THE WANDERER'S NIGHT-SONG

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1. Thora's Song ('Ashtaroth') We severed in Autumn early, Ere the earth was torn by the plough; The wheat and the oats and the barley Are ripe for the harvest now. We sunder’d one misty morning Ere the hills were dimm’d by the rain; Through the flowers those hills adorning Thou comest not back again. My heart is heavy […]...
2. COMFORT IN TEARS How happens it that thou art sad, While happy all appear? Thine eye proclaims too well that thou Hast wept full many a tear. “If I have wept in solitude, None other shares my grief, And tears to me sweet balsam are, And give my heart relief.” Thy happy friends invite thee now, Oh come, […]...
3. Monday Night May 11th 1846 / Domestic Peace Why should such gloomy silence reign; And why is all the house so drear, When neither danger, sickness, pain, Nor death, nor want have entered here? We are as many as we were That other night, when all were gay, And full of hope, and free from care; Yet, is there something gone away. The […]...
4. THE WEDDING NIGHT WITHIN the chamber, far away From the glad feast, sits Love in dread Lest guests disturb, in wanton play, The silence of the bridal bed. His torch’s pale flame serves to gild The scene with mystic sacred glow; The room with incense-clouds is fil’d, That ye may perfect rapture know. How beats thy heart, when […]...
5. 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! […]...
6. In snow thou comest In snow thou comest Thou shalt go with the resuming ground, The sweet derision of the crow, And Glee’s advancing sound. In fear thou comest Thou shalt go at such a gait of joy That man anew embark to live Upon the depth of thee....
7. Night I love the silent hour of night, For blissful dreams may then arise, Revealing to my charmed sight What may not bless my waking eyes! And then a voice may meet my ear That death has silenced long ago; And hope and rapture may appear Instead of solitude and woe. Cold in the grave for […]...
8. 340. Song-Thou Fair Eliza TURN again, thou fair Eliza! Ae kind blink before we part; Rue on thy despairing lover, Can’st thou break his faithfu’ heart? Turn again, thou fair Eliza! If to love thy heart denies, Oh, in pity hide the sentence Under friendship’s kind disguise! Thee, sweet maid, hae I offended? My offence is loving thee; Can’st […]...
9. New York at Night A near horizon whose sharp jags Cut brutally into a sky Of leaden heaviness, and crags Of houses lift their masonry Ugly and foul, and chimneys lie And snort, outlined against the gray Of lowhung cloud. I hear the sigh The goaded city gives, not day Nor night can ease her heart, her anguished labours […]...
10. Moral Song Would we attain the happiest State, That is design’d us here; No Joy a Rapture must create, No Grief beget Despair. No Injury fierce Anger raise, No Honour tempt to Pride; No vain Desires of empty Praise Must in the Soul abide. No Charms of Youth, or Beauty move The constant, settl’d Breast: Who leaves […]...
11. Song Rarely, rarely comest thou, Spirit of Delight! Wherefore hast thou left me now Many a day and night? Many a weary night and day ‘Tis since thou art fled away. How shall ever one like me Win thee back again? With the joyous and the free Thou wilt scoff at pain. Spirit false! thou hast […]...
12. And Wilt Thou Weep When I Am Low? And wilt thou weep when I am low? Sweet lady! speak those words again: Yet if they grieve thee, say not so – I would not give that bosom pain. My heart is sad, my hopes are gone, My blood runs coldly through my breast; And when I perish, thou alone Wilt sigh above my […]...
13. Stanzas to Love TELL ME, LOVE, when I rove o’er some far distant plain, Shall I cherish the passion that dwells in my breast? Or will ABSENCE subdue the keen rigours of pain, And the swift wing of TIME bring the balsam of rest? Shall the image of HIM I was born to adore, Inshrin’d in my bosom […]...
14. Song: Rarely, rarely, comest thou Rarely, rarely, comest thou, Spirit of Delight! Wherefore hast thou left me now Many a day and night? Many a weary night and day ‘Tis since thou are fled away. How shall ever one like me Win thee back again? With the joyous and the free Thou wilt scoff at pain. Spirit false! thou hast […]...
