You Can Trample the Flowers Growing Around My Grave but They ll Rise Up and Bloom Once Again

Goethe

Selected Poems

'Ghost-Greetings' - Leopold Schulz (Austrian, 1804 – 1873), The Met

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Translated past A. S. Kline © Copyright 2004 All Rights Reserved

This work may exist freely reproduced, stored and transmitted, electronically or otherwise, for any non-commercial purpose. Conditions and Exceptions use.

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Contents

• The Lovely Dark
• May Song
• Welcome and Adieu
• The Rose-Bush on The Moor
• The Violet
• The Artist'due south Evening Vocal
• New Love, New Life
• To  Belinda
• 'Holde Lili, warst and then lang'
• The Traveller's Dark Song I
• The Traveller'due south Dark Song II
• The Fisherman
• The ErlKing
• 'Wer nie sein Brot'
• Mignon
• 'Heiss mich nicht redden,'
• 'Nur wer dice Sehnsucht kennt'
• To The Moon (Final Version)
• Vocal Of The Spirits Over The Water
• To Charlotte Von Stein
• 'Du bist mein und bist then zierlich,'
• Measuring Time
• Anacreon's Grave
• Roman Elegies I
• Roman Elegies II (First Version)
• Roman Elegies III
• Roman Elegies V
• Roman Elegies VII
• Roman Elegies Xiii
• Roman Elegies XVII
• Roman Elegies Twenty
• The Nearness of the Dearest
• Venetian Epigrams I
• Venetian Epigrams XXVII
• Venetian Epigrams XCVI
• Venetian Epigrams CIII
• Permanence In Change
• Provision for the Journey
• Early on Bound
• May Song
• Night Song
• The New Copernicus
• E'er and Everywhere
• March
• April
• Poetry and Grade
• Blissful Yearning
• Night of the Full Moon
• At Midnight's 60 minutes
• A Trilogy of Passion
• From the Chinese-German Volume of Hours and Seasons
• To the Total Moon Ascent
• The Betrothed
• Legacy
• Alphabetize of Beginning Lines

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The Lovely Night

Now I leave this little hut,

Where my beloved lives,

Walking now with veiled steps

Through the shadowy leaves.

Luna shines through bush and oak,

Zephyr proclaims her path,

And the birch copse bowing low

Shed incense on her rails.

How beautiful the coolness

Of this lovely summer dark!

How the soul fills with happiness

In this true place of placidity!

I can scarcely grasp the elation!

Yet, Sky, I would shun

A thousand nights like this,

If my darling granted ane.

May Song

How sweetly Nature

Brightens round me!

How the sun'south shining!

How the fields gleam!

Blossoms are bursting

From every leaf,

Thousands of voices

From bushes beneath,

And joy and bliss

From every eye.

O Earth, O Sun!

O Joy, O Delight.

O Love, O Love!

And so golden fair,

Like morning clouds

On the hillside there!

Your splendour blesses

The fields so fresh,

The whole wide world

In a blossoming mist.

O Darling, Darling,

How I love you!

How your eyes smooth!

How you dearest too!

And then the lark loves

Singing on high,

And flowers at dawn

The scented heaven,

As I love you

With veins on fire,

Y'all who give me

Youth, Joy, Want

For new dances

New poetry.

Be happy forever,

Equally you dearest me!

Welcome and Farewell

My heart was chirapsia, swiftly to horse!

Faster even than idea it was done.

Already evening cradled earth's course,

And nighttime hung over the mountain cone:

Already the misty oak-tree stood,

A vast giant, towering upwards there,

Where from out the shadowy woods

A hundred night optics seemed to stare.

From a bank of cloud the Moon gazed,

Sadly out of the mist nigh her,

The winds beat soft wings, and strayed

Around my terror-stricken ears:

The night begot a thousand monsters,

Just my spirit was joyful, lively:

Deep within my veins what burn down!

Deep inside my centre what heat!

I saw you, and total measure of elation

Flowed to me from your sweet optics:

I drew for yous my every breath,

My heart was wholly on your side.

Springtime's rose-red glow, it shone

All near your lovely confront, lit

Tenderly for me – dear God!

I had hoped, but not deserved it!

But ah, already at morning light

My heart was crushed in departing:

In your kisses what delight!

In your eyes what suffering!

I went, you stood, looked from above,

And saw me go with tearful gaze:

And still what joy to be loved!

Honey God, to honey what happiness!

The Rose-Bush on The Moor

A lad he saw a rose-bush growing,

Rose-bush on the moor,

Young and lovely as the morn,

Quick he ran to encounter it glowing,

With delight he saw.

Rose-bush, rose-bush-league, rose-bush scarlet,

Rose-bush on the moor.

Said the lad: I'll pick your bloom,

Rose-bush-league on the moor!

Said the rose: 'Ah, I'll prick you,

So you will call back true,

I'll let yous exercise no more.

Rose-bush, rose-bush, rose-bush red,

Rose-bush on the moor.

Then her flower the vicious lad picked,

The rose-bush on the moor:

To protect herself she pricked,

Cried, sighed, in vain, but quickly

Could defend no more than.

Rose-bush-league, rose-bush-league, rose-bush red,

Rose-bush on the moor.

The Violet

A violet in the meadow grew,

Bowed to earth, and hid from view:

Information technology was a beloved sweet violet.

Along came a young shepherdess

Free of heart, and low-cal of step,

Came by, came by,

Singing, through the flowers.

Oh! Idea the violet, were I,

If only for a little while,

Nature'south sweetest flower yet,

Till my Beloved picked me, pressed

Me fainting, dying to her breast!

And so I might prevarication,

There, for but an hr!

Alas! Alas! The daughter went past:

Unseen the violet in the grass,

Was crushed, poor violet.

It drooped and died, and yet information technology cried:

'And though I dice, nevertheless notwithstanding I die

By her, by her,

By her feet passing by.'

The Creative person's Evening Song

Oh, for some inner creative strength

Through my mind, echoing!

That through my hands might grade

A sap-filled blossoming.

I just shudder, I only stutter,

And all the same can't halt: at last,

I feel I know you lot, Nature,

And must concur you fast.

When I think how all these years

My powers have been growing,

And where barren heath appeared

Now streams of joy are flowing:

How I yearn for you, Nature, so,

And long for you, with religion and dear!

For me you lot'll be the leaping fountain,

A thou springs will hurl higher up.

