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TO A GOLDEN HEART THAT HE WORE ROUND HIS NECK. - 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 A GOLDEN HEART THAT HE WORE ROUND HIS NECK.

    • OH, thou token lov’d of joys now perish’d
    • That I still wear from my neck suspended,
    • Art thou stronger than our spirit-bond so cherish’d?
    • Or canst thou prolong love’s days untimely ended?
    • Lily, I fly from thee! I still am doom’d to range,
    • Thro’ countries strange,
    • Thro’ distant vales and woods, link’d on to thee!
    • Ah, Lily’s heart could surely never fall
    • So soon away from me!
    • As when a bird hath broken from his thrall,
    • And seeks the forest green,
    • Proof of imprisonment he bears behind him,
    • A morsel of the thread once used to bind him;
    • The free-born bird of old no more is seen,
    • For he another’s prey hath been.