THE BUYERS
To an apple-woman’s stall Once some children nimbly ran; Longing much to purchase all, They with joyous haste began Snatching up the piles there raised, While with eager eyes they gazed On the rosy
RINALDO.*
[This Cantata was written for Prince Frederick Of Gotha, and set to music by Winter, the Prince singing the part Of Rinaldo. See the Annalen.] (* See Tasso’s Gerusalemme Liberata, Canto XVI.) CHORUS. To
THE FAREWELL
[Probably addressed to his mistress Frederica.] LET mine eye the farewell say, That my lips can utter ne’er; Fain I’d be a man to-day, Yet ’tis hard, oh, hard to bear! Mournful in an
FROM AN ALBUM OF 1604
HOPE provides wings to thought, and love to hope. Rise up to Cynthia, love, when night is clearest, And say, that as on high her figure changeth, So, upon earth, my joy decays and
THE RAT-CATCHER
I AM the bard known far and wide, The travell’d rat-catcher beside; A man most needful to this town, So glorious through its old renown. However many rats I see, How many weasels there
MOTIVES
IF to a girl who loves us truly Her mother gives instruction duly In virtue, duty, and what not, And if she hearkens ne’er a jot, But with fresh-strengthen’d longing flies To meet our
LILY'S MENAGERIE
[Goethe describes this much-admired Poem, which He wrote in honour of his love Lily, as being “designed to change His surrender of her into despair, by drolly-fretful images.”] THERE’S no menagerie, I vow, Excels
ANSWERS IN A GAME OF QUESTIONS
THE LADY. IN the small and great world too, What most charms a woman’s heart? It is doubtless what is new, For its blossoms joy impart; Nobler far is what is true, For fresh
THE LOVING ONE WRITES
THE look that thy sweet eyes on mine impress The pledge thy lips to mine convey, the kiss, He who, like me, hath knowledge sure of this, Can he in aught beside find happiness?
BEFORE A COURT OF JUSTICE
THE father’s name ye ne’er shall be told Of my darling unborn life; “Shame, shame,” ye cry, “on the strumpet bold!” Yet I’m an honest wife. To whom I’m wedded, ye ne’er shall be
LOVER IN ALL SHAPES
To be like a fish, Brisk and quick, is my wish; If thou cam’st with thy line. Thou wouldst soon make me thine. To be like a fish, Brisk and quick, is my wish.
THE MINSTREL
[This fine poem is introduced in the second Book of Wilhelm Meister.] “WHAT tuneful strains salute mine ear Without the castle walls? Oh, let the song re-echo here, Within our festal halls!” Thus spake
THE WANDERER
[Published in the Gottingen Musen Almanach, Having been written “to express his feelings and caprices” after His separation from Frederica.] WANDERER. YOUNG woman, may God bless thee, Thee, and the sucking infant Upon thy
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
PROCEMION
IN His blest name, who was His own creation, Who from all time makes making his vocation; The name of Him who makes our faith so bright, Love, confidence, activity, and might; In that