And every single ability

In my heed yous'll heighten,

And this narrow being-hither

To Eternity you'll widen.

New Love, New Life

Center, my center, what can it hateful?

What could problem you then?

What a strange new life, it seems!

You, I no longer know.

Everything you loved is done,

Everything that grieved you,

All your work and peace is gone –

How could this overtake you lot!

Are yous caught by lovely youth

By that beloved course,

By those eyes so good and true,

By that all-powerful force?

When I endeavour to run away,

Collect myself and flee,

In a moment my path strays

Back to her y'all run across.

Past that magic thread, and so

That cannot be untied,

The dearest wanton girl, oh

She holds me fast: and I

Must prevarication within her magic spell

And live where she may go.

How great the change, I tell!

Beloved! Beloved! Let me become!

To Belinda

Oh, why practice y'all draw me, irresistibly,

Into all this magnificence?

Was I not living happy, virtuously,

In midnight's solitariness?

Quietly secluded in my bedroom,

In the moonlight I lay,

Drowned in its shining shower,

Into which I'd devious:

Dreaming of hours, gilt, filled

With unmixed delight,

Your sweet class at present and so distilled

Deep within my mind.

Can it be me that yous imprison

Among all these lights?

Made to agree the insufferable vision

Of faces forever in sight?

The springtime blossom in the meadow

Charms me less by far:

Where you are, Angel, is Love, and Virtue,

Nature is where you are.

'Holde Lili, warst so lang'

Sweetest Lili, for and then long

All my joy and all my song!

Ah, now, all my pain, yet you

Are even so all my singing too.

The Traveller'south Night Song I

Y'all who are from Heaven above

Calming all our pain and sorrow,

Him who'south spirit's doubly hurt,

Renewing, with a double measure.

Oh, I'm weary of life'due south urging!

Why, now, all this joy and hurting?

Sweetest Peace,

Overflowing: oh inundation my heart again!

The Traveller's Night Song Two

Over all the hill-tops

Is Rest,

In all the tree-tops

You tin feel

Scarcely a breath:

The piffling birds quiet in the leaves.

Await now, presently you

As well will take peace.

The Fisherman

The waters hissed, the waters rose,

The Fisherman alongside,

Quietly gazing at his rod,

Cool at heart, inside.

And every bit he listens, equally he sits,

The waters carve up and rise:

Out of the flowing waters hiss

A mermaid meets his eyes.

She sang to him, she spoke to him:

'Why do you lot lure my children

With human art and cunning,

Upwards to their warm extinction?

Ah, if y'all knew how snugly

Little fish live in the deep,

You yourself would join me,

Y'all'd exist happy indeed.

Doesn't the sweet Sun bathe

And the Moon, hither, in the sea?

Prove with the waves they exhale

Faces doubly bright to run into?

Doesn't this heavenly deep,

Lure you, this rain-clear blueish?

Doesn't your own gaze spring

Drawn downwards to eternal dew?'

The water hissed, the water rose

Wetting his naked feet:

His eye so full of yearning, oh,

As if him his Love did greet.

She spoke to him, she sang to him:

All was soon done, and o'er:

She one-half pulling, he half sinking,

And he was seen nevermore.

The ErlKing

Who rides so belatedly through the wind and nighttime?

Information technology's a begetter with his child so light:

He clasps the boy close in his arms,

Holds him fast, and keeps him warm.

'My son, why hibernate your face, all scared? –

'Don't you meet, Father, the Erlking'due south there,

The Alder-Rex with his crown and robe?' –

'My son, it's the trail of mist that flows'. –

'Come, dear child, come along with me!

The games we'll play volition be fine and lovely:

At that place'due south many a bright flower by the water,

Many golden garments has my Female parent.'

'And Begetter, my Father, tin't you hear

What the Erlking's whispering in my ear?' –

'Peace, peace, my child, yous're listening

To those dry leaves rustling in the wind.'-

'Fine lad, won't you come forth with me?

My lovely daughters your slaves shall exist:

My daughters dance every nighttime, and they

Will rock you, sing you, dance you lot away.'

'And Male parent, my Father, can't yous see where

The Erlking's daughters stand shadowy there? –

'My Son, my Son, I can come across them plain:

It'due south the aboriginal Willow-copse shining grey.'

'I dear you, I'm charmed by your lovely form:

And if yous're not willing, I'll accept to apply strength.'

'Father, my Begetter, he'due south gripped me at last!

The Erlking's hurting me, holding me fast! –

The Begetter shudders, faster he rides,

Holding the moaning child so tight,

Reaching the house, in fear and dread:

But in his arms the child lies dead.

'Wer nie sein Brot'

Who has never eaten his bread with tears,

Who has never, through night'southward sorrowful hours,

Sat on his bed and wept with fear,

He knows not you lot, you lot heavenly powers.

You lead u.s. into life, and then

Your Volition leads united states of america on, into sin,

And then you deliver the states to hurting:

On Earth all error'south paid once more.

Mignon

Exercise you know the land where the lemon-trees abound,

In darkened leaves the gilded-oranges glow,

A soft current of air blows from the pure blue sky,

The myrtle stands mute, and the bay tree loftier?

Do yous know it well?

It's there I'd be gone,

To be there with you lot, O, my dear 1!

Do you know the house? It has columns and beams,

In that location are glittering rooms, the hallway gleams,

Are those figures of marble looking at me?

What take they done, kid of misery?

Do you know it well?

It'south there I'd be gone,

To be there, with you, O my true guardian!

Practise you know the clouded mountain mass?

The mule picks its way through the misted pass,

And dragons in caves heighten their aboriginal brood,

And the cliffs are polished, smoothen, by the flood;

Practise you know it well?

Information technology's there I would be gone!

Information technology'southward at that place our mode leads! Father, we must go on!

'Heiss mich nicht redden,'

Bid me be silent, bid me not speak,

Secrecy is a duty to me:

I could reveal my middle complete,

Simply Fate doesn't wish it to be.

In due season, the lord's day'due south bright path

Drives the night away, the light must smoothen:

The hard stone opens its chest at last

And yields Earth water from subconscious mines.

Every homo seeks remainder in a love friend'due south arms,

Where the heart tin can express its inner hurting:

Merely my lips are sealed by secret charms,

And none simply a god can part them over again.

'Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt'

Only the Yearning, they

Know what I suffer!

