The Poems of Goethe Part 17

Oh earth!--oh sunlight!

Oh rapture blest!

Oh love! oh loved one!

As golden bright, As clouds of morning

On yonder height!

Thou blessest gladly

The smiling field,-- The world in fragrant

Vapour conceal'd.

Oh maiden, maiden,

How love I thee!

Thine eye, how gleams it!

How lov'st thou me!

The blithe lark loveth

Sweet song and air, The morning flow'ret

Heav'n's incense fair,

As I now love thee

With fond desire, For thou dost give me

Youth, joy, and fire,

For new-born dances

And minstrelsy.

Be ever happy,

As thou lov'st me!

1775.*

----- WITH A PAINTED RIBBON.

LITTLE leaves and flow'rets too,

Scatter we with gentle hand, Kind young spring-G.o.ds to the view,

Sporting on an airy band.

Zephyr, bear it on the wing,

Twine it round my loved one's dress; To her gla.s.s then let her spring,

Full of eager joyousness.

Roses round her let her see,

She herself a youthful rose.

Grant, dear life, one look to me!

'Twill repay me all my woes,

What this bosom feels, feel thou.

Freely offer me thy hand; Let the band that joins us now

Be no fragile rosy band!

1770.

----- WITH A GOLDEN NECKLACE.

THIS page a chain to bring thee burns,

That, train'd to suppleness of old, On thy fair neck to nestle, yearns,

In many a hundred little fold.

To please the silly thing consent!

'Tis harmless, and from boldness free; By day a trifling ornament,

At night 'tis cast aside by thee.

But if the chain they bring thee ever,

Heavier, more fraught with weal or woe, I'd then, Lisette, reproach thee never

If thou shouldst greater scruples show.

1775.*

----- ON THE LAKE,

[Written on the occasion of Goethe's starting with his friend Pa.s.savant on a Swiss Tour.]

I DRINK fresh nourishment, new blood

From out this world more free; The Nature is so kind and good