The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 01

THE WANDERER'S NIGHT-SONG12 (1780)

[Written at night on the Kickelhahn, a hill in the forest of Ilmenau, on the walls of a little hermitage where Goethe composed the last act of his Iphigenie.]

  Hush'd on the hill  Is the breeze;  Scarce by the zephyr  The trees  Softly are press'd;  The woodbird's asleep on the bough.  Wait, then, and thou  Soon wilt find rest.

THE ERL-KING13 (1782)

  Who rides there so late through the night dark and drear?  The father it is, with his infant so dear;  He holdeth the boy tightly clasp'd in his arm,  He holdeth him safely, he keepeth him warm.  "My son, wherefore seek's thou thy face thus to hide?"  "Look, father, the Erl-King is close by our side!  Dost see not the Erl-King, with crown and with train?"  "My son, 'tis the mist rising over the plain."  "Oh come, thou dear infant! oh come thou with me!  Full many a game I will play there with thee;  On my strand, lovely flowers their blossoms unfold,  My mother shall grace thee with garments of gold."  "My father, my father, and dost thou not hear  The words that the Erl-King now breathes in mine ear?"  "Be calm, dearest child, 'tis thy fancy deceives;  'Tis the sad wind that sighs through the withering leaves."  "Wilt go, then, dear infant, wilt go with me there?  My daughters shall tend thee with sisterly care;  My daughters by night their glad festival keep,  They'll dance thee, and rock thee, and sing thee to sleep."  "My father, my father, and dost thou not see,  How the Erl-King his daughters has brought here for me?"  "My darling, my darling, I see it aright,  'Tis the agèd gray willows deceiving thy sight."  "I love thee, I'm charm'd by thy beauty, dear boy!  And if thou'rt unwilling, then force I'll employ."  "My father, my father, he seizes me fast,  Full sorely the Erl-King has hurt me at last."  The father now gallops, with terror half wild,  He grasps in his arms the poor shuddering child;  He reaches his court-yard with toil and with dread,—  The child in his arms finds he motionless, dead.

THE GODLIKE14 (1783)

  Noble be man,  Helpful and good!  For that alone  Distinguisheth him  From all the beings  Unto us known.  Hail to the beings,  Unknown and glorious,  Whom we forebode!From his example  Learn we to know them!  For unfeeling  Nature is ever  On bad and on good  The sun alike shineth;  And on the wicked,  As on the best,  The moon and stars gleam.  Tempest and torrent,  Thunder and hail,  Roar on their path,  Seizing the while,  As they haste onward,  One after another.  Even so, fortune  Gropes 'mid the throng—  Innocent boyhood's  Curly head seizing,—  Seizing the hoary  Head of the sinner.  After laws mighty,  Brazen, eternal,  Must all we mortals  Finish the circuit  Of our existence.  Man, and man only  Can do the impossible  He 'tis distinguisheth,  Chooseth and judgeth;  He to the moment  Endurance can lend.  He and he only  The good can reward,  The bad can he punish,  Can heal and can save;  All that wanders and strays  Can usefully blend.  And we pay homage  To the immortals  As though they were men,  And did in the great,  What the best, in the small,  Does or might do.  Be the man that is noble,  Both helpful and good,  Unweariedly forming  The right and the useful,  A type of those beings  Our mind hath foreshadow'd!

MIGNON15 (1785)

[This universally known poem is also to be found in Wilhelm Meister.]

  Know'st thou the land where the fair citron blows,  Where the bright orange midst the foliage glows,  Where soft winds greet us from the azure skies,  Where silent myrtles, stately laurels rise,  Know'st thou it well?                         'Tis there, 'tis there,  That I with thee, beloved one, would repair.  Know'st thou the house? On columns rests its pile,  Its halls are gleaming, and its chambers smile,  And marble statues stand and gaze on me:  "Poor child! what sorrow hath befallen thee?"  Know'st thou it well?                         'Tis there, 'tis there,  That I with thee, protector, would repair!  Know'st thou the mountain, and its cloudy bridge?  The mule can scarcely find the misty ridge;  In caverns dwells the dragon's olden brood,  The frowning crag obstructs the raging flood.  Know'st thou it well?                         'Tis there, 'tis there,  Our path lies—Father—thither, oh repair!