Lone, and far away

From all joy severed,

Seeing the sky always

On every side.

Who love me and know me, they

Distantly hide.

I'm dizzied: I'm burned, all solar day

Inwardly shudder.

Merely the Yearning, they

Know what I suffer!

To The Moon (Final Version)

Bushes, valleys, silently,

You make full with misty lite,

Easing my soul utterly

Again, at last, at night:

Soothingly you cast your gaze

Over a night state,

As gentle and friendly optics

Guard my destiny.

Glad, and troubled, times

Echo in my eye,

I walk between pain and delight,

In solitude, apart.

Menses on, beloved flood: menstruum on!

I'll never know joy over again,

Laughter and kisses, both are gone,

And loyalty flows away.

At that place was a time I had every bit even so

Life'south virtually precious affair!

Ah, a homo tin never forget

That which torments him!

River, through the valley, murmur,

Without residue or peace,

For my singing, gently whisper,

Murmuring melodies,

When you rage on winter nights

And so overflow,

Or when around the Spring's delights

Of bursting buds, you get.

Happy are we if, without hate,

Subconscious from the globe,

We hold a friend to our heart

And with him explore

What, unknown to all their fine art,

Ignored, by all flesh,

Through the labyrinth of the heart

Wanders in the nighttime.

Vocal Of The Spirits Over The H2o

Scene from Byron's "Manfred" - Thomas Cole (American 1801 – 1848), Yale University Art Gallery

Listen to Matt Arnett's setting of this verse form to piano with female person vocalists:

The spirit of Homo

Resembles water:

Coming from sky,

Ascent to heaven,

And hither and thither,

To Earth must then

Ever descend.

It leaps from the heights

Of the sheer cliff,

In a pure stream,

So rises sweetly

In clouds of spray

Against smoothen rock,

And lightly received

Flows similar a veil

Streaming softly

To depths beneath.

When the sheer rocks

Hinder its fall,

It foams angrily

Flowing stepwise

Into the void.

Along its flat bed

It wanders the vale,

And on the calm lake

All the vivid stars

Gaze at their faces.

Wind is the water's

Sweetness lover:

Current of air stirs up foaming

Waves from the deep.

Spirit of Human

How like water y'all are!

Man's fate, oh,

How like the air current!

To Charlotte Von Stein

Fate, why did you grant us this depth

Of insightful vision into our hereafter,

So that our love, earthly happiness,

Is a thing nosotros can trust in happily never?

Why did you lot grant the states such intuition,

Such ability to know each other's heart,

To encounter, amid life's scattered throng,

The true relationship where we are?

Oh, many thousands of us migrate dumbly

Through life, our hearts scarcely known,

Floating here and there, and aimlessly

Fleeing unexpected hurting, without promise:

Rejoicing again, at the unexpected

Morning radiance of swift delight:

Only we 2, honey-filled, wretched

Souls are denied that mutual light

Of loving without knowing one another,

Of seeing in each what each never was,

Setting out anew towards the Dream Lover,

Faltering at phantom Danger's form.

Happy those an empty dream preoccupies,

Happy those whose presentiments bear witness vain!

Our every meeting, every mutual sight

Sadly confirms our presentiments, our dream.

Tell me, what does Fate intend for united states of america?

Say, how it bound us then strictly, purely?

Oh, in some far off time you must

Have been my wife, been a sister to me.

Yous knew every characteristic of my being,

Saw the purest tremor of each nerve,

With a single glance you could read me,

Hard as I am for mortal center to pierce:

You brought at-home to my heated blood,

Guiding my wild and wandering class,

And in your arms, an angel's arms, I could

Residual as my ravaged centre was restored.

You jump your lover fast with magic ease,

And made many a 24-hour interval pass gloriously.

What happiness could compare with these

Hours of rapture, thankful at your feet,

Feeling his middle flow towards your eye,

Feeling himself virtuous in your sight,

All his senses brightened past your art,

The raging blood in his veins grown quiet?

And, of all of that, simply a drifting memory

Is left, round his uncertain centre over again.

He feels the old truth inside, eternally,

While this new state only brings him pain.

And nosotros seem to ourselves merely half alive,

The brightest day is twilight all effectually.

Happy are we that Fate torments our lives,

Yet can change nothing of what nosotros institute.

'Du bist mein und bist and so zierlich,'

You're mine and and then overnice,

You're mine and so mannerly,

All the same still though y'all lack something:

You kiss now with such pointed lips,

Similar a dove, when drinking it sips:

You're really too dainty a thing.

Measuring Time

Eros, what have nosotros hither! An hourglass in each of your hands!

What? Frivolous god, are you doubly measuring time?

'The hours of lovers apart flow slowly through i:

For lovers together the hours through the second i fly.'

Anacreon's Grave

Here where roses bloom, where laurel and vine both mingle,

Where the turtledove coos, where the cricket sings in delight,

What grave is this that the gods have adorned and planted,

With living beauty? It'due south where Anacreon rests.

The happy poet enjoyed bound, summertime and autumn:

And this mound, at last, from winter is sheltering him.

Roman Elegies I

Tell me you stones, O speak, you towering palaces!

Streets, say a give-and-take! Spirit of this place, are you dumb?

All things are alive in your sacred walls

Eternal Rome, information technology's merely for me all is still.

Who'll whisper to me, at what window

Will I see the sugariness thing who'll kindle me now, and quicken?

Already I estimate the means, walking to her and from her,

Ever and always I'll become, while sweet time slips by.

I'g gazing at church building and palace, ruin and column,

Like a serious man making sensible use of a journey,

But soon it will happen, and all will exist ane vast temple,

Love's temple, receiving its new initiate.

Though you lot're a whole world, Rome, notwithstanding, without Love,

The world isn't the world, and Rome tin't be Rome.

Roman Elegies Two (Offset Version)

Inquire at present, whoever yous wish, you can't attain me,

Lovely Ladies, and yous, fine Men of the World!

Did Werther actually live? Was it really similar that?

Which town can truly claim Lotte as resident?

Ah, how often I've cursed those foolish pages,

That showed my youthful sufferings to everyone!

If Werther had been my brother, and I'd killed him,

His sad ghost could hardly have persecuted me more than.

So Malbrouk persecuted the British traveller

From Paris to Leghorn, then from Leghorn to Rome,

Then downwards to Naples, and if he'd sailed to Madras

There likewise the harbour would have been filled with the song.

