Works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Page 278
Sideways from the course he had intended,
And he feigns as though he would surrender
While he gently striveth to outwit them.
To his goal, e’en when thus press’d, still faithful.
But from out the damp gray distance rising
Softly now the storm proclaims its advent,
Presseth down each bird upon the waters,
Presseth down the throbbing hearts of mortals.
And it cometh. At its stubborn fury
Wisely ev’ry sail the seaman striketh;
With the anguish-laden ball are sporting
Wind and water.
And on yonder shore are gather’d, standing,
Friends and lovers, trembling for the bold one:
“Why, alas, remain’d he here not with us!
Ah, the tempest! Cast away by fortune!
Must the good one perish in this fashion?
Might not he perchance . . . Ye great immortals!”
Yet he, like a man, stands by his rudder;
With the bark are sporting wind and water,
Wind and water sport not with his bosom:
On the fierce deep looks he as a master, —
In his gods, or shipwreck’d or safe landed,
Trusting ever.
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PROMETHEUS.
COVER thy spacious heavens, Zeus,
With clouds of mist,
And, like the boy who lops
The thistles’ heads,
Disport with oaks and mountain-peaks;
Yet thou must leave
My earth still standing;
My cottage too, which was not rais’d by thee;
Leave me my hearth,
Whose kindly glow
By thee is envied.
I know naught poorer
Under the sun than ye gods!
Ye nourish painfully,
With sacrifices
And votive prayers,
Your majesty;
Ye would e’en starve
If children and beggars
Were not trusting fools.
While yet a child
And ignorant of life
I turn’d my wandering gaze
Up tow’rd the sun, as if with him
There were an ear to hear my wailings,
A heart like mine
To feel compassion for distress.
Who help’d me
Against the Titans’ insolence?
Who rescued me from certain death,
From slavery?
Didst thou not do all this thyself,
My sacred glowing heart?
And glowedst, young and good,
Deceiv’d with grateful thanks,
To yonder slumbering one?
I honor thee! and why?
Hast thou e’er lighten’d the sorrows
Of the heavy-laden?
Hast thou e’er dried up the tears
Of the anguish-stricken?
Was I not fashion’d to be a man
By omnipotent Time
And by eternal Fate,
Masters of me and thee?
Didst thou e’er fancy
That life I should learn to hate
And fly to deserts,
Because not all
My blossoming dreams grew ripe?
Here sit I, forming mortals
After my image;
A race resembling me,
To suffer, to weep,
To enjoy, to be glad,
And thee to scorn
As I!
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THE EAGLE AND DOVE.
IN search of prey once rais’d his pinions An eaglet;
A huntsman’s arrow came and reft
His right wing of all motive power.
Headlong he fell into a myrtle grove,
For three long days on anguish fed,
In torment writh’d
Throughout three long, three weary nights;
And then was cured,
Thanks to all-healing Nature’s
Soft, omnipresent balm.
He crept away from out the copse
And stretch’d his wing — alas!
Lost is all power of flight —
He scarce can lift himself
From off the ground
To catch some mean, unworthy prey,
And rests, deep-sorrowing,
On the low rock beside the stream.
Up to the oak he looks,
Looks up to heaven,
While in his noble eye there gleams a tear.
Then, rustling through the myrtle boughs, behold,
There comes a wanton pair of doves
Who settle down, and, nodding, strut
O’er the gold sands beside the stream,
And gradually approach;
Their red-tinged eyes so full of love
Soon see the inward-sorrowing one.
The male, inquisitively social, leaps
On the next bush, and looks
Upon him kindly and complacently.
“Thou sorrowest,” murmurs he:
“Be of good cheer, my friend!
All that is needed for calm happiness
Hast thou not here?
Hast thou not pleasure in the golden bough
That shields thee from the day’s fierce glow?
Canst thou not raise thy breast to catch
On the soft moss beside the brook
The sun’s last rays at even?
Here thou may’st wander through the flowers’ fresh dew,
Pluck from the overflow
The forest-trees provide
The choicest food, — may’st quench
Thy light thirst at the silvery spring.
O friend, true happiness
Lies in contentedness,
And that contentedness
Finds everywhere enough.”
“O wise one!” said the eagle, while he sank
In deep and ever-deep’ning thought —
“O Wisdom! like a dove thou speakest!”
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GANYMEDE.
