Life poems
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My Goddess.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
But unto us he
Hath his most versatile,
Most cherished daughter
Granted,--what joy!
Lily's Menagerie.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
[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."]
Mischievous Joy.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
AS a butterfly renew'd,When in life I breath'd my last,To the spots my flight I wing,Scenes of heav'nly rapture past,Over meadows, to the spring,
Round the hill, and through the wood.Soon a tender pair I spy,And I look down from my seatOn the beauteous maiden's head--When embodied there I meetAll I lost as soon as dead,
Happy as before am I.Him she clasps with silent smile,And his mouth the hour improves,Sent by kindly Deities;First from breast to mouth it roves,Then from mouth to hands it flies,
And I round him sport the while.And she sees me hov'ring near;Trembling at her lovers rapture,Up she springs--I fly away,"Dearest! let's the insect captureCome! I long to make my prey
The Wanderer's Storm-song.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Him whom thou ne'er leavest, Genius,
Thou wilt place upon thy fleecy pinion
When he sleepeth on the rock,--
Thou wilt shelter with thy guardian wing
In the forest's midnight hour.
Little Boy Blue
© George MacDonald
Little Boy Blue lost his way in a wood-
Sing apples and cherries, roses and honey:
He said, "I would not go back if I could,
It's all so jolly and funny!"
Preface To The Second Edition.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
I need scarcely add that I have availed myself of this opportunity
to make whatever improvements have suggested themselves to me in
my original version of these Poems.
The Tunnel
© Robert Laurence Binyon
Sitting with strangers in the hurrying train,
We spoke not to each other. Golden May
Flooded those warm fields greener from the rain,
Then sudden darkness stole it all away.
A Triad
© Christina Georgina Rossetti
Three sang of love together: one with lips
Crimson, with cheeks and bosom in a glow,
To Charlotte.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
'MIDST the noise of merriment and glee,'Midst full many a sorrow, many a care,
Charlotte, I remember, we remember thee,How, at evening's hour so fair,
Thou a kindly hand didst reach us,When thou, in some happy placeWhere more fair is Nature s face,Many a lightly-hidden trace
Of a spirit loved didst teach us.Well 'tis that thy worth I rightly knew,--That I, in the hour when first we met,While the first impression fill'd me yet,
The Optimist.
© Wilcox Ella Wheeler
The fields were bleak and sodden. Not a wing
Or note enlivened the depressing wood,
Johanna Sebus.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
[To the memory of an excellent and beautiful
girl of 17, belonging to the village of Brienen, who perished on
the 13th of January, 1809, whilst giving help on the occasion of
the breaking up of the ice on the Rhine, and the bursting of the
dam of Cleverham.]
Mahomet's Song.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
[This song was intended to be introduced in
a dramatic poem entitled Mahomet, the plan of which was not carried
out by Goethe. He mentions that it was to have been sung by Ali
towards the end of the piece, in honor of his master, Mahomet, shortly
before his death, and when at the height of his glory, of which
it is typical.]
Dedication.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
By new-born flow'rs that full of dew-drops hung;
The youthful day awoke with ecstacy,
And all things quicken'd were, to quicken me.
Dulce Tortura With Transalation
© Alfonsina Storni
Polvo de oro en tus manos fue mi melancolía;
Sobre tus manos largas desparramé mi vida;
Mis dulzuras quedaron a tus manos prendidas;
Ahora soy un ánfora de perfumes vacía.
Hero And Leander. The Third Sestiad
© George Chapman
New light gives new directions, fortunes new,
To fashion our endeavours that ensue.
Lines
© Paul Hamilton Hayne
THOUGH dowered with instincts keen and high,
With burning thoughts that wooed the light,
The scornful world hath passed him by,
And left him lonelier than the night.
Starting From Paumanok
© Walt Whitman
Of earth, rocks, Fifth-month flowers, experienced-stars, rain, snow,
my amaze;
Having studied the mocking-bird's tones, and the mountainhawk's,
And heard at dusk the unrival'd one, the hermit thrush from the
swamp-cedars,
Solitary, singing in the West, I strike up for a New World.
Joy.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Joy from that in type we borrow,
Which in life gives only sorrow.JOY.A DRAGON-FLY with beauteous wing
Is hov'ring o'er a silv'ry spring;
I watch its motions with delight,--
After Sixty Years
© Edith Nesbit
RING, bells! flags, fly! and let the great crowd roar
Its ecstasy. Let the hid heart in prayer
On The Lake,
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
[Written on the occasion of Goethe's starting
with his friend Passavant on a Swiss Tour.]I DRINK fresh nourishment, new bloodFrom out this world more free;
The Nature is so kind and goodThat to her breast clasps me!
The billows toss our bark on high,And with our oars keep time,