Luckily I've escaped! She'due south barely heard of Lotte

Or Werther, or knows the name of this homo of hers.

She sees in him a gratis, and vigorous stranger,

Who lives among mountains and snowfall, in a wooden house.

Roman Elegies Iii

Honey, don't fret that you gave yourself so speedily!

Believe me, I don't think badly or wrongly of you.

The arrows of Love are various: some scratch the states,

And our hearts suffer for years from their slow poison.

Simply others potent-feathered with freshly sharpened points

Pierce to the marrow, and speedily inflame the claret.

In the heroic ages, when gods and goddesses loved,

Desire followed a look, and joy followed desire.

Do you lot recall the Goddess of Love was calm for long

Once Anchises attracted her in the groves of Ida?

If Luna had waited to kiss her beautiful sleeper,

Ah, and then envious Dawn would have woken him swiftly.

Hero saw her Leander at a loud feast, at once

Her hot lover leapt out into the midnight overflowing.

Rhea Silvia the royal maiden went to the Tiber

To draw h2o, and the God captured her at that place.

And then Mars conceived his sons! – And so a she-wolf

Suckled twins, and then Rome became Queen of the Earth.

Roman Elegies V

I experience I'm happily inspired now on Classical soil:

The Past and Nowadays speak louder, more charmingly.

Hither, as advised, I foliage through the works of the Ancients

With decorated easily, and, each solar day, with fresh delight.

Only at night Dearest keeps me busy some other mode:

I become one-half a scholar just twice as contented.

And am I not learning, studying the shape

Of her lovely breasts: her hips guiding my hand?

Then I know marble more: thinking, comparing,

See with a feeling heart: experience with a seeing hand.

If my darling is stealing the twenty-four hour period's hours from me,

She gives me hours of night in compensation.

We're non always kissing: nosotros frequently talk sense:

When she'due south asleep, I lie there filled with thought.

Ofttimes I've even made poesy there in her arms,

Counted hexameters gently there on my fingers

Over her body. She breathes in sweetest slumber,

And her breath burns downward to my deepest heart.

Amor trims the lamp then and thinks of the times

When he did the same for his 3 poets of love.

Roman Elegies VII

Oh, how happy I am in Rome, remembering the times

When grayness days clung to me, dorsum there in the North,

The sky was dark and weighed heavily on my caput,

The globe around me colourless, formless, dull,

And I'd sink to heart-searching over myself, trying to see

Down the gloomy paths of my discontented spirit.

At present the glow of brighter air shines round my forehead:

Phoebus, the god, calls up colour and form.

The nighttime shines bright with stars, echoes with gentle song,

And the Moon shines clearer to me than Northern mean solar day.

What happiness for a mortal! Do I dream? Does your

Ambrosial palace, Father Jupiter, receive its guest?

Ah, hither I lie, to your knees extending imploring

Hands. Oh hear me, Jupiter, the Lord of Guests!

How I reached hither, I don't know: Hebe claimed

The wanderer, and has fatigued me to these halls.

Did you command her to become and fetch a hero?

Did Beauty err? Pardon her! Let mistake help me!

Your daughter Fortune, too! She hands out noblest

Gifts, like the girl she is, as the mood might take her.

Aren't you the God of hosts? Oh then don't hurl

Your guest downwardly to World from Olympus again!

'Poet, where are you climbing to?' – Forgive me:

The high Capitoline Loma's your second Olympus.

Take me here, Jupiter, later let Hermes lead me,

Quietly, by Cestius' Pyramid, downwardly to Orcus.

Roman Elegies Thirteen

Amor is still a rogue: if you trust he'll beguile you!

The hypocrite came and said: 'Trust me again this once.

I mean well by you: you accept, I know and I'm grateful,

Dedicated your life and poetry to my worship.

Expect, I've even followed you to Rome! And I'd like

To practice yous a service of sorts in these strange fields.

Travellers always complain hospitality'due south poor:

With Love's recommendation information technology proves first grade.

You're gazing at present in wonder at ancient ruins,

Sensibly wandering round this sacred place,

Yous revere even more all the works that remain

Past rare artists, whose workshops I frequented.

I created these forms myself! This time, forgive me,

I don't avowal: you'll confess what I say is truthful.

Now you serve me idly where are the lovely forms,

Where are the colours and light of your inventions?

Do yous wish to create, my Friend? The Greek school

Is still open, the years haven't airtight its doors.

I, the instructor, am ever young: and dear youth.

I don't like aged cunning! Listen at present, wait alive!

When those happy ones lived the ancient was new!

Alive happily, and the by volition exist living, in yous!

Where are the themes for your vocal? I'll grant them,

You'll merely learn of the highest style from Honey,'

So spoke the Sophist. Who could argue with him?

And alas I follow orders when the master commands. –

Now the traitor is keeping his word, granting a theme,

Ah, and robbing me too of sense, and fourth dimension and strength:

A loving pair clasp hands, are exchanging glances:

Appreciating tones: and words of precious meaning.

Hither lisping is conversation, stammering sweet speech:

A hymn similar this rises without poetry or metre.

Say how I constitute you, once, Dawn, the Muses' friend!

Aurora, has Amor, the wanton, seduced y'all too?

You lot appear to me now as his friend, and wake me

To a day of feasting again before his Altar.

I discover the wealth of her hair over my chest!

Her hand weighs on the arm that cradles her cervix.

How gladly I wake to detect that the peaceful hours

Show traces of the desire that lulled us to sleep! –

She moves in her sleep, sinks downwardly in the wide bed,

Turns from me, and yet nevertheless leaves her hand in mine.

True longing and heartfelt beloved demark us forever,

And just our passion retains its right to vary.

A touch of my hand, and I'll run into those heavenly optics

Open over again. – No! Let me take rest in her Class!

Don't open! You'll make me drunk, confused, snatch me

Too before long from the calm pleasure of pure Beholding.

Her shape, how fine! Her limbs how nobly formed!

If Ariadne, asleep, was and so off-white: Theseus how could you lot go?

Just ane kiss on those lips! O Theseus, can you leave at present!

Gaze in her eyes! She wakes! – She holds y'all fast for ever.

Roman Elegies XVII

Many sounds annoy me, but still the one I hate most

Is the barking of dogs: and their ear-splitting yelps.

There's merely one dog whose yelp and bawl can make full me

With pleasance: the dog my neighbour has reared.