HOW in the light of morning
Round me thou glowest,
Spring, thou beloved one!
With thousand-varying loving bliss
The sacred emotions
Born of thy warmth eternal
Press ‘gainst my bosom,
Thou endlessly fair one!
Could I but hold thee clasp’d
Within mine arms!
Ah! upon thy bosom
Lay I pining,
And then thy flowers, thy grass,
Were pressing against my heart.
Thou coolest the burning
Thirst of my bosom,
Beauteous morning breeze!
The nightingale then calls me
Sweetly from out of the misty vale.
I come, I come!
Whither? Ah, whither?
Up, up, lies my course.
While downward the clouds
Are hovering, the clouds
Are bending to meet yearning love.
For me
Within thine arms
Upwards!
Embrac’d and embracing!
Upwards into thy bosom,
O Father all-loving!
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THE BOUNDARIES OF HUMANITY.
WHEN the primeval
All-holy Father
Sows with a tranquil hand
From clouds, as they roll,
Bliss-spreading lightnings
Over the earth,
Then do I kiss the last
Hem of his garment,
While by a childlike awe
Fill’d is my breast.
For with immortals
Ne’er may a mortal
Measure himself.
If he soar upwards
And if he touch
With his forehead the stars,
Nowhere will rest then
His insecure feet,
And with him sport
Tempest and cloud.
Though with firm sinewy
Limbs he may stand
On the enduring
Well-grounded earth,
All he is ever
Able to do
Is to resemble
The oak or the vine.
Wherein do gods
Differ from mortals?
In that the former
See endless billows
Heaving before them;
Us doth the billow
Lift up and swallow,
So that we perish.
Small is the ring
Enclosing our life,
And whole generations
Link themselves firmly
On to existence’s
Chain never-ending.
Fr. Pecht del.
published by george barrie
[Editor: illegible word]
[Editor: illegible word]
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THE GODLIKE.
NOBLE be man,
Helpful and good!
For that alone
Distinguisheth him
From all the beings
Unto us known.
Hail to the beings,
Unknown and glorious,
Whom we forebode!
From his example
Learn we to know them!
For unfeeling
Nature is ever:
On bad and on good
The sun alike shineth;
And on the wicked
As on the best
The moon and stars gleam.
Tempest and torrent,
Thunder and hail,
Roar on their path,
Seizing the while,
As they haste onward,
One after another.
Even so fortune
Gropes ‘mid the throng —
Innocent boyhood’s
Curly head seizing. —
Seizing the hoary
Head of the sinner.
After laws mighty,
Brazen, eternal,
Must all we mortals
Finish the circuit
Of our existence.
Man and man only
Can do the impossible;
He ’tis distinguisheth,
Chooseth and judgeth;
He to the moment
Endurance can lend.
He and he only
The good can reward,
The bad can he punish,
Can heal and can save;
All that wanders and strays
Can usefully blend.
And we pay homage
To the immortals
As though they were men,
And did in the great,
What the best, in the small,
Does or might do.
Be the man that is noble,
Both helpful and good,
Unweariedly forming
The right and the useful,
A type of those beings
Our mind hath foreshadow’d
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ROYAL PRAYER.
HA, I am the lord of earth! The noble,
Who ‘re in my service, love me.
Ha, I am the lord of earth! The noble,
O’er whom my sway extendeth, love I.
Oh, grant me, God in heaven, that I may ne’er
Dispense with loftiness and love!
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HUMAN FEELINGS.
AH, ye gods! ye great immortals
In the spacious heavens above us!
Would ye on this earth but give us
Steadfast minds and dauntless courage
We, O kindly ones, would leave you
All your spacious heavens above us!
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LILY’S MENAGERIE.
THERE’S no menagerie, I vow,
Excels my Lily’s at this minute;
She keeps the strangest creatures in it,
And catches them, she knows not how.
Oh, how they hop, and run, and rave,
And their clipp’d pinions wildly wave, —
Poor princes, who must all endure
The pangs of love that naught can cure.
What is the fairy’s name? — Is’t Lily? — Ask not me!
Give thanks to Heaven if she’s unknown to thee.
Oh, what a cackling, what a shrieking,
When near the door she takes her stand
With her food-basket in her hand!
Oh, what a croaking, what a squeaking!
