The Poems of Goethe Part 12

SISTER of the first-born light,

Type of sorrowing gentleness!

Quivering mists in silv'ry dress Float around thy features bright; When thy gentle foot is heard,

From the day-closed caverns then

Wake the mournful ghosts of men, I, too, wake, and each night-bird.

O'er a field of boundless span

Looks thy gaze both far and wide.

Raise me upwards to thy side!

Grant this to a raving man!

And to heights of rapture raised,

Let the knight so crafty peep

At his maiden while asleep, Through her lattice-window glazed.

Soon the bliss of this sweet view,

Pangs by distance caused allays;

And I gather all thy rays, And my look I sharpen too.

Round her unveil'd limbs I see

Brighter still become the glow,

And she draws me down below, As Endymion once drew thee.

1767-9.

----- THE WEDDING NIGHT.

WITHIN the chamber, far away

From the glad feast, sits Love in dread Lest guests disturb, in wanton play,

The silence of the bridal bed.

His torch's pale flame serves to gild

The scene with mystic sacred glow; The room with incense-clouds is fil'd,

That ye may perfect rapture know.

How beats thy heart, when thou dost hear

The chime that warns thy guests to fly!

How glow'st thou for those lips so dear,

That soon are mute, and nought deny!

With her into the holy place

Thou hast'nest then, to perfect all; The fire the warder's hands embrace,

Grows, like a night-light, dim and small.

How heaves her bosom, and how burns

Her face at every fervent kiss!

Her coldness now to trembling turns,

Thy daring now a duty is.

Love helps thee to undress her fast,

But thou art twice as fast as he; And then he shuts both eye at last,

With sly and roguish modesty.

1767.

----- MISCHIEVOUS JOY.

AS a b.u.t.terfly renew'd,

When in life I breath'd my last,

To the spots my flight I wing,

Scenes of heav'nly rapture past,

Over meadows, to the spring, Round the hill, and through the wood.

Soon a tender pair I spy,

And I look down from my seat

On the beauteous maiden's head--

When embodied there I meet

All I lost as soon as dead, Happy as before am I.

Him she clasps with silent smile,

And his mouth the hour improves,

Sent by kindly Deities;