The Poems of Goethe, Translated in the Original Metres · Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
1767. ----- MISCHIEVOUS JOY.
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 seat On the beauteous maiden's head-- When embodied there I meet All 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 capture Come! I long to make my prey Yonder pretty little dear!" WEEP, maiden, weep here o'er the tomb of Love; He died of nothing--by mere chance was slain. But is he really dead?--oh, that I cannot prove: A nothing, a mere chance, oft gives him life again.
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