He one time barked at my sweetheart, when she crept here

On the quiet, and he near betrayed our surreptitious.

Now, hearing him bark, I always think: she's here!

Or think the fourth dimension when I waited, and she came.

Roman Elegies XX

Strength, generosity, courage become a human being,

Ah, simply deepest reticence becomes him more.

Discretion, conqueror of cities, ruler of men,

Beloved goddess who led me safely through life,

What a fate is mine! The laughing Muse, and Amor,

That rogue, both are unlocking my sealed oral fissure.

Ah, already the Male monarch's shame'due south harder to hide!

Neither a crown nor a Phrygian cap can conceal

Midas' long ears: his closest retainer has seen,

And at once the hole-and-corner weighs heavily on his chest.

He'd gladly bury it deep, then find release:

But Earth refuses to guard such secrets as these.

Reeds bound up, and rustle and lisp in the air current:

'Midas, Midas the King, he'southward grown long ears!'

Now besides I'one thousand finding it harder to keep a sweet secret:

Ah, how apace the centre's fullness flows from the lips!

In that location's no friend I tin trust: she might scold me:

No man either: he might be a unsafe rival.

And I'thousand non solitary enough, or so total of youth,

As to confide in the forest or the echoing cliffs.

Hexameter, and Pentameter, I'll tell it to y'all,

How she delights me past day and enchants me by nighttime.

Pursued by hosts of men, she avoids the snares

The impudent bold, and the secretly cunning, lay:

Cleverly, daintily, she slips by, knowing the path

Where her eagerly listening lover waits for her.

Stay, Luna, she comes! Don't permit the neighbours see:

Rustle, breeze, in the trees! Then no i hears her step.

And you grow and flower, my beloved songs,

And sway in the gentlest breath of the loving air,

Reveal to the Romans, like those gossiping reeds,

The lovely secret at last of this happy pair.

The Nearness of the Love

I think of you, when I lookout man the sunlight glimmer

Over the sea:

I think of you, when the moonbeams shimmer

Over the stream.

I see y'all there, when the dust swirls high

On the far road,

When the traveller shivers, in deepest night,

As it narrows.

I hear you lot, when with a wearisome roaring

The waters rise.

Often in silent groves I go walking

When all is tranquillity.

I stay with you, nonetheless far you are,

To me you're near!

The sunday sets: soon in a higher place me are the stars.

Would you were here!

Venetian Epigrams I

Sarcophagi, urns, were all covered with lifelike scenes,

Fauns dancing with girls from a Bacchanalian choir,

Paired-off, caprine animal-footed creatures puffing their cheeks,

Forcing ear-splitting notes from blaring horns.

Cymbals and drumbeats, the marble is seen and heard.

How delightful the fruit in the beaks of fluttering birds!

No startling dissonance can scare them, or scare abroad love,

Amor, whose torch waves more gladly in this happy throng.

And then fullness overcomes death, and the ashes within

Seem still, in their silent house, to feel love'south delight.

And then may the Poet's sarcophagus be adorned,

With this book the author has filled with the beauty of life.

Venetian Epigrams XXVII

All 9 oft used to come to me, I hateful the Muses:

Simply I ignored them: my girl was in my arms.

Now I've left my sweetheart: and they've left me,

And I gyre my eyes, seeking a knife or rope.

Only Heaven is total of gods: You came to aid me:

Greetings, Boredom, mother of the Muse.

Venetian Epigrams XCVI

I saw the body of water gleam, and the sweetness waves glitter:

Lively sails crossing it, with a following wind.

My heart felt no desire: my languishing gaze

Soon turned back again towards mountains and snow.

How many treasures prevarication Southward! Nonetheless one in the Due north

Like a peachy magnet draws me irresistibly back.

Venetian Epigrams CIII

And so, far from all joys, I trifled away

My days and hours in the Metropolis of Neptune.

All I found I seasoned with sweet Memory,

And with Hope: the world'south loveliest savours.

Permanence In Change

If only this early blessing

Could last a single hour!

But the warm west wind is shaking

Over me a rain of flowers.

Shall I take pleasure in the leaves

Whose shade I one time enjoyed?

Soon a storm will scatter sheaves

Through autumn's trembling void.

If you want to grasp the fruit and so,

Hurry now and take your share!

Some of it's begun to ripen,

Some is germinating there:

Swiftly and with every shower

At that place's change along the valley'south rim,

Alas, in the selfsame river

A second fourth dimension you cannot swim.

You yourself besides! What was continuing

Business firm as rock earlier your sight,

Wall and Palace, now you're seeing

With ever-irresolute optics.

Wasted now are those lips

Kisses healed one time long agone

And the anxiety now that skipped

On cliffs like mountain goats'.

And the paw that gently moved,

That articulated construction,

Generously, to benefit,

Shows a different nature.

And what now in their place

Calls itself by your proper noun,

To the elements in haste

Flows like water, as it came.

Permit the terminate and the showtime

Gather themselves into one!

Permit your ain self go flight

Swifter than all these objects can!

Give thanks that the Muses' art

Promises one unfading affair,

The Pregnant in your Center,

And the Form in your Being.

Provision for the Journey

I was to exist weaned from the lite of her eyes,

They were to beautify my life no longer.

What men call Fate, inexorable forever,

I know information technology well: I stepped back in fright.

Now I'd know no other happiness either.

I began at one time to wean myself from you lot,

And you, you necessary Things, you as well:

Zero seemed necessary but that gaze of hers.

Vino'south glow, food's enjoyment, sleep

Comfort and friends, and other delights,

I denied: there was fiddling left to remove.

Now I can travel through the world at ease:

Whatsoever I need's to be found on every side,

And I bring the indispensable with me – Dear.

Early Spring

Days of please

Are you about here?

Bringing the sunlight

Hills and woods near?

Oh, and the streams

Richer in catamenia.

Is this the valley?

This the meadow?

How bluish now and fresh!

Heaven and height!

The bright gilded fish

In the lake's nighttime.

Rainbows of feathers

Rustle the leaves:

Celestial songs, where

Echo deceives.

Under the greenery's

Blossoming powers,

The buzzing of bees

Sipping the flowers.

A gentle movement

Trembling in air,

Sleep-bringing smell

Loveliest stir.

Soon there's a greater

Strength to the breeze,

Yet it is lost there,

Now, in the trees.

