The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• The Life of Goethe By Hjalmar H. Boyesen, Ph.d.
• Poems
• Dedication.
• Songs
• Sound, Sweet Song.
• To the Kind Reader.
• The New Amadis
• When the Fox Dies, His Skin Counts.
• The Heathrose.
• Blindman’s Buff.
• Christel.
• The Coy One.
• The Convert.
• Preservation.
• The Muses’ Son.
• Found.
• Like and Like.
• Reciprocal Invitation to the Dance.
• Self-deceit.
• Declaration of War.
• Lover In All Shapes.
• The Goldsmith’s Apprentice.
• Joy and Sorrow.
• March.
• Answers In a Game of Questions.
• Different Emotions On the Same Spot.
• Who’ll Buy Gods of Love?
• The Misanthrope.
• True Enjoyment.
• Happiness and Vision.
• The Farewell.
• The Beautiful Night.
• Apparent Death.
• Proximity.
• Living Remembrance.
• The Bliss of Absence.
• To Luna.
• The Wedding Night.
• Mischievous Joy.
• Farewell.
• The Exchange.
• November Song.
• To the Chosen One.
• First Loss.
• After-sensations.
• Proximity of the Beloved One.
• Presence.
• To the Distant One.
• By the River.
• Night Song.
• Calm At Sea.
• The Prosperous Voyage.
• Courage.
• Admonition.
• Welcome and Farewell.
• New Love, New Life.
• To Belinda.
• May Song.
• With a Painted Ribbon.
• With a Golden Necklace.
• To Charlotte.
• On the Lake.
• From the Mountain.
• Flower Salute.
• May Song.
• Premature Spring.
• Autumn Feelings
• Restless Love.
• The Shepherd’s Lament.
• Comfort In Tears.
• Longing.
• To Mignon.
• The Mountain Castle
• The Spirit’s Salute.
• To a Golden Heart That He Wore Round His Neck.
• The Bliss of Sorrow.
• The Wanderer’s Night-song.
• The Same.
• To the Moon.
• The Hunter’s Even-song.
• My Only Property.
• To Lina.
• Familiar Songs
• On the New Year.
• Anniversary Song.
• The Spring Oracle.
• The Happy Couple.
• Song of Fellowship.
• Constancy In Change.
• Table Song.
• Wont and Done.
• General Confession.
• Coptic Song.
• Another.
• Vanitas! Vanitatum Vanitas!
• Swiss Song.
• Fortune of War.
• Open Table.
• The Reckoning.
• Ergo Bibamus!
• Epiphanias.
• Finnish Song.
• Gypsy Song.
• From Wilhelm Meister.
• Mignon.
• The Same.
• The Harper.
• Philine.
• Ballads
• Mignon.
• The Harper.
• Ballad of the Banished and Returning Count.
• The Violet.
• The Faithless Boy.
• The Erl-king.
• Johanna Sebus
• The Fisherman.
• The King of Thule.
• The Beauteous Flower. Song of the Imprisoned Count.
• Sir Curt’s Wedding-journey.
• Wedding Song.
• The Treasure-digger.
• The Rat-catcher.
• The Spinner.
• Before a Court of Justice.
• The Page and the Miller’s Daughter.
• The Youth and the Millstream.
• The Maid of the Mill’s Treachery.
• The Maid of the Mill’s Repentance.
• The Traveller and the Farm-maiden.
• Effects At a Distance.
• The Walking Bell.
• Faithful Eckart.
• The Pupil In Magic.
• The Dance of Death.
• The Bride of Corinth.
• The God and the Bayadere. an Indian Legend.
• The Pariah. the Pariah’s Prayer.
• Legend.
• The Pariah’s Thanks.
• The First Walpurgis-night.
• Death-lament of the Noble Wife of Asan Aga.
• Antiques
• Leopold, Duke of Brunswick. 1785.
• To the Husbandman.
• Anacreon’s Grave.
• The Brethren.
• Measure of Time.
• Warning.
• SakÓntala.
• Solitude.
• The Chosen Cliff.
• The Consecrated Spot.
• The Instructors.
• The Unequal Marriage.
• Excuse.
• The Muse’s Mirror.
• PhŒbus and Hermes.
• The New Amor.
• The Garlands.
• The Swiss Alps.
• Elegies
• Roman Elegies.
• Alexis and Dora.
• Epigrams
• Venice, 1790.
• The Four Seasons.
• Spring.
• Summer.
• Autumn.
• Winter.
• Sonnets.
• The Friendly Meeting.
• In a Word.
• The Maiden Speaks.
• Growth.
• Food In Travel.
• Departure.
• The Loving One Writes.
• The Loving One Once More.
• She Cannot End.
• Nemesis.
• The Christmas-box.
• The Warning.
• The Doubters and the Lovers.
• The Epochs.
• Charade.
• Miscellaneous Poems.
• The German Parnassus.
• Mahomet’s Song.
• Spirit Song Over the Waters.
• My Goddess.
• Winter Journey Over the Hartz Mountains.
• To Father Kronos.
• The Wanderer’s Storm-song.
• The Sea-voyage.
• Prometheus.
• The Eagle and Dove.
• Ganymede.
• The Boundaries of Humanity.
• The Godlike.
• Royal Prayer.
• Human Feelings.
• Lily’s Menagerie.
• Love’s Distresses.
• To His Coy One.
• Petition.
• The Musagetes.
• Morning Lament.
• The Visit.
• The Magic Net.
• The Goblet.
• Night Thoughts.
• To Lida.
• Forever.
• From an Album of 1604.
• To the Rising Full Moon.
• Betrothed.
• At Midnight Hour.
• Lines On Seeing Schiller’s Skull.
• Trilogy of Passion.
• To Werther.
• Elegy.
• Atonement.
• April.
• May.
• June.
• Ever and Everywhere.
• Next Year’s Spring.
• Such, Such Is He Who Pleaseth Me.
• St. Nepomuk’s Eve. Carlsbad, May 15, 1820.
• The Freebooter.
• Reciprocal.
• Song of the Emigrants.
• Explanation of an Ancient Woodcut Representing Hans Sachs’ Poetical Mission.
• Thoughts On Jesus Christ’s Descent Into Hell.
• Art
• The Drops of Nectar.
• The Wanderer.
• Love As a Landscape-painter.
• Artist’s Evening Song.
• Parables
• Explanation of an Antique Gem.
• Cat-pie.
• Legend.
• The Critic.
• Authors.
• The Dilettante and the Critic.
• Celebrity.
• The Yelpers.
• The Wrangler.
• Joy.
• Playing At Priests.
• Songs.
• Poetry.
• A Parable.
• Cupid and Psyche.
• The Death of the Fly.
• By the River.
• The Fox and Crane.
• The Fox and Huntsman.
• The Stork’s Vocation.
• The Frogs.
• The Wedding.
• Burial.
• Threatening Signs.
• The Buyers.
• The Mountain Village.
• Symbols.
• Three Palinodias.
• Valediction.
• The Country Schoolmaster.
• The Legend of the Horseshoe.
• Epigrams.
• To Originals.
• The Soldier’s Consolation.
• Genial Impulse.
• Neither This Nor That.
• The Way to Behave.
• The Best.
• As Broad As It’s Long.
• Calm At Sea.
• The Rule of Life.
• The Same, Expanded.
• The Fair At Huehenefeld. July 25th, 1814.
• The Little Girl’s Wish.
• Epitaph.
• Admonition.
• My Only Property.
• Old Age.
• Courage.
• Rule For Monarchs.
• Memories.
• Paulo Post Futuri.
• The Fool’s Epilogue.
• On the Divan.
• God and World.
• Prooemion.
• The Metamorphosis of Plants.
• The Sages and the People.
• Rhymed Distichs.
• God, Soul and World.
• Distichs.
• West-eastern Divan.
• Moganni Nameh.
• Hafis Nameh.
• Uschk Nameh.
• Teskir Nameh.
• Rendsch Nameh.
• Hikmet Nameh.
• Timur Nameh.
• Suleika Nameh.
• Safi Nameh.
• Mathal Nameh.
• Parsi Nameh.
• Chuld Nameh.
• Hermann and Dorothea
• Fate and Sympathy.
• Hermann.
• The Burghers.
• Mother and Son.
• The Cosmopolite.
• The Age.
• Dorothea.
• Hermann and Dorothea.
• Conclusion.