PROXIMITY OF THE BELOVED ONE16 (1795)

  I think of thee, whene'er the sun his beams      O'er ocean flings;  I think of thee, whene'er the moonlight gleams      In silv'ry springs.  I see thee, when upon the distant ridge      The dust awakes;  At midnight's hour, when on the fragile bridge      The wanderer quakes.  I hear thee, when yon billows rise on high,      With murmur deep.  To tread the silent grove oft wander I,      When all's asleep.  I'm near thee, though thou far away mayst be—      Thou, too, art near!  The sun then sets, the stars soon lighten me,      Would thou wert here!

THE SHEPHERD'S LAMENT17 (1802)

  Up yonder on the mountain,    I dwelt for days together;  Looked down into the valley,    This pleasant summer weather.  My sheep go feeding onward,    My dog sits watching by;  I've wandered to the valley,    And yet I know not why.  The meadow, it is pretty,    With flowers so fair to see;  I gather them, but no one    Will take the flowers from me.  The good tree gives me shadow,    And shelter from the rain;  But yonder door is silent,    It will not ope again!  I see the rainbow bending,    Above her old abode,  But she is there no longer;    They've taken my love abroad.  They took her o'er the mountains,    They took her o'er the sea;  Move on, move on, my bonny sheep,    There is no rest for me!

NATURE AND ART18 (1802)

  Nature and art asunder seem to fly,    Yet sooner than we think find common ground;    In place of strife, harmonious songs resound,  And both, at one, to my abode draw nigh.  In sooth but one endeavor I descry:    Then only, when in ordered moments' round    Wisdom and toil our lives to Art have bound,  Dare we rejoice in Nature's liberty.  Thus is achievement fashioned everywhere:    Not by ungovernable, hasty zeal      Shalt thou the height of perfect form attain.  Husband thy strength, if great emprize thou dare;    In self-restraint thy masterhood reveal,      And under law thy perfect freedom gain.

COMFORT IN TEARS19 (1803)

  How is it that thou art so sad    When others are so gay?  Thou hast been weeping—nay, thou hast!    Thine eyes the truth betray.  "And if I may not choose but weep    Is not my grief mine own?  No heart was heavier yet for tears—    O leave me, friend, alone!"  Come join this once the merry band,    They call aloud for thee,  And mourn no more for what is lost,    But let the past go free.  "O, little know ye in your mirth,    What wrings my heart so deep!  I have not lost the idol yet,    For which I sigh and weep."  Then rouse thee and take heart! thy blood    Is young and full of fire;  Youth should have hope and might to win,    And wear its best desire.  "O, never may I hope to gain    What dwells from me so far;  It stands as high, it looks as bright,    As yonder burning star."  Why, who would seek to woo the stars    Down from their glorious sphere?  Enough it is to worship them,    When nights are calm and clear.  "Oh, I look up and worship too—    My star it shines by day—  Then let me weep the livelong night    The while it is away."

EPILOGUE TO SCHILLER'S "SONG OF THE BELL"20

[This fine piece, written originally in 1805, on Schiller's death, was altered and recast by Goethe in 1815, on the occasion of the performance on the stage of the Song of the Bell. Hence the allusion in the last verse.]

  To this city joy reveal it!  Peace as its first signal peal it!

(Song of the Bell—concluding lines).

