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TO LUNA. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Goethe’s Works, vol. 1 (Poems) [1885]

Edition used:

Goethe’s Works, illustrated by the best German artists, 5 vols. (Philadelphia: G. Barrie, 1885). Vol. 1.

Part of: Goethe’s Works, 5 vols.

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TO LUNA.

    • 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-clos’d 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 rais’d,
    • Let the knight so crafty peep
    • At his maiden while asleep,
    • Through her lattice-window glaz’d.
    • Soon the bliss of this sweet view,
    • Pangs by distance caus’d 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.