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THE YOUTH AND THE MILLSTREAM. - 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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Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


THE YOUTH AND THE MILLSTREAM.

    • Youth.
    • SAY, sparkling streamlet, whither thou
    • Art going!
    • With joyous mien thy waters now
    • Are flowing.
    • Why seek the vale so hastily?
    • Attend for once, and answer me!
    • Millstream.
    • Oh, youth, I was a brook indeed;
    • But lately
    • My bed they’ve deepen’d, and my speed
    • Swell’d greatly,
    • That I may haste to yonder mill,
    • And so I’m full and never still.
    • Youth.
    • The mill thou seekest in a mood
    • Contented,
    • And know’st not how my youthful blood
    • ’S tormented.
    • But doth the miller’s daughter fair
    • Gaze often on thee kindly there?
    • Millstream.
    • She opes the shutters soon as light
    • Is gleaming;
    • And comes to bathe her features bright
    • And beaming.
    • So full and snow-white is her breast,—
    • I feel as hot as steam suppress’d.
    • Youth.
    • If she in water can inflame
    • Such ardor,
    • Surely, then, flesh and blood to tame
    • Is harder.
    • When once is seen her beauteous face,
    • One ever longs her steps to trace.
    • Millstream.
    • Over the wheel I, roaring, bound,
    • All-proudly,
    • And ev’ry spoke whirls swiftly round,
    • And loudly.
    • Since I have seen the miller’s daughter,
    • With greater vigor flows the water.
    • Youth.
    • Like others, then, can grief, poor brook,
    • Oppress thee?
    • “Flow on!”—thus she’ll, with smiling look,
    • Address thee.
    • With her sweet loving glance, oh, say,
    • Can she thy flowing current stay?
    • Millstream.
    • ’Tis sad, ’tis sad to have to speed
    • From yonder;
    • I wind, and slowly through the mead
    • Would wander;
    • And if the choice remain’d with me,
    • Would hasten back there presently.
    • Youth.
    • Farewell, thou who with me dost prove
    • Love’s sadness!
    • Perchance some day thou’lt breathe of love
    • And gladness.
    • Go, tell her straight, and often too,
    • The boy’s mute hopes and wishes true.