  And so it proved! The nation felt, ere long,  That peaceful signal, and, with blessings fraught,  A new-born joy appeared; in gladsome song  To hail the youthful princely pair we sought;  While in the living, ever-swelling throng  Mingled the crowds from every region brought,  And on the stage, in festal pomp arrayed,  The HOMAGE OF THE ARTS21 we saw displayed.  When, lo! a fearful midnight sound I hear,  That with a dull and mournful echo rings.  And can it be that of our friend so dear  It tells, to whom each wish so fondly clings?  Shall death o'ercome a life that all revere?  How such a loss to all confusion brings!  How such a parting we must ever rue!  The world is weeping—shall not we weep, too?  He was our own! How social, yet how great  Seemed in the light of day his noble mind!  How was his nature, pleasing yet sedate,  Now for glad converse joyously inclined,  Then swiftly changing, spirit-fraught elate,  Life's plan with deep-felt meaning it designed,  Fruitful alike in counsel and in deed!  This have we proved, this tested, in our need.  He was our own! O may that thought so blest  O'ercome the voice of wailing and of woe!  He might have sought the Lasting, safe at rest  In harbor, when the tempest ceased to blow.  Meanwhile his mighty spirit onward pressed  Where goodness, beauty, truth, forever grow;  And in his rear, in shadowy outline, lay  The vulgar, which we all, alas, obey!  Now doth he deck the garden-turret fair  Where the stars' language first illumed his soul,  As secretly yet clearly through the air  On the eterne, the living sense it stole;  And to his own, and our great profit, there  Exchangeth to the seasons as they roll;  Thus nobly doth he vanquish, with renown,  The twilight and the night that weigh us down.  Brighter now glowed his cheek, and still more bright,  With that unchanging, ever-youthful glow,—  That courage which o'ercomes, in hard-fought fight,  Sooner or later, every earthly foe,—  That faith which, soaring to the realms of light,  Now boldly presseth on, now bendeth low,  So that the good may work, wax, thrive amain,  So that the day the noble may attain.  Yet, though so skilled, of such transcendent worth,  This boarded scaffold doth he not despise;  The fate that on its axis turns the earth  From day to night, here shows he to our eyes,  Raising, through many a work of glorious birth,  Art and the artist's fame up toward the skies.  He fills with blossoms of the noblest strife,  With life itself, this effigy of life.  His giant-step, as ye full surely know,  Measured the circle of the will and deed,  Each country's changing thoughts and morals, too,  The darksome book with clearness could he read;  Yet how he, breathless 'midst his friends so true,  Despaired in sorrow, scarce from pain was freed,—  All this have we, in sadly happy years,  For he was ours, bewailed with feeling tears.  When from the agonizing weight of grief  He raised his eyes upon the world again,  We showed him how his thoughts might find relief  From the uncertain present's heavy chain,  Gave his fresh-kindled mind a respite brief,  With kindly skill beguiling every pain,  And e'en at eve when setting was his sun,  From his wan cheeks a gentle smile we won.  Full early had he read the stern decree,  Sorrow and death to him, alas, were known;  Ofttimes recovering, now departed he,—  Dread tidings, that our hearts had feared to own!  Yet his transfigured being now can see  Itself, e'en here on earth, transfigured grown.  What his own age reproved, and deemed a crime,  Hath been ennobled now by death and time.  And many a soul that with him strove in fight,  And his great merit grudged to recognize,  Now feels the impress of his wondrous might,  And in his magic fetters gladly lies;  E'en to the highest hath he winged his flight,  In close communion linked with all we prize.  Extol him then! What mortals while they live  But half receive, posterity shall give.  Thus is he left us, who so long ago,—  Ten years, alas, already!—turned from earth;  We all, to our great joy, his precepts know,  Oh, may the world confess their priceless worth!  In swelling tide toward every region flow  The thoughts that were his own peculiar birth;  He gleams like some departing meteor bright,  Combining, with his own, eternal light.

