The Poems of Goethe Part 84

Where death and life contend in combat dire.

Medicines may serve the body's pangs to still; Nought but the spirit fails in strength of will,--

Fails in conception; wherefore fails it so?

A thousand times her image it portrays; Enchanting now, and now compell'd to go,

Now indistinct, now clothed in purest rays!

How could the smallest comfort here be flowing?

The ebb and flood, the coming and the going!

Leave me here now, my life's companions true!

Leave me alone on rock, in moor and heath; But courage! open lies the world to you,

The glorious heavens above, the earth beneath; Observe, investigate, with searching eyes, And nature will disclose her mysteries.

To me is all, I to myself am lost,

Who the immortals' fav'rite erst was thought; They, tempting, sent Pandoras to my cost,

So rich in wealth, with danger far more fraught; They urged me to those lips, with rapture crown'd, Deserted me, and hurl'd me to the ground.

1823.

III. ATONEMENT.

[Composed, when 74 years old, for a Polish lady, who excelled in playing on the pianoforte.]

Pa.s.sION brings reason--who can pacify

An anguish'd heart whose loss hath been so great?

Where are the hours that fled so swiftly by?

In vain the fairest thou didst gain from fate; Sad is the soul, confused the enterprise;

The glorious world, how on the sense it dies!

In million tones entwined for evermore,

Music with angel-pinions hovers there, To pierce man's being to its inmost core,

Eternal beauty has its fruit to bear; The eye grows moist, in yearnings blest reveres The G.o.dlike worth of music as of tears.

And so the lighten'd heart soon learns to see

That it still lives, and beats, and ought to beat, Off'ring itself with joy and willingly,

In grateful payment for a gift so sweet.

And then was felt,--oh may it constant prove!-- The twofold bliss of music and of love.

1823.

THE remembrance of the Good Keep us ever glad in mood.

The remembrance of the Fair Makes a mortal rapture share.

The remembrance of one's Love Blest Is, if it constant prove.

The remembrance of the One Is the greatest joy that's known.

1828.

----- [Written at the age of 77.]

WHEN I was still a youthful wight,

So full of enjoyment and merry, The painters used to a.s.sert, in spite,

That my features were small--yes, very; Yet then full many a beauteous child With true affection upon me smil'd.

Now as a greybeard I sit here in state,

By street and by lane held in awe, sirs; And may be seen, like old Frederick the Great,

On pipebowls, on cups, and on saucers.

Yet the beauteous maidens, they keep afar; Oh vision of youth! Oh golden star!

1826.

----- FOR EVER.

THE happiness that man, whilst prison'd here,

Is wont with heavenly rapture to compare,-- The harmony of Truth, from wavering clear,--

Of Friendship that is free from doubting care,-- The light which in stray thoughts alone can cheer

The wise,--the bard alone in visions fair,-- In my best hours I found in her all this, And made mine own, to mine exceeding bliss.

1820.*

----- FROM AN ALb.u.m 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 grows.

And whisper in her ear with modest softness, How doubt oft hung its head, and truth oft wept.

And oh ye thoughts, distrustfully inclined, If ye are therefore by the loved one chided, Answer: 'tis true ye change, but alter not, As she remains the same, yet changeth ever.

Doubt may invade the heart, but poisons not, For love is sweeter, by suspicion flavour'd.