15. Eventide The day is past and the toilers cease; The land grows dim ‘mid the shadows grey, And hearts are glad, for the dark brings peace At the close of day. Each weary toiler, with lingering pace, As he homeward turns, with the long day done, Looks out to the west, with the light on his […]...
16. The Wanderers OVER the sea our galleys went, With cleaving prows in order brave To a speeding wind and a bounding wave A gallant armament: Each bark built out of a forest-tree Left leafy and rough as first it grew, And nail’d all over the gaping sides, Within and without, with black bull-hides, Seethed in fat and […]...
17. Dream Song 50: In a motion of night they massed nearer my post In a motion of night they massed nearer my post. I hummed a short blues. When the stars went out I studied my weapons system. Grenades, the portable rack, the yellow spout Of the anthrax-ray: in order. Yes, and most Of my pencils were sharp. This edge of the galaxy has often seen A defence […]...
18. NIGHT THOUGHTS OH, unhappy stars! your fate I mourn, Ye by whom the sea-toss’d sailor’s lighted, Who with radiant beams the heav’ns adorn, But by gods and men are unrequited: For ye love not, ne’er have learnt to love! Ceaselessly in endless dance ye move, In the spacious sky your charms displaying, What far travels ye have […]...
19. 294. Song-To Mary in Heaven THOU ling’ring star, with lessening ray, That lov’st to greet the early morn, Again thou usher’st in the day My Mary from my soul was torn. O Mary! dear departed shade! Where is thy place of blissful rest? See’st thou thy lover lowly laid? Hear’st thou the groans that rend his breast? That sacred hour […]...
20. Unlyric Love Song It is time to give that-of-myself which I could not at first: To offer you now at last my least and my worst: Minor, absurd preserves, The shell’s end-curves, A document kept at the back of a drawer, A tin hidden under the floor, Recalcitrant prides and hesitations: To pile them carefully in a desparate […]...
21. 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 parted; While through the other they rush swiftly, as soon as they meet.” 1789.*...
22. On The Death Of A Young Lady Of Five Years Of Age FROM dark abodes to fair etherial light Th’ enraptur’d innocent has wing’d her flight; On the kind bosom of eternal love She finds unknown beatitude above. This known, ye parents, nor her loss deplore, She feels the iron hand of pain no more; The dispensations of unerring grace, Should turn your sorrows into grateful praise; […]...
23. The Meeting of the Waters There is not in the wide world a valley so sweet As that vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet; Oh! the last rays of feeling and life must depart, Ere the bloom of that valley shall fade from my heart. Yet it was not that nature had shed o’er the scene Her purest […]...
24. 425. Song-Had I a cave HAD I a cave on some wild distant shore, Where the winds howl to the wave’s dashing roar: There would I weep my woes, There seek my lost repose, Till grief my eyes should close, Ne’er to wake more! Falsest of womankind, can’st thou declare All thy fond, plighted vows fleeting as air! To thy […]...
25. TO FATHER* KRONOS [written in a post-chaise.] (* In the original, Schwager, which has the Twofold meaning of brother-in-law and postilion.) HASTEN thee, Kronos! On with clattering trot Downhill goeth thy path; Loathsome dizziness ever, When thou delayest, assails me. Quick, rattle along, Over stock and stone let thy trot Into life straightway lead Now once more Up […]...
26. I'll tell you what you Wanderers I’ll tell you what you wanderers, who drift from town to town; Don’t look into a good girl’s eyes, until you’ve settled down. It’s hard to go away alone and leave old chums behind – It’s hard to travel steerage when your tastes are more refined – To reach a place when times are bad, […]...
27. Wanderers Wide are the meadows of night, And daisies are shinng there, Tossing their lovely dews, Lustrous and fair; And through these sweet fields go, Wanderers amid the stars Venus, Mercury, Uranus, Neptune, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars. ‘Tired in their silver, they move, And circling, whisper and say, Fair are the blossoming meads of delight Through which […]...