Alive all the trees and the bushes appear,
While to her feet whole troops draw near;
The very fish within the water clear
Splash with impatience and their heads protrude;
And then she throws around the food
With such a look! — the very gods delighting
(To say naught of beasts). There begins then a biting,
A picking, a pecking, a sipping,
And each o’er the legs of another is tripping,
And pushing, and pressing, and flapping,
And chasing, and fuming, and snapping,
And all for one small piece of bread,
To which, though dry, her fair hands give a taste,
As though it in ambrosia had been plac’d.
And then her look! the tone
With which she calls: Pipi! Pipi!
Would draw Jove’s eagle from his throne;
Yes, Venus’ turtle-doves, I ween,
And the vain peacock e’en,
Would come, I swear,
Soon as that tone had reach’d them through the air.
E’en from a forest dark had she
Entic’d a bear, unlick’d, ill-bred,
And by her wiles alluring led
To join the gentle company,
Until as tame as they was he:
(Up to a certain point, be’t understood!)
How fair, and, ah, how good
She seem’d to be! I would have drain’d my blood
To water e’en her flow’rets sweet.
Thou sayest: “I! Who? How? And where?” —
Well, to be plain, good Sirs — I am the bear;
In a net-apron caught, alas!
Chain’d by a silk-thread at her feet.
But how this wonder came to pass
I’ll tell some day, if ye are curious;
Just now, my temper’s much too furious.
Ah, when I’m in the corner plac’d,
And hear afar the creatures snapping,
And see the flipping and the flapping,
I turn around
With growling sound,
And backward run a step in haste,
And look around
With growling sound,
Then run again a step in haste,
And to my former post go round.
But suddenly my anger grows,
A mighty spirit fills my nose,
My inward feelings all revolt.
A creature such as thou! a dolt!
Pipi, a squirrel able nuts to crack!
I bristle up my shaggy back,
Unused a slave to be.
I’m laugh’d at by each trim and upstart tree
To scorn. The bowling-green I fly,
With neatly-mown and well-kept grass;
The box makes faces as I pass, —
Into the darkest thicket hasten I,
Hoping to ‘scape from the ring,
Over the palings to spring!
Vainly I leap and climb;
I feel a leaden spell
That pinions me as well;
And when I’m fully wearied out in time
I lay me down beside some mock cascade,
And roll myself half dead, and foam, and cry,
And, ah! no Oreads hear my sigh
Excepting those of china made!
But, ah, with sudden power
In all my members blissful feelings reign!
’Tis she who singeth yonder in her bower!
I hear that darling, darling voice again.
The air is warm, and teems with fragrance clear,
Sings she perchance for me alone to hear?
I haste, and trample down the shrubs amain;
The trees make way, the bushes all retreat,
And so — the beast is lying at her feet.
She looks at him: “The monster’s droll enough!
He’s for a bear too mild,
Yet for a dog too wild,
So shaggy, clumsy, rough!”
Upon his back she gently strokes her foot;
He thinks himself in Paradise.
What feelings through his seven senses shoot!
But she looks on with careless eyes.
I lick her soles, and kiss her shoes,
As gently as a bear well may;
Softly I rise, and with a clever ruse
Leap on her knee. — On a propitious day
She suffers it; my ears then tickles she,
And hits me a hard blow in wanton play;
I growl with new-born ecstasy;
Then speaks she in a sweet vain jest, I wot:
“Allons tout doux! eh! la menotte!
Et faites serviteur
Comme un joli seigneur.”
Thus she proceeds with sport and glee;
Hope fills the oft-deluded beast;
Yet if one moment he would lazy be
Her fondness all at once hath ceas’d.
She doth a flask of balsam-fire possess
Sweeter than honey-bees can make,
One drop of which she’ll on her finger take,
When soften’d by his love and faithfulness,
Wherewith her monster’s raging thirst to slake;
Then leaves me to myself, and flies at last,
And I, unbound, yet prison’d fast
By magic, follow in her train,
Seek for her, tremble, fly again.
The hapless creature thus tormenteth she,
Regardless of his pleasure or his woe;
Ha! oft half-open’d does she leave the door for me,
And sideways looks to learn if I will fly or no.
And I — O gods! your hands alone
Can end the spell that’s o’er me thrown;
Free me, and gratitude my heart will fill;
And yet from heaven ye send me down no aid —
Not quite in vain doth life my limbs pervade:
I feel it! Strength is left me still.
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