But back to the heart

It's carried again.

Muses, help me with art,

To suffer joy's pain!

Since yesterday say, here,

What's happened to me?

My Beloved Sisters,

The Love I see!

May Song

Between wheat-field and corn,

Between hedgerow and thorn,

Betwixt grasses and tree,

Where'south my darling?

Tell it me!

I know my darling

She's not at habitation:

My precious thing

Wishes to roam.

May is shining,

Blossoming, green,

There goes my darling

Happy and free.

Nigh the stone, past the beck,

Where her kisses I took,

That starting time fourth dimension in the leaves,

What practise I meet!

Could information technology be?

Nighttime Song

Oh, on your soft pillow

Dreaming now, half-hear!

In my music's echo

Sleep! What would you lot more?

In my music's echo

The starry host appear,

Eternal feelings, anoint, at present:

Slumber! What would you more?

Eternal feelings, bless, now,

Lift me college and higher,

From all earthly beings: oh,

Slumber! What would you lot more?

From all earthly beings, oh,

Yous carry me, now, and so far,

Enchanted by the absurd flow:

Sleep! What would yous more?

Enchanted by the cool flow,

Dreaming now, you hear.

Ah, on your soft pillow,

Sleep! What would you more?

The New Copernicus

I have a house, a little one,

And subconscious there inside

I'm screened quite nicely from the sun,

And the burning light.

For there are tiny windows,

Latches, shutters there,

Alone I am every bit happy

Every bit with a pretty girl.

Since, O wonder! Just for me

The forest moves about,

And the farthest land

Comes nearer to my heart.

And the wooded hills as well

They come up dancing by:

The only thing that's missing

Is the merry dwarf'south wild weep.

Yet so completely tranquillity and hushful

It rushes past me there,

Sometimes straight, and often curved,

And that'due south what I prefer.

If I choose to wait more than closely, till

All's carefully considered,

Perhaps these things are standing still –

And I myself accept travelled.

Always and Everywhere

Penetrate deep mountain caverns,

Follow clouds towards the heavens:

Muses telephone call, to stream and valley,

Many a thousand times, oh, many.

Equally soon as fresh flowers meet the eye,

New songs our efforts earn:

And though fleeting time goes past,

The seasons they return.

March

Look, it'south snowed for hours,

The time is not yet right,

For all the little flowers,

For all the picayune flowers,

To fill our hearts with light.

The sunlight is deceiving,

Mild merely false information technology shone,

Fifty-fifty the swallow'due south adulterous,

Even the swallow'due south cheating,

Why? He comes alone!

Alone, could I be happy

Even though spring is near?

But if yous were with me,

Only if yous were with me,

Suddenly summer'south there.

April

Eyes tell, tell me, what you tell me,

Telling something all as well sweet,

Making music out of beauty,

With a question hidden deep.

Withal I think I know your pregnant,

There behind your pupils' effulgence,

Beloved and truth are your middle's lightness,

That, instead of its own gleaming,

Would so truly similar to greet,

In a globe of dullness, blindness,

1 true look of human kindness,

Where two kindred spirits meet.

And since I'1000 lost, in what entrances,

Studying those mysteries,

Eyes, may you be drawn to run across,

The intention in my glances!

Verse and Class

Permit the Greek mould his clay

To the forms he'southward planned,

And accept increasing pleasure

In the product of his hands:

But to the states it's blissful when

We clutch at the Euphrates,

And in the flowing element,

Swish to and fro, with ease.

Quenching, and so, my burning soul,

I'll utter what I feel:

Gathered in the poet's pure paw

The waters will congeal.

Beatific Yearning

(From the West-Eastern Divan)

Tell it no one just the wise,

The crowd volition but jeer:

The living thing I praise,

That longs for death by fire.

Cooling, in those nights of love,

Conceiving equally you were conceived,

A strange emotion fills you

While the quiet candle gleams.

You're no longer in the grasp

Of shadows, concealment,

A new desire lifts yous up

On to a higher mating.

No distances can weigh yous down,

Enchanted yous come flying,

And greedy for the lite, at last,

A moth, you burn in dying.

And as long as you lack this

Truthful word: Die and Get!

You lot'll be just a dismal guest

In Globe'south darkened room.

Dark of the Total Moon

(From the Due west-Eastern Divan)

Lady, say, what practise y'all whisper?

What so softly moves your lips?

To yourself y'all're murmuring,

Sweeter than the wine in sips!

Would you call up to those twin sisters

To summon up another twin?

'I would kiss! Would kiss! I say.'

Wait! In the uncertain eve

Every branch is glowing, flowering,

Star is shining downward on star:

And a thousand gems are glowing

Emerald throughout the leaves:

Yet your spirit travels far.

'I would osculation! Would kiss! I say.'

Your beloved, feels likewise

The bloodshot, far afar at present,

Filled with a sorry happiness.

You both swore a sacred vow,

To greet each other at the rise

Of the full moon, which it is.

'I would osculation! Would kiss! I say.'

At Midnight's Hour

At midnight's hr I'd go, unwillingly,

Past the Church, a footling tiny male child

To the priest'south, my father's house: how beautifully

Star on star shone there in the sky:

At midnight's hour.

And when afterward in my life, I must

Go to my beloved, must, drawn past her heart,

The stars and northern lights warred above,

Coming and going, I breathed my delight:

At midnight's hour.

Till finally the full Moon'due south radiance

And then bright and articulate overflowed my night,

And swift willing Idea'southward meaning glance,

Swallowed past and future in its low-cal:

At midnight's hr.

A Trilogy of Passion

To Werther

In one case more you venture, much-lamented Shadow,

Into the open up light of day,

Encountering me in freshly flowering meadows,

Unembarrassed now by my gaze.

It's as if yous re-lived that former season,

When we two were refreshed by the same field's dew,

When later on the 24-hour interval's unwelcome exertions,

The setting dominicus's concluding rays gave pleasure too:

I blighted to remain, and you to vanish,

Yous went before – missed little at the finish.

Human life seems a pleasant fate:

The day so sweet, and the night so cracking!

And, in an enchanted Paradise, set down,

We've deficient begun to savor the heavenly sun,

When all at once our own confused effort

Conflicts with our ain self, and then the other:

Nothing is complementary, every bit we'd wish,

It darkens exterior when inside information technology's bliss,

A brilliant outside's hidden from our gaze,

Joy is almost – withal no one knows its confront.

