The Poems of Goethe, Translated in the Original Metres · Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
WANDERER.
Farewell! Oh Nature, guide me on my way! The wandering stranger guide, Who o'er the tombs Of holy bygone times Is passing, To a kind sheltering place, From North winds safe, And where a poplar grove Shuts out the noontide ray! And when I come Home to my cot At evening, Illumined by the setting sun, Let me embrace a wife like this, Her infant in her arms! 1772. * Compare with the beautiful description contained in the subsequent lines, an account of a ruined temple of Ceres, given by Chamberlayne in his Pharonnida (published in 1659) ".... With mournful majesiy A heap of solitary ruins lie, Half sepulchred in dust, the bankrupt heir To prodigal antiquity...." ----- LOVE AS A LANDSCAPE PAINTER. ON a rocky peak once sat I early, Gazing on the mist with eyes unmoving; Stretch'd out like a pall of greyish texture, All things round, and all above it cover'd. Suddenly a boy appear'd beside me, Saying "Friend, what meanest thou by gazing On the vacant pall with such composure? Hast thou lost for evermore all pleasure Both in painting cunningly, and forming?" On the child I gazed, and thought in secret: "Would the boy pretend to be a master?" "Wouldst thou be for ever dull and idle," Said the boy, "no wisdom thou'lt attain to; See, I'll straightway paint for thee a figure,-- How to paint a beauteous figure, show thee."
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.