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THE FISHERMAN. - 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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THE FISHERMAN.

    • THE waters rush’d, the waters rose,
    • A fisherman sat by,
    • While on his line in calm repose
    • He cast his patient eye.
    • And as he sat, and hearken’d there,
    • The flood was cleft in twain,
    • And, lo! a dripping mermaid fair
    • Sprang from the troubled main.
    • She sang to him, and spake the while:
    • “Why lurest thou my brood,
    • With human wit and human guile
    • From out their native flood?
    • Oh, could’st thou know how gladly dart
    • The fish across the sea,
    • Thou would’st descend, e’en as thou art,
    • And truly happy be!
    • “Do not the sun and moon with grace
    • Their forms in ocean lave?
    • Shines not with twofold charms their face,
    • When rising from the wave?
    • The deep, deep heavens, then lure thee not,—
    • The moist yet radiant blue,—
    • Not thine own form,—to tempt thy lot
    • ’Midst this eternal dew?”
    • The waters rush’d, the waters rose,
    • Wetting his naked feet;
    • As if his true love’s words were those,
    • His heart with longing beat.
    • She sang to him, to him spake she,
    • His doom was fix’d, I ween;
    • Half drew she him, and half sank he,
    • And ne’er again was seen.