Works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Page 281
If on rugged hills she wander,
If she haste the vale along,
Pinions seem to flutter yonder,
And the air is fill’d with song;
With the glow of youth still playing,
Joyous vigor in each limb,
One in silence is delaying,
She alone ’tis blesses him.
Love, thou art too fair, I ween!
Fairer I have never seen!
From the heart full easily
Blooming flowers are cull’d by thee.
If I think: “Oh, were it so,”
Bone and marrow seem to glow!
If rewarded by her love,
Can I greater rapture prove?
And still fairer is the bride,
When in me she will confide,
When she speaks and lets me know
All her tale of joy and woe.
All her lifetime’s history
Now is fully known to me.
Who in child or woman e’er
Soul and body found so fair?
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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.
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NEXT YEAR’S SPRING.
THE bed of flowers
Loosens amain,
The beauteous snowdrops
Droop o’er the plain;
The crocus opens
Its glowing bud,
Like emeralds others,
Others like blood.
With saucy gesture
Primroses flare,
And roguish violets,
Hidden with care,
And whatsoever
There stirs and strives,
The Spring’s contented,
It works and thrives.
‘Mongst all the blossoms
That fairest are,
My sweetheart’s sweetness
Is sweetest far;
Upon me ever
Her glances light,
My song they waken,
My words make bright.
An ever open
And blooming mind,
In sport, unsullied,
In earnest, kind.
Though roses and lilies
By Summer are brought,
Against my sweetheart
Prevails he naught.
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SUCH, SUCH IS HE WHO PLEASETH ME.
FLY, dearest, fly! He is not nigh!
He who found thee one fair morn in spring
In the wood where thou thy flight didst wing.
Fly, dearest, fly! He is not nigh!
Never rests the foot of evil spy.
Hark! flutes’ sweet strains and love’s refrains
Reach the lov’d one, borne there by the wind,
In the soft heart open doors they find.
Hark! flutes’ sweet strains and love’s refrains,
Hark! — yet blissful love their echo pains.
Erect his head, and firm his tread,
Raven hair around his smooth brow strays,
On his cheeks a spring eternal plays.
Erect his head, and firm his tread,
And by grace his ev’ry step is led.
Happy his breast, with pureness bless’d,
And the dark eyes ‘neath his eye brows placed,
With full many a beauteous line are graced.
Happy his breast, with pureness bless’d,
Soon as seen, thy love must be confess’d.
His mouth is red — its power I dread,
On his lips morn’s fragrant incense lies,
Round his lips the cooling zephyr sighs.
His mouth is red — its power I dread,
With one glance from him, all sorrow’s fled.
His blood is true, his heart bold too,
In his soft arms, strength, protection, dwells,
And his face with noble pity swells.
His blood is true, his heart bold too,
Bless’d the one whom those dear arms may woo!
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ST. NEPOMUK’S EVE.
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Carlsbad, May 15, 1820.
CHILDREN on the bridge are singing,
On the river lights are glancing,
The cathedral bells are ringing
For devotion’s joy entrancing.
Lights and stars flash out and vanish:
Thus our martyr’s soul unfearing
Took its flight. Force could not banish
Secrets trusted to his hearing.
Glance, ye lights! Sing, youthful chorus!
Children, raise your tuneful voices!
If ye can, make plain before us
How one star the rest rejoices.
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THE FREEBOOTER.
NO door has my house,
No house has my door;
And in and out ever
I carry my store.
No grate has my kitchen,
No kitchen my grate;
Yet roasts it and boils it
Both early and late.
My bed has no trestles,
My trestles no bed;
Yet merrier moments
No mortal e’er led.
My cellar is lofty,
My barn is full deep,
From top to the bottom, —
There lie I and sleep.
And soon as I waken,
All moves on its race;
My place has no fixture,
My fixture no place.
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RECIPROCAL.
MY mistress, where sits she?
What is it that charms?
The absent she’s rocking,
Held fast in her arms.
In pretty cage prison’d
She holds a bird still;
Yet lets him fly from her,
Whenever he will.
He pecks at her finger,
And pecks at her lips,
And hovers and flutters,
And round her he skips.
Then hasten thou homeward,
In fashion to be;
If thou hast the maiden,
She also hath thee.
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SONG OF THE EMIGRANTS.
HALTING, hurrying, hurrying, halting.
Be henceforth like men of worth:
Useful labor is exalting
And deserves to rule the earth.
Thee to follow is a pleasure;
He who heeds thee finds the treasure
Of a glorious fatherland!
Hail the leader! Hail the band!
Thou the strength and burden bearest,
Thou art patron of our lives,
Honor with the old thou sharest,
Givest young men work and wives;
Mutual confidence arouses
Men to build them cosy houses,
Neat with gardens, lawns and woods,
Strong in helpful neighborhoods.
On the highways wisely planted
Men find comfort in new inns,
And the immigrant is granted
All the land his courage wins.
T
herefore let us hasten, brothers,
Let us settle with the others
In the new-found fatherland!
Hail, O leader! Hail, O band!
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EXPLANATION OF AN ANCIENT WOODCUT REPRESENTING HANS SACHS’ POETICAL MISSION.
EARLY within his workshop here,
On Sundays stands our master dear;
His dirty apron he puts away,
And a cleanly doublet wears to-day;
Lets wax’d thread, hammer and pincers rest,
And lays his awl within his chest;
The seventh day he takes repose
From many pulls and many blows.
Soon as the spring sun meets his view
Repose begets him labor anew;
He feels that he holds within his brain
A little world, that broods there amain,
And that begins to act and to live,
Which he to others would gladly give.
He had a skilful eye and true,
And was full kind and loving too.
For contemplation, clear and pure, —
For making all his own again, sure;
He had a tongue that charm’d when ’twas heard,
And graceful and light flow’d ev’ry word;
Which made the Muses in him rejoice,
The Master-singer of their choice.
And now a maiden enter’d there,
With swelling breast, and body fair;
With footing firm she took her place,
And mov’d with stately, noble grace;
She did not walk in wanton mood,
Nor look around with glances lewd.
She held a measure in her hand,
Her girdle was a golden band,
A wreath of corn was on her head,
Her eye the day’s bright lustre shed;
Her name is honest Industry,
Else, Justice, Magnanimity.
She enter’d with a kindly greeting;
He felt no wonder at the meeting,
For, kind and fair as she might be,
He long had known her, fancied he.
“I have selected thee,” she said,
“From all who earth’s wild mazes tread,
That thou should’st have clear-sighted sense,
And naught that’s wrong should’st e’er commence.
When others run in strange confusion,
Thy gaze shall see through each illusion;
When others dolefully complain,
Thy cause with jesting thou shalt gain,
Honor and right shalt value duly,
In everything act simply, truly, —
Virtue and godliness proclaim,
And call all evil by its name,
Naught soften down, attempt no quibble,
Naught polish up, naught vainly scribble.
The world shall stand before thee, then,
As seen by Albert Dürer’s ken,
In manliness and changeless life,
In inward strength, with firmness rife.
Fair Nature’s Genius by the hand
Shall lead thee on through every land,
Teach thee each different life to scan,
Show thee the wondrous ways of man,
His shifts, confusions, thrustings and drubbings,
Pushings, tearings, pressings and rubbings;
The varying madness of the crew,
The anthill’s ravings bring to view;
But thou shalt see all this express’d
As though ‘twere in a magic chest.
Write these things down for folks on earth,
In hopes they may to wit give birth.” —
Then she a window open’d wide,
And show’d a motley crowd outside,
All kinds of beings ‘neath the sky,
As in his writings one may spy.
Our master dear was, after this,
On Nature thinking, full of bliss,
When tow’rd him, from the other side,
He saw an aged woman glide;
The name she bears, Historia,
Mythologia, Fabula;
With footstep tottering and unstable
She dragg’d a large and wooden carv’d table,
Where, with wide sleeves and human mien,
The Lord was catechizing seen;
Adam, Eve, Eden, the Serpent’s seduction,
Gomorrah and Sodom’s awful destruction,
The twelve illustrious women, too,
That mirror of honor brought to view;
All kinds of bloodthirstiness, murder and sin;
The twelve wicked tyrants also were in,
And all kinds of goodly doctrine and law;
Saint Peter with his scourge you saw,
With the world’s ways dissatisfied,
And by our Lord with power supplied.
Her train and dress, behind and before,
And e’en the seams, were painted o’er
With tales of worldly virtue and crime. —
Our master view’d all this for a time;
The sight right gladly he survey’d,
So useful for him in his trade,
Whence he was able to procure
Example good and precept sure,
Recounting all with truthful care,
As though he had been present there.
His spirit seem’d from earth to fly,
He ne’er had turn’d away his eye;
Did he not just behind him hear
A rattle of bells approaching near?
And now a fool doth catch his eye,
With goat and ape’s leap drawing nigh,
A merry interlude preparing
With fooleries and jests unsparing.
Behind him, in a line drawn out,
He dragg’d all fools, the lean and stout,
The great and little, the empty and full,
All too witty, and all too dull;
A lash he flourish’d overhead,
As though a dance of apes he led,
Abusing them with bitterness,
As though his wrath would ne’er grow less.
While on this sight our master gaz’d,
His head was growing well-nigh craz’d:
What words for all could he e’er find,
Could such a medley be combin’d?
Could he continue with delight
For evermore to sing and write?
When lo, from out a cloud’s dark bed
In at the upper window sped
The Muse, in all her majesty,
As fair as our lov’d maids we see.
With clearness she around him threw
Her truth, that ever stronger grew.
“I to ordain thee come,” she spake:
“So prosper, and my blessing take!
The holy fire that slumb’ring lies
Within thee, in bright flames shall rise;
Yet that thine ever-restless life
May still with kindly strength be rife,
I, for thine inward spirit’s calm,
Have granted nourishment and balm,
That rapture may thy soul imbue,
Like some fair blossom bath’d in dew.” —
Behind his house then secretly
Outside the doorway pointed she,
Where, in a shady garden-nook,
A beauteous maid with downcast look
Was sitting where a stream was flowing,
With elder bushes near it growing.
She sat beneath an apple tree,
And naught around her seem’d to see.
Her lap was full of roses fair,
Which in a wreath she twin’d with care,
And, with them, leaves and blossoms blended:
For whom was that sweet wreath intended?
Thus sat she, modest and retir’d,
Her bosom throbb’d, with hope inspi
r’d;
Such deep forebodings fill’d her mind,
No room for wishing could she find,
And with the thoughts that o’er it flew,
Perchance a sigh was mingled too.
“But why should sorrow cloud thy brow?
That, dearest love, which fills thee now
Is fraught with joy and ecstasy,
Prepar’d in one alone for thee,
That he within thine eye may find
Solace when fortune proves unkind,
And be newborn through many a kiss,
That he receives with inward bliss;
Whene’er he clasps thee to his breast
May he from all his toils find rest;
When he in thy dear arms shall sink
May he new life and vigor drink:
Fresh joys of youth shalt thou obtain,
In merry jest rejoice again.
With raillery and roguish spite
Thou now shalt tease him, now delight.
Thus Love will nevermore grow old,
Thus will the minstrel ne’er be cold!”
While he thus lives, in secret bless’d,
Above him in the clouds doth rest
An oak-wreath, verdant and sublime,
Placed on his brow in after-time;
While they are banish’d to the slough,
Who their great master disavow.
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THOUGHTS ON JESUS CHRIST’S DESCENT INTO HELL.
WHAT wondrous noise is heard around!
Through heaven exulting voices sound,
A mighty army marches on.
By thousand millions follow’d, lo,
To yon dark place makes haste to go
God’s Son, descending from His throne!
He goes — the tempests round Him break,
As Judge and Hero cometh He;
He goes — the constellations quake,
The sun, the world quake fearfully.
I see Him in His victor-car,
On fiery axles borne afar,
Who on the cross for us expir’d.
The triumph to yon realms He shows, —
Remote from earth, where star ne’er glows, —
The triumph He for us acquir’d.
He cometh, Hell to extirpate,
Whom He, by dying, well nigh kill’d;
He shall pronounce her fearful fate:
Hark! now the curse is straight fulfill’d.
Hell sees the victor come at last,
She feels that now her reign is past,
She quakes and fears to meet His sight;
She knows His thunders’ terrors dread,
In vain she seeks to hide her head,
Attempts to fly, but vain is flight;
Vainly she hastes to ‘scape pursuit
And to avoid her Judge’s eye;
The Lord’s fierce wrath restrains her foot
Like brazen chains, — she cannot fly.
Here lies the Dragon, trampled down,