The Poems of Goethe, Translated in the Original Metres · Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
1815.* ----- AUTHORS.
OVER the meadows, and down the stream, And through the garden-walks straying, He plucks the flowers that fairest seem; His throbbing heart brooks no delaying. His maiden then comes--oh, what ecstasy! Thy flowers thou giv'st for one glance of her eye! The gard'ner next door o'er the hedge sees the youth: "I'm not such a fool as that, in good truth; My pleasure is ever to cherish each flower, And see that no birds my fruit e'er devour. But when 'tis ripe, your money, good neighbour! 'Twas not for nothing I took all this labour!" And such, methinks, are the author-tribe. The one his pleasures around him strews, That his friends, the public, may reap, if they choose; The other would fain make them all subscribe, I HAD a fellow as my guest, Not knowing he was such a pest, And gave him just my usual fare; He ate his fill of what was there, And for desert my best things swallow'd, Soon as his meal was o'er, what follow'd? Led by the Deuce, to a neighbour he went, And talk'd of my food to his heart's content: "The soup might surely have had more spice, The meat was ill-brown'd, and the wine wasn't nice." A thousand curses alight on his head! 'Tis a critic, I vow! Let the dog be struck dead!
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.