The Poems of Goethe Part 21

Through thee I'm hither flying,

Thou wilt not list before In slumbers thou art lying:

Sleep on! what wouldst thou more?

1803.*

----- LONGING.

WHAT pulls at my heart so?

What tells me to roam?

What drags me and lures me

From chamber and home?

How round the cliffs gather

The clouds high in air!

I fain would go thither,

I fain would be there!

The sociable flight

Of the ravens comes back; I mingle amongst them,

And follow their track.

Round wall and round mountain

Together we fly; She tarries below there,

I after her spy.

Then onward she wanders,

My flight I wing soon To the wood fill'd with bushes,

A bird of sweet tune.

She tarries and hearkens,

And smiling, thinks she: "How sweetly he's singing!

He's singing to me!"

The heights are illum'd

By the fast setting sun; The pensive fair maiden

Looks thoughtfully on; She roams by the streamlet,

O'er meadows she goes, And darker and darker

The pathway fast grows.

I rise on a sudden,

A glimmering star; "What glitters above me,

So near and so far?"

And when thou with wonder

Hast gazed on the light, I fall down before thee,

Entranced by thy sight!

1803.

----- TO MIGNON.

OVER vale and torrent far Rolls along the sun's bright car.

Ah! he wakens in his course

Mine, as thy deep-seated smart

In the heart.

Ev'ry morning with new force.

Scarce avails night aught to me; E'en the visions that I see Come but in a mournful guise;

And I feel this silent smart

In my heart With creative pow'r arise.

During many a beauteous year I have seen s.h.i.+ps 'neath me steer, As they seek the shelt'ring bay;

But, alas, each lasting smart

In my heart Floats not with the stream away.

I must wear a gala dress, Long stored up within my press, For to-day to feasts is given;

None know with what bitter smart

Is my heart Fearfully and madly riven.

Secretly I weep each tear, Yet can cheerful e'en appear, With a face of healthy red;

For if deadly were this silent smart

In my heart, Ah, I then had long been dead!