ERGO BIBAMUS!22 (1810)

  For a praiseworthy object we're now gathered here,  So, brethren, sing: ERGO BIBAMUS!  Tho' talk may be hushed, yet the glasses ring clear,  Remember then, ERGO BIBAMUS!  In truth 'tis an old, 'tis an excellent word,  With its sound befitting each bosom is stirred,  And an echo the festal hall filling is heard,  A glorious ERGO BIBAMUS!  I saw mine own love in her beauty so rare,  And bethought me of: ERGO BIBAMUS;  So I gently approached, and she let me stand there,  While I helped myself, thinking: BIBAMUS!  And when she's appeared, and will clasp you and kiss,  Or when those embraces and kisses ye miss,  Take refuge, till found is some worthier bliss,  In the comforting ERGO BIBAMUS!  I am called by my fate far away from each friend;  Ye loved ones, then: ERGO BIBAMUS!  With wallet light-laden from hence I must wend,  So double our ERGO BIBAMUS!  Whate'er to his treasure the niggard may add,  Yet regard for the joyous will ever be had,  For gladness lends ever its charms to the glad,  So, brethren, sing: ERGO BIBAMUS!  And what shall we say of to-day as it flies?  I thought but of: ERGO BIBAMUS!  'Tis one of those truly that seldom arise,  So again and again sing: BIBAMUS!  For joy through a wide-open portal it guides,  Bright glitter the clouds as the curtain divides,  And a form, a divine one, to greet us in glides,  While we thunder our: ERGO BIBAMUS.

THE WALKING BELL23 (1813)

  A child refused to go betimes  To church like other people;  He roamed abroad, when rang the chimes  On Sundays from the steeple.  His mother said: "Loud rings the bell,  Its voice ne'er think of scorning;  Unless thou wilt behave thee well,  'Twill fetch thee without warning."  The child then thought: "High over head  The bell is safe suspended—"  So to the fields he straightway sped  As if 'twas school-time ended.  The bell now ceased as bell to ring,  Roused by the mother's twaddle;  But soon ensued a dreadful thing!—  The bell begins to waddle.  It waddles fast, though strange it seem;  The child, with trembling wonder,  Runs off, and flies, as in a dream;  The bell would draw him under.  He finds the proper time at last,  And straightway nimbly rushes  To church, to chapel, hastening fast  Through pastures, plains, and bushes.  Each Sunday and each feast as well,  His late disaster heeds he;  The moment that he hears the bell,  No other summons needs he.

FOUND24 (1813)

  Once through the forest  Alone I went;  To seek for nothing  My thoughts were bent.  I saw i' the shadow  A flower stand there;  As stars it glisten'd,  As eyes 'twas fair.  I sought to pluck it,—  It gently said:  "Shall I be gather'd  Only to fade?"  With all its roots  I dug it with care,  And took it home  To my garden fair.  In silent corner  Soon it was set;  There grows it ever,  There blooms it yet.

HATEM25 (1815)

  Locks of brown, still bind your captive  In the circle of her face!  I, beloved sinuous tresses,  Naught possess that's worth your grace—  But a heart whose love enduring  Swells in youthful fervor yet:  Snow and mists envelop Etna,  Making men the fire forget.  Yonder mountain's pride so stately  Thou dost shame like dawn's red glow;  And its spell once more bids Hatem  Thrill of spring and summer know.  Once more fill the glass, the flagon!  Let me drink to my desire.  If she find a heap of ashes,  Say, "He perished in her fire!"

REUNION26 (1815)

  Can it be, O star transcendent,  That I fold thee to my breast?  Now I know, what depths of anguish  May in parting be expressed.  Yes, 'tis thou, of all my blisses  Lovely, loving partner—thou!  Mindful of my bygone sorrows,  E'en the present awes me now.  When the world in first conception  Lay in God's eternal mind,  In creative power delighting  He the primal hour designed.  When he gave command for being,  Then was heard a mighty sigh  Full of pain, as all creation  Broke into reality.  Up then sprang the light; and darkness  Doubtful stood apart to gaze;  All the elements, dividing  Swiftly, took their several ways.  In confused, disordered dreaming  Strove they all for freedom's range—  Each for self, no fellow-feeling;  Single each, and cold and strange.  Lo, a marvel—God was lonely!  All was still and cold and dumb.  So he framed dawn's rosy blushes  Whence should consolation come—  To refresh the troubled spirit  Harmonies of color sweet:  What had erst been forced asunder  Now at last could love and meet.  Then, ah then, of life unbounded  Sight and feeling passed the gates;  Then, ah then, with eager striving  Kindred atoms sought their mates.  Gently, roughly they may seize them,  So they catch and hold them fast:  "We," they cry, "are now creators—  Allah now may rest at last!"  So with rosy wings of morning  Towards thy lips my being moves;  Sets the starry night a thousand  Glowing seals upon our loves.  We are as we should be—parted  Ne'er on earth in joy or pain;  And no second word creative  E'er can sunder us again!

