Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Poems

OVER the meadows, and down the stream,

And through the garden-walks straying,
He plucks the flowers that fairest seem;
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FARTHER and farther away, alas! at each moment the vessel
Hastens, as onward it glides, cleaving the foam-cover'd flood!
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Tell me you stones, O speak, you towering palaces!
Streets, say a word! Spirit of this place, are you dumb?
All things are alive in your sacred walls
eternal Rome, only for me all’s still.
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WHAT pulls at my heart so?

What tells me to roam?
What drags me and lures me
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THROUGH rain, through snow,
Through tempest go!
'Mongst streaming caves,
O'er misty waves,
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To be like a fish,
Brisk and quick, is my wish;
If thou cam'st with thy line.
Thou wouldst soon make me thine.
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OH, unhappy stars! your fate I mourn,

Ye by whom the sea-toss'd sailor's lighted,
Who with radiant beams the heav'ns adorn,
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How happens it that thou art sad,

While happy all appear?
Thine eye proclaims too well that thou
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AH! who'll e'er those days restore,

Those bright days of early love
Who'll one hour again concede,
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FOR woman due allowance make!

Form'd of a crooked rib was she,--
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