THE GOD AND THE BAYADERE.

An Indian Legend.

• • MAHADEVA, Lord of earth,
  • For the sixth time comes below,
  • As a man of mortal birth,—
  • Like him, feeling joy and woe.
  • Hither loves he to repair,
  • And his power behind to leave;
  • If to punish or to spare,
  • Men as man he’d fain perceive.
  • And when he the town as a trav’ller hath seen,
  • Observing the mighty, regarding the mean,
  • He quits it, to go on his journey, at eve.
• • He was leaving now the place,
  • When an outcast met his eyes,—
  • Fair in form, with painted face,—
  • Where some straggling dwellings rise.
  • “Maiden, hail!”—“Thanks! welcome here!
  • Stay!—I’ll join thee in the road.”—
  • “Who art thou!”—“A Bayadere,
  • And this house is love’s abode.”
  • The cymbal she hastens to play for the dance,
  • Well skill’d in its mazes the sight to entrance,
  • Then by her with grace is the nosegay bestow’d.
• • Then she draws him, as in play,
  • O’er the threshold eagerly:
  • “Beauteous stranger, light as day
  • Thou shalt soon this cottage see.
  • I’ll refresh thee, if thou’rt tir’d,
  • And will bathe thy weary feet;
  • Take whate’er by thee’s desir’d,
  • Toying, rest, or rapture sweet.”—
  • She busily seeks his feign’d suff’rings to ease;
  • Then smiles the Immortal; with pleasure he sees
  • That with kindness a heart so corrupted can beat.
• • And he makes her act the part
  • Of a slave; he’s straight obey’d.
  • What at first had been but art,
  • Soon is nature in the maid.
  • By degrees the fruit we find,
  • Where the buds at first obtain;
  • When obedience fills the mind,
  • Love will never far remain.
  • But sharper and sharper the maiden to prove,
  • The Discerner of all things below and above,
  • Feigns pleasure, and horror, and maddening pain