Now we call back we've grasped information technology! With its power

A adult female's seductive shape fills the hr:

A swain, happy, in the flower of youth,

Steps out, in Leap, and is the Bound, in truth,

Delighted, wondering, who accomplished this thing?

He looks effectually – the globe'due south a gift to him.

Some jerky impulse draws him swiftly on,

And neither wall nor palace block his vision:

Like the birds that skim the wooded peaks,

He hovers, and effectually his love he sweeps,

Gear up to dive downwardly from the sky to find

Her loving glance, so information technology closely binds.

But starting time also early, then too tardily prepared

He feels his flight hemmed in: himself ensnared.

To see her is a joy, to role is pain,

A greater joy to run into her withal again,

A unmarried glance repays the years past:

But a harsh Farewell waits at the terminal.

You smiling, my Friend, with feeling, every bit is right:

A fearsome parting made your name smoothen brilliant:

To your misfortune'southward wretchedness nosotros're kind,

For better or worse, you left us all backside.

And we were drawn uncertainly over again

Down all of passion's labyrinthine ways:

And for the states there's anguish with each breath,

So, at concluding, the parting – which is a death!

How sweet it sounds, when the poet sings,

Evading the true death that parting brings!

Entangled in these torments, half to blame,

May some god give them power to speak their pain.

Elegie

And, if Flesh in torment's dumb, again

May some god requite me ability to speak my pain.

What can I promise for now from this fresh meeting,

From this day's even so tightly unopened bloom?

Paradise and Hell open up to me in greeting:

What hesitation rules my inward ability! –

No further doubt! She'due south there at Sky'due south door,

And one is gathered in her arms again.

So one was received in Paradise again,

As if worthy of life's dazzler there forever:

No wish, no hope, no longing still remained,

Hither was the goal of innermost desire,

And in that vision of unique loveliness

At once the fount of yearning tears grew less.

How piffling Mean solar day restrained his swift-beating wings,

And seemed to drive the minutes there earlier him!

A closely binding seal, the kiss at evening:

So at the next day's dawn it would remain.

The hours too softly post-obit each other,

Like sisters, but no one quite like some other.

The kiss, the final, cruelly sweet, at present fierce

The glorious cyberspace of intertwined desires.

The foot now flees the threshold, swift, then unpleasing,

Equally if a Cherub drove it thence with fires.

The eye frustrated sees the path is darkened,

It looks behind, and at present the gate is fastened.

And now within itself the heart'south imprisoned

Every bit if it had never opened out: unknown

Those blessed hours beside her, when it shone

Equally brilliant as all the stars the heavens showed:

And remorse, reproach, and irritation, care

Counterbalance it downward beneath the oppressive air.

Isn't the world in that location notwithstanding? Are the rocky heights

No longer crowned with all their holy shadow?

Doesn't the harvest ripen? The countryside

Still prevarication, green leaves and fields, where rivers flow?

And doesn't the overarching vastness fill up

With hosts of forms, elimination itself, still?

How light and dainty, clearly, tenderly formed

Through the stern choir of clouds, similar a Seraph,

A slender shape, as if information technology were her shape, soars

Fabricated of bright mists, through the blueish sky above!

So you saw her, move happily in the trip the light fantastic,

The loveliest of those sweetness forms that archway.

Only for no more than a moment do you lot dare

Hold an ethereal prototype fast in her place:

Return to your eye! Much more hands there

You lot'll find her, there she moves in changing shapes:

Though she'due south One, the Many you detect,

Grand-fold and e'er, ever dearer.

How she waited at the gate to welcome me,

And delighted me, from then on, step by step,

And still subsequently the terminal kiss ran later me,

To press the concluding kiss of all to my lips:

This image of the Love, and then quick and clear,

Is written on my heart, in peppery letters in that location.

On my heart, that firm as a towering wall,

Holds itself for her, and her within itself,

That joys, for her sake, in being hither at all,

Knows itself only when she reveals herself,

Feels itself freer in such beloved bonds,

And just beats for her, for all, in cheers.

Its ability to honey, its demand for dear in return

Had been consumed and vanished completely,

Only I establish the glad impulse to hope again,

To make decisions, and take activeness swiftly!

If e'er Love inspired a lover, then see,

It achieved information technology most delightfully with me:

And that was through her! – How unwelcome

The weight of inner care on my listen and body:

Images of dread, surrounding my gaze, loom

Through the eye's wasteland, anxious and empty:

Now hope dawns beyond the familiar sill,

In gentle sunlight she shines, herself, still.

To God's peace that down here – we learn –

Brings a blessedness that passes understanding,

The tranquil peace of Love I would compare,

In the presence of the object of our loving:

Then the heart rests and nothing can disturb

The deepest sense: the sense of being hers.

An impulse rises in the eye's clear depths,

To give ourselves freely, and gratefully,

And then entering into the eternally nameless,

To something higher, purer, unknown, entirely:

It's piety, nosotros say! – When I stand before her

Information technology's this loftier blessedness that I seem to share.

Before her gaze, as earlier the sun's strength,

Earlier her breath, equally before the spring breeze,

Cocky-regard, for so long frozen, thaws

And melts abroad within its wintry deeps:

No self-interest, no cocky-will remains,

At her coming they dissolve again.

It'south as if she said: 'Hour past kindly hour,

Life is offered to us, even though

Our yesterdays get out trivial trace, and our

Tomorrows – we are non allowed to know:

And if e'er I shrank from the evening, sad,

The sun still set on sights that made me glad.

Practice as I do, and expect the Moment in the eye,

With joy and agreement! No evasion!

Run across it with goodwill, swiftly as it flies,

Whether in Dear's pleasures or in action.

Exist only where you are, be artless ever,

You'll then be all things, be defeated never.'

I thought: you may well say and then: for companion

Some god granted yous the Moment'southward grace,

In your sweet presence surely every human

At in one case feels he'due south the favourite of fate:

But I fear a sign, that takes me from you lot –

To learn such noble wisdom, what's the use!

Now I am far! The nowadays minute at present,

What does information technology ask? I take no fashion to see:

It has many good and lovely things to bear witness,

They're only burdens I must cast from me.

I'm driven on by an unyielding yearning:

No counsel left, but only tears unending.

Menstruum on then, tears, and menstruation unquenchably:

Though you could never quench the inner fire!

