast gazed on the light, I fall down before thee,

Entranced by thy sight!

1803. -----

TO MIGNON.

OVER vale and torrent far Rolls along the sun's bright car. Ah! he wakens in his course

Mine, as thy deep-seated smart

In the heart. Ev'ry morning with new force.

Scarce avails night aught to me; E'en the visions that I see Come but in a mournful guise;

And I feel this silent smart

In my heart With creative pow'r arise.

During many a beauteous year I have seen ships 'neath me steer, As they seek the shelt'ring bay;

But, alas, each lasting smart

In my heart Floats not with the stream away.

I must wear a gala dress, Long stored up within my press, For to-day to feasts is given;

None know with what bitter smart

Is my heart Fearfully and madly riven.

Secretly I weep each tear, Yet can cheerful e'en appear, With a face of healthy red;

For if deadly were this silent smart

In my heart, Ah, I then had long been dead!

THE MOUNTAIN CASTLE.

THERE stands on yonder high mountain

A castle built of yore, Where once lurked horse and horseman

In rear of gate and of door.

Now door and gate are in ashes,

And all around is so still; And over the fallen ruins

I clamber just as I will.

Below once lay a cellar,

With costly wines well stor'd; No more the glad maid with her pitcher

Descends there to draw from the hoard.

No longer the goblet she places

Before the guests at the feast; The flask at the meal so hallow'd

No longer she fills for the priest.

No more for the eager squire

The draught in the passage is pour'd; No more for the flying present

Receives she the flying reward.

For all the roof and the rafters,

They all long since have been burn'd, And stairs and passage and chapel

To rubbish and ruins are turn'd.

Yet when with lute and with flagon,

When day was smiling and bright, I've watch'd my mistress climbing

To gain this perilous height,

Then rapture joyous and radiant

The silence so desolate brake, And all, as in days long vanish'd,

Once more to enjoyment awoke;

As if for guests of high station

The largest rooms were prepared; As if from those times so precious

A couple thither had fared;

As if there stood in his chapel

The priest in his sacred dress, And ask'd: "Would ye twain be united?"

And we, with a smile, answer'd, "Yes!"

And songs that breath'd a deep feeling,

That touched the heart's innermost chord, The music-fraught mouth of sweet echo,

Instead of the many, outpour'd.

And when at eve all was hidden

In silence unbroken and deep, The glowing sun then look'd upwards,

And gazed on the summit so steep.

And squire and maiden then glitter'd

As bright and gay as a lord, She seized the time for her present,

And he to give her reward.

1803.* -----

THE SPIRIT'S SALUTE.

THE hero's noble shade stands high

On yonder turret grey; And as the ship is sailing by,

He speeds it on his way.

"See with what strength these sinews thrill'd!

This heart, how firm and wild! These bones, what knightly marrow fill'd!

This cup, how bright it smil'd!

"Half of my life I strove and fought,

And half I calmly pass'd; And thou, oh ship with beings fraught,

Sail safely to the last!"

1774. -----

TO A GOLDEN HEART THAT HE WORE ROUND HIS NECK.

[Addressed, during the Swiss tour already mentioned, to a present Lily had given him, during the time of their happy connection, which was then about to be terminated for ever.]

OH thou token loved of joys now perish'd

That I still wear from my neck suspended, Art thou stronger than our spirit-bond so cherish'd?

Or canst thou prolong love's days untimely ended?

Lily, I fly from thee! I still am doom'd to range Thro' countries strange,

Thro' distant vales and woods, link'd on to thee! Ah, Lily's heart could surely never fall

So soon away from me!

As when a bird bath broken from his thrall,

And seeks the forest green, Proof of imprisonment he bears behind him, A morsel of the thread once used to bind him;

The free-born bird of old no more is seen,

For he another's prey bath been.

1775. -----

THE BLISS OF SORROW.

NEVER dry, never dry,

Tears that eternal love sheddeth! How dreary, how dead doth the world still appear, When only half-dried on the eye is the tear!

Never dry, never dry,

Tears that unhappy love sheddeth!

1789.* -----

THE WANDERER'S NIGHT-SONG.

THOU who comest from on high,

Who all woes and sorrows stillest, Who, for twofold misery,

Hearts with twofold balsam fillest, Would this constant strife would cease!

What are pain and rapture now? Blissful Peace,

To my bosom hasten thou!

1789.* -----

THE SAME.

[Written at night on the Kickelhahn, a hill in the forest of Ilmenau, on the walls of a little hermitage where Goethe composed the last act of his Iphigenia.]

HUSH'D on the hill

Is the breeze;

Scarce by the zephyr

The trees

Softly are press'd; The woodbird's asleep on the bough. Wait, then, and thou

Soon wilt find rest.

1783. -----

THE HUNTER'S EVEN-SONG.

THE plain with still and wand'ring feet,

And gun full-charged, I tread, And hov'ring see thine image sweet,

Thine image dear, o'er head.

In gentle silence thou dost fare

Through field and valley dear; But doth my fleeting image ne'er

To thy mind's eye appear?

His image, who, by grief oppress'd,

Roams through the world forlorn, And wanders on from east to west,

Because from thee he's torn?

When I would think of none but thee,

Mine eyes the moon survey; A calm repose then steals o'er me,

But how, 'twere hard to say.

1776,* -----

TO THE MOON.

BUSH and vale thou fill'st again

With thy misty ray, And my spirit's heavy chain

Castest far away.

Thou dost o'er my fields extend

Thy sweet soothing eye, Watching like a gentle friend,

O'er my destiny.

Vanish'd days of bliss and woe

Haunt me with their tone, Joy and grief in turns I know,

As I stray alone.

Stream beloved, flow on! flow on!

Ne'er can I be gay! Thus have sport and kisses gone,

Truth thus pass'd away.

Once I seem'd the lord to be

Of that prize so fair! Now, to our deep sorrow, we

Can forget it ne'er.

Murmur, stream, the vale along,

Never cease thy sighs; Murmur, whisper to my song

Answering melodies!

When thou in the winter's night

Overflow'st in wrath, Or in spring-time sparklest bright,

As the buds shoot forth.

He who from the world retires,

Void of hate, is blest; Who a friend's true love inspires,

Leaning on his breast!

That which heedless man ne'er knew,

Or ne'er thought aright, Roams the bosom's labyrinth through,

Boldly into night.

1789.* -----

TO LINA.

SHOULD these songs, love, as they fleet,

Chance again to reach thy hand, At the piano take thy seat,

Where thy friend was wont to stand!

Sweep with finger bold the string,

Then the book one moment see: But read not! do nought but sing!

And each page thine own will be!

Ah, what grief the song imparts

With its letters, black on white, That, when breath'd by thee, our hearts

Now can break and now delight!

1800.* -----

EVER AND EVERYWHERE.

FAR explore the mountain hollow, High in air the clouds then follow!

To each brook and vale the Muse

Thousand times her call renews.

Soon as a flow'ret blooms in spring, It wakens many a strain;

And when Time spreads his fleeting wing,

The seasons come again.

1820.* -----

PETITION.

OH thou sweet maiden fair, Thou with the raven hair,

Why to the window go?

While gazing down below, Art standing vainly there?

Oh, if thou stood'st for me, And lett'st the latch but fly,

How happy should I be! How soon would I leap high!