28. The Song Of The Pacifist What do they matter, our headlong hates, when we take the toll of our Dead? Think ye our glory and gain will pay for the torrent of blood we have shed? By the cheers of our Victory will the heart of the mother be comforted? If by the Victory all we mean is a broken […]...
29. THE FIRST WALPURGIS-NIGHT A DRUID. SWEET smiles the May! The forest gay From frost and ice is freed; No snow is found, Glad songs resound Across the verdant mead. Upon the height The snow lies light, Yet thither now we go, There to extol our Father’s name, Whom we for ages know. Amid the smoke shall gleam the […]...
30. Non Dolet It does not hurt. She looked along the knife Smiling, and watched the thick drops mix and run Down the sheer blade; not that which had been done Could hurt the sweet sense of the Roman wife, But that which was to do yet ere the strife Could end for each for ever, and the […]...
31. Glory and Shadow SHADOWWHO art thou, O Glory, In flame from the deep Where stars chant their story; Why trouble my sleep? I hardly had rested; My dreams wither now. Why comest thou crested And gemmed on thy brow? GLORYUp, Shadow, and follow The way I will show: The blue gleaming hollow To-night we shall know: And rise […]...
32. Hymn to the Night I heard the trailing garments of the Night Sweep through her marble halls! I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light From the celestial walls! I felt her presence, by its spell of might, Stoop o’er me from above; The calm, majestic presence of the Night, As of the one I love. I heard […]...
33. 232. Song-The Day Returns THE DAY returns, my bosom burns, The blissful day we twa did meet: Tho’ winter wild in tempest toil’d, Ne’er summer-sun was half sae sweet. Than a’ the pride that loads the tide, And crosses o’er the sultry line; Than kingly robes, than crowns and globes, Heav’n gave me more-it made thee mine! While day […]...
34. 515. Song-O let me in this ae night O LASSIE, are ye sleepin yet, Or are ye waukin, I wad wit? For Love has bound me hand an’ fit, And I would fain be in, jo. Chorus.-O let me in this ae night, This ae, ae, ae night; O let me in this ae night, I’ll no come back again, jo! O hear’st […]...
35. Little Flute Thou hast made me endless, such is thy pleasure. This frail Vessel thou emptiest again and again, and fillest it ever with fresh life. This little flute of a reed thou hast carried over hills and dales, And hast breathed through it melodies eternally new. At the immortal touch of thy hands my little heart […]...
36. THE BRIDEGROOM.* (Not in the English sense of the word, but the German, where it Has the meaning of betrothed.) I SLEPT, ’twas midnight, in my bosom woke, As though ’twere day, my love-o’erflowing heart; To me it seemed like night, when day first broke; What is’t to me, whate’er it may impart? She was away; the […]...
37. 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 employ To carol forth this song! We’re gathered in His name, Whose power hath brought us here; He kindled first our […]...
38. The Hour of Twilight WHEN the unquiet hours depart And far away their tumults cease, Within the twilight of the heart We bathe in peace, are stilled with peace. The fire that slew us through the day For angry deed or sin of sense Now is the star and homeward ray To us who bow in penitence. We kiss […]...
39. 496. Song-My Nanie's awa NOW in her green mantle blythe Nature arrays, And listens the lambkins that bleat o’er her braes; While birds warble welcomes in ilka green shaw, But to me it’s delightless-my Nanie’s awa. The snawdrap and primrose our woodlands adorn, And violetes bathe in the weet o’ the morn; They pain my sad bosom, sae sweetly […]...
40. Sonnet XVIII: Why Art Thou Chang'd? Why art thou chang’d? O Phaon! tell me why? Love flies reproach, when passion feels decay; Or, I would paint the raptures of that day, When, in sweet converse, mingling sigh with sigh, I mark’d the graceful languor of thine eye As on a shady bank entranc’d we lay: O! Eyes! whose beamy radiance stole […]...