Already my heart is torn by trigger-happy frenzy,

By life and death struggles, hideous want.

There may be herbs to heal the torso's pain,

Merely the spirit fails to volition or act again,

Fails to grasp: how tin I live without her?

Imagining her shape a thousand ways.

Now indistinct at present radiantly clear,

Now slow to grade, now swiftly snatched away.

What slightest comfort could this e'er bring,

This ebb and period, this coming and this going?

Loyal comrades, leave me in this place!

Exit me solitary with marsh and mossy stone:

Go ever onwards! Earth gives yous the space,

The world is wide, the sky's angelic zone:

Search and consider, its details bring together,

And slowly spell out the mysteries of Nature.

All'southward lost to me, myself too I've lost,

I who was once the darling of the gods:

They tested me: they gave me Pandora's box,

Full of blessings, fuller of danger'southward cost:

To their bountiful lips, then they pressed me,

They function me from them, at present, and destroy me.

Reconciliation

Passion brings hurting! – Who volition soothe y'all,

Troubled heart that has lost so, lost completely?

Where are the hours that all as well swiftly flew?

In vain were you granted a sight of Dazzler!

The spirit is overcast: purposes confused:

How the globe's splendour fades from our view!

But music soars aloft at present on angel's wings,

Millions of notes on notes are intertwined,

Piercing through and through all mortal being,

Eternal beauty flows now through the listen:

The eyes are dim, and filled with highest yearning,

The divine ability of tears, and music'southward singing.

Then the middle is eased, and in one case more feels

It lives and throbs, must go on throbbing,

And in pure thank you a willing offering yields,

Of self, in kind, for this so generous giving.

So it is felt – that it might last forever! –

The double joy of love, and music's singing.

From the Chinese-German Book of Hours and Seasons

I

White as lilies, purest candles

Similar the stars, now gently bowing,

Red-rimmed from their hearts' centres

Radiance of affection glowing.

Then the primeval Narcissi

Bloom in garden rows, and mayhap

In their goodness they know why

And for whom they're neatly waiting.

II

Twilight sinks down from above the states,

Swiftly all the near is far:

But kickoff shining high above us

Radiant is the evening star!

Everything is globe-trotting vaguely,

Mist steals up to the height:

And the still lake mirrors darkly

Black abysses of the night.

Now in all the eastern distance

I doubtable moon's gleam and glow,

Slender willow's trailing branches

Dally with the neighbouring flow.

Through the play of moving shadows

Trembling lunar magic shines,

And a soothing coolness follows,

To the eye now, through the eyes.

To the Full Moon Rising

Are you leaving me already?

Only now, you were so near!

Deject-mass shadows you, I see,

And y'all're no longer here.

Nonetheless you feel how sad I am,

Your rim still shines, a star!

Telling me how loved I am,

Though my Honey'southward far.

So pursue, at present! Brighter, brighter,

Purer means, with greater low-cal!

Though my center in pain beats faster,

More than blessed is the Night.

The Matrimonial

At midnight's hour I slept, waking in my breast

My love-filled eye, equally though it were notwithstanding solar day:

Daylight came: to me, it still seemed night at all-time –

What's day to me, whatsoever gifts information technology makes?

She'll not be in that location! Information technology was for her sake only,

I worked and strived through all the fiery hoard

Of called-for hours: and then in the cool evening,

Was so refreshed! That was my true reward.

The dominicus ready, twined together mitt in hand

We greeted the last sacred gleam of light,

And eye with articulate middle met, to sympathise:

Hope, nonetheless: for from the Eastward dawn rises brilliant.

At midnight'south 60 minutes the shining stars directly me

In sweetness dream to the threshold where she lies.

For me also may a resting-place exist ready!

Whatever it may be, it is good, this Life.

Legacy

(For Marianne von Willemer)

To the eyes of my Beloved,

To her fingers that prepared them –

Once with such a burning longing

And so awaited, and received, then –

To the heart from which they flowed,

Shall these letters in one case more become,

Fix ever to remember,

The most perfect time of all.

---

Index of First Lines

• Now I get out this trivial hut,
• How sweetly Nature
• My heart was beating, swiftly to horse!
• A lad he saw a rose-bush growing,
• A violet in the meadow grew,
• Oh, for some inner creative strength
• Center, my heart, what tin information technology mean?
• Oh, why exercise you draw me, irresistibly,
• Y'all who are from Sky in a higher place
• Over all the colina-tops
• The waters hissed, the waters rose,
• Who rides and then late through the wind and dark?
• Who has never eaten his breadstuff with tears,
• Do you know the land where the lemon-trees abound,
• Bid me be silent, bid me not speak,
• Only the Yearning, they
• Bushes, valleys, silently,
• The spirit of Human being
• Fate, why did you grant us this depth
• You're mine and and so dainty,
• Eros, what have nosotros hither! An hourglass in each of your hands!
• Hither where roses bloom, where laurel and vine both mingle,
• Tell me you stones, O speak, yous towering palaces!
• Ask at present, whoever you lot wish, y'all can't reach me,
• Beloved, don't fret that you gave yourself so quickly!
• I experience I'grand happily inspired at present on Classical soil:
• Oh, how happy I am in Rome, remembering the times
• Amor is yet a rogue: if you trust he'll betray you!
• Many sounds badger me, simply still the one I hate most
• Strength, generosity, courage become a man,
• I call up of you, when I scout the sunlight glimmer
• Sarcophagi, urns, were all covered with lifelike scenes,
• All Nine often used to come up to me, I mean the Muses:
• I saw the body of water gleam, and the sweet waves glitter:
• I was to be weaned from the light of her eyes,
• Days of delight
• Between wheat-field and corn,
• Oh, on your soft pillow
• I have a house, a trivial one,
• Penetrate deep mountain caverns,
• Await, it's snowed for hours,
• Eyes tell, tell me, what you tell me,
• Let the Greek mould his dirt
• Tell it no one but the wise,
• Lady, say, what do y'all whisper?
• At midnight's hour I'd go, unwillingly,
• Once more than you venture, much-lamented Shadow,
• White equally lilies, purest candles
• Twilight sinks down from above us,
• Are you leaving me already?
• At midnight'southward hour I slept, waking in my breast
• To the eyes of my Beloved,
• To her fingers that prepared them –
• Once with such a burning longing

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Source: https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/German/Goethepoems.php

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