PROOEMION27 (1816)

  In His blest name, who was His own creation,Who from all time makes making His vocation;  The name of Him who makes our faith so bright,  Love, confidence, activity, and might;  In that One's name, who, named though oft He be,  Unknown is ever in Reality:  As far as ear can reach, or eyesight dim,  Thou findest but the known resembling Him;  How high soe'er thy fiery spirit hovers,  Its simile and type it straight discovers;  Onward thou'rt drawn, with feelings light and gay,  Where e'er thou goest, smiling is the way;  No more thou numberest, reckonest no time,  Each step is infinite, each step sublime.What God would outwardly alone control,  And on His finger whirl the mighty Whole?He loves the inner world to move, to view  Nature in Him, Himself in Nature, too,  So that what in Him works, and is, and lives,  The measure of His strength, His spirit gives.  Within us all a universe doth dwell;  And hence each people's usage laudable,  That every one the Best that meets his eyesAs God, yea, e'en his God, doth recognize;  To Him both earth and heaven surrenders he,  Fears Him, and loves Him, too, if that may be.

THE ONE AND THE ALL28 (1821)

  Called to a new employ in boundless space,  The lonely monad quits its 'customed place  And from life's weary round contented flees.  No more of passionate striving, will perverse  And hampering obligations, long a curse:  Free self-abandonment at last gives peace.  Soul of the world, come pierce our being through!  Across the drift of things our way to hew  Is our appointed task, our noblest war.  Good spirits by our destined pathway still  Lead gently on, best masters of our will,  Toward that which made and makes all things that are.  To shape for further ends what now has breath,  Let nothing harden into ice and death,  Works endless living action everywhere.  What has not yet existed strives for birth—  Toward purer suns, more glorious-colored earth:  To rest in idle stillness naught may dare.  All must move onward, help transform the mass,  Assume a form, to yet another pass;  'Tis but in seeming aught is fixed or still.  In all things moves the eternal restless Thought;  For all, when comes the hour, must fall to naught  If to persist in being is its will.

LINES ON SEEING SCHILLER'S SKULL29 (1826)

[This curious imitation of the ternary metre of Dante was written at the age of seventy-seven.]

  Within a gloomy charnel-house one day  I viewed the countless skulls, so strangely mated,  And of old times I thought that now were gray.  Close packed they stand that once so fiercely hated,  And hardy bones that to the death contended,  Are lying crossed,—to lie forever, fated.  What held those crooked shoulder-blades suspended?  No one now asks; and limbs with vigor fired,  The hand, the foot—their use in life is ended.  Vainly ye sought the tomb for rest when tired;  Peace in the grave may not be yours; ye're driven  Back into daylight by a force inspired;  But none can love the withered husk, though even  A glorious noble kernel it contained.  To me, an adept, was the writing given  Which not to all its holy sense explained.  When 'mid the crowd, their icy shadows flinging,  I saw a form that glorious still remained,  And even there, where mould and damp were clinging,  Gave me a blest, a rapture-fraught emotion,  As though from death a living fount were springing.  What mystic joy I felt! What rapt devotion!  That form, how pregnant with a godlike trace!  A look, how did it whirl me toward that ocean  Whose rolling billows mightier shapes embrace!  Mysterious vessel! Oracle how dear!  Even to grasp thee is my hand too base,  Except to steal thee from thy prison here  With pious purpose, and devoutly go  Back to the air, free thoughts, and sunlight clear.  What greater gain in life can man e'er know  Than when God-Nature will to him explain  How into Spirit steadfastness may flow,  How steadfast, too, the Spirit-Born remain.

