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THE TREASURE-DIGGER. - 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 TREASURE-DIGGER.

    • ALL my weary days I pass’d
    • Sick at heart and poor in purse.
    • Poverty’s the greatest curse,
    • Riches are the highest good!
    • And to end my woes at last,
    • Treasure-seeking forth I sped.
    • “Thou shalt have my soul instead!”
    • Thus I wrote, and with my blood.
    • Ring round ring I forthwith drew,
    • Wondrous flames collected there,
    • Herbs and bones in order fair,
    • Till the charm had work’d aright.
    • Then, to learned precepts true,
    • Dug to find some treasure old,
    • In the place my art foretold:
    • Black and stormy was the night.
    • Coming o’er the distant plain,
    • With the glimmer of a star,
    • Soon I saw a light afar,
    • As the hour of midnight knell’d.
    • Preparation was in vain.
    • Sudden all was lighted up
    • With the lustre of a cup
    • That a beauteous boy upheld.
    • Sweetly seem’d his eyes to laugh
    • ’Neath his flow’ry chaplet’s load;
    • With the drink that brightly glow’d,
    • He the circle enter’d in.
    • And he kindly bade me quaff;
    • Then methought: “This child can ne’er,
    • With his gift so bright and fair,
    • To the arch-fiend be akin.”
    • “Pure life’s courage drink!” cried he:
    • “This advice to prize then learn,—
    • Never to this place return
    • Trusting in thy spells absurd;
    • Dig no longer fruitlessly.
    • Guests by night, and toil by day!
    • Weeks laborious, feast-days gay!
    • Be thy future magic-word!”