The Poems of Goethe, Translated in the Original Metres · Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
1803.* ----- COMFORT IN TEARS.
How happens it that thou art sad, While happy all appear? Thine eye proclaims too well that thou Hast wept full many a tear. "If I have wept in solitude, None other shares my grief, And tears to me sweet balsam are, And give my heart relief." Thy happy friends invite thee now,-- Oh come, then, to our breast! And let the loss thou hast sustain'd Be there to us confess'd! "Ye shout, torment me, knowing not What 'tis afflicteth me; Ah no! I have sustained no loss, Whate'er may wanting be." If so it is, arise in haste! Thou'rt young and full of life. At years like thine, man's blest with strength. And courage for the strife. "Ah no! in vain 'twould be to strive, The thing I seek is far; It dwells as high, it gleams as fair As yonder glitt'ring star." The stars we never long to clasp, We revel in their light, And with enchantment upward gaze, Each clear and radiant night. "And I with rapture upward gaze, On many a blissful day; Then let me pass the night in tears, Till tears are wip'd away! WHEN on thy pillow lying, Half listen, I implore, And at my lute's soft sighing, Sleep on! what wouldst thou more? For at my lute's soft sighing The stars their blessings pour On feelings never-dying; Sleep on! what wouldst thou more? Those feelings never-dying My spirit aid to soar From earthly conflicts trying; Sleep on! what wouldst thou more? From earthly conflicts trying Thou driv'st me to this shore; Through thee I'm thither flying,-- Sleep on! what wouldst thou more? Through thee I'm hither flying, Thou wilt not list before In slumbers thou art lying: Sleep on! what wouldst thou more?
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.