A LEGACY30 (1829)

  No living atom comes at last to naught!  Active in each is still the eternal Thought:  Hold fast to Being if thou wouldst be blest.  Being is without end; for changeless laws  Bind that from which the All its glory draws  Of living treasures endlessly possessed.  Unto the wise of old this truth was known,  Such wisdom knit their noble souls in one;  Then hold thou still the lore of ancient days!  To that high power thou ow'st it, son of man,  By whose decree the earth its circuit ran  And all the planets went their various ways.  Then inward turn at once thy searching eyes;  Thence shalt thou see the central truth arise  From which no lofty soul goes e'er astray;  There shalt thou miss no needful guiding sign—  For conscience lives, and still its light divine  Shall be the sun of all thy moral day.  Next shalt thou trust thy senses' evidence,  And fear from them no treacherous offence  While the mind's watchful eye thy road commands:  With lively pleasure contemplate the scene  And roam securely, teachable, serene,  At will throughout a world of fruitful lands.  Enjoy in moderation all life gives:  Where it rejoices in each thing that lives  Let reason be thy guide and make thee see.  Then shall the distant past be present still,  The future, ere it comes, thy vision fill—  Each single moment touch eternity.  Then at the last shalt thou achieve thy quest,  And in one final, firm conviction rest:  What bears for thee true fruit alone is true.  Prove all things, watch the movement of the world  As down the various ways its tribes are whirled;  Take thou thy stand among the chosen few.  Thus hath it been of old; in solitude  The artist shaped what thing to him seemed good,  The wise man hearkened to his own soul's voice.  Thus also shalt thou find thy greatest bliss;  To lead where the elect shall follow—this  And this alone is worth a hero's choice.

INTRODUCTION TO HERMANN AND DOROTHEA

Hermann and Dorothea is universally known and prized in Germany as no other work of the classical period of German literature except Goethe's Faust and Schiller's Wilhelm Tell, and, although distinctively German in subject and spirit, it early became and is still a precious possession of all the modern world. It marks the culmination of the renaissance in the literary art of Germany and perhaps of Europe.

Schiller hailed it as the pinnacle of Goethe's and of all modern art. A. W. Schlegel in 1797 judged it to be a finished work of art in the grand style, and at the same time intelligible, sympathetic, patriotic, popular, a book full of golden teachings of wisdom and virtue. Two generations later one of the leading historians of German literature declared that there is no other poem that comes so near to the father of all poetry (Homer) as this, none in which Greek form and German content are so intimately blended, and that this is perhaps the only poem which without explanation and without embarrassment all the modern centuries could offer to an ancient Greek to enjoy. In the view of the end of the nineteenth century, expressed by a distinguished philosopher-critic, this work is a unique amalgam of the artistic spirit, objectivity, and contemplative clearness of Homer with the soul-life of the present, the heart-beat of the German people, the characteristic traits which mark the German nature.

As Longfellow's Evangeline, treating in the same verse-form of the dactylic hexameter and in a way partly epic and partly idyllic a story of love and domestic interests in a contrasting setting of war and exile, was modeled on Hermann and Dorothea, so the latter poem was suggested by J. H. Voss' idyl Luise, published first in parts in 1783 and 1784 and as a whole revised in 1795. Of his delight in Luise Goethe wrote to Schiller in February, 1798: "This proved to be much to my advantage, for this joy finally became productive in me, it drew me into this form (the epic), begot my Hermann, and who knows what may yet come of it." But Luise is not really epic; it is without action, without unity, without any large historical outlook,—a series of minutely pictured, pleasing idyllic scenes.