OLD AGE
OLD age is courteous no one more: For time after time he knocks at the door, But nobody says, “Walk in, sir, pray!” Yet turns he not from the door away, But lifts the
THE EPOCHS
ON Petrarch’s heart, all other days before, In flaming letters written, was impress d GOOD FRIDAY. And on mine, be it confess’d, Is this year’s ADVENT, as it passeth o’er. I do not now
AT MIDNIGHT HOUR
[Goethe relates that a remarkable situation He was in one bright moonlight night led to the composition of this Sweet song, which was “the dearer to him because he could not say Whence it
THE BEAUTEOUS FLOWER
SONG OF THE IMPRISONED COUNT. COUNT. I KNOW a flower of beauty rare, Ah, how I hold it dear! To seek it I would fain repair, Were I not prison’d here. My sorrow sore
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
THE KING OF THULE.*
(* This ballad is also introduced in Faust, Where it is sung by Margaret.) IN Thule lived a monarch, Still faithful to the grave, To whom his dying mistress A golden goblet gave. Beyond
TO THE HUSBANDMAN
SMOOTHLY and lightly the golden seed by the furrow is cover’d; Yet will a deeper one, friend, cover thy bones at the last. Joyously plough’d and sow’d! Here food all living is budding, E’en
THE INSTRUCTORS
WHEN Diogenes quietly sunn’d himself in his barrel, When Calanus with joy leapt in the flame-breathing grave, Oh, what noble lessons were those for the rash son of Philip, Were not the lord of
MEASURE OF TIME
EROS, what mean’st thou by this? In each of thine hands is an Hourglass! What, oh thou frivolous god! twofold thy measure of time? “Slowly run from the one, the hours of lovers when
THE BEAUTIFUL NIGHT
Now I leave this cottage lowly, Where my love hath made her home, And with silent footstep slowly Through the darksome forest roam, Luna breaks through oaks and bushes, Zephyr hastes her steps to
THE SWISS ALPS
YESTERDAY brown was still thy head, as the locks Of my loved one, Whose sweet image so dear silently beckons afar. Silver-grey is the early snow to-day on thy summit, Through the tempestuous night
EXPLANATION OF AN ANTIQUE GEM
A YOUNG fig-tree its form lifts high Within a beauteous garden; And see, a goat is sitting by. As if he were its warden. But oh, Quirites, how one errs! The tree is guarded
SOUND, SWEET SONG
SOUND, sweet song, from some far land, Sighing softly close at hand, Now of joy, and now of woe! Stars are wont to glimmer so. Sooner thus will good unfold; Children young and children
JOY
Joy from that in type we borrow, Which in life gives only sorrow. JOY. A DRAGON-FLY with beauteous wing Is hov’ring o’er a silv’ry spring; I watch its motions with delight, Now dark its
SONG OF FELLOWSHIP
[Written and sung in honour of the birthday Of the Pastor Ewald at the time of Goethe’s happy connection with Lily.] IN ev’ry hour of joy That love and wine prolong, The moments we’ll