The Poems of Goethe Part 46

----- THE FISHERMAN.

THE waters rush'd, the waters rose,

A fisherman sat by, While on his line in calm repose

He cast his patient eye.

And as he sat, and hearken'd there,

The flood was cleft in twain, And, lo! a dripping mermaid fair

Sprang from the troubled main.

She sang to him, and spake the while:

"Why lurest thou my brood, With human wit and human guile

From out their native flood?

Oh, couldst thou know how gladly dart

The fish across the sea, Thou wouldst descend, e'en as thou art,

And truly happy be!

"Do not the sun and moon with grace

Their forms in ocean lave?

s.h.i.+nes not with twofold charms their face,

When rising from the wave?

The deep, deep heavens, then lure thee not,--

The moist yet radiant blue,-- Not thine own form,--to tempt thy lot

'Midst this eternal dew?"

The waters rush'd, the waters rose,

Wetting his naked feet; As if his true love's words were those,

His heart with longing beat.

She sang to him, to him spake she,

His doom was fix'd, I ween; Half drew she him, and half sank he,

And ne'er again was seen.

1779.*

----- THE KING OF THULE.*

(* This ballad is also introduced in Faust, where it is sung by Margaret.)

IN Thule lived a monarch,

Still faithful to the grave, To whom his dying mistress

A golden goblet gave.

Beyond all price he deem'd it,

He quaff'd it at each feast; And, when he drain'd that goblet,

His tears to flow ne'er ceas'd.

And when he felt death near him,

His cities o'er he told, And to his heir left all things,

But not that cup of gold.

A regal banquet held he

In his ancestral ball, In yonder sea-wash'd castle,

'Mongst his great n.o.bles all.

There stood the aged reveller,

And drank his last life's-glow,-- Then hurl'd the holy goblet

Into the flood below.

He saw it falling, filling,

And sinking 'neath the main, His eyes then closed for ever,

He never drank again.

1774.

THE BEAUTEOUS FLOWER.

SONG OF THE IMPRISONED COUNT.

COUNT.

I KNOW a flower of beauty rare,

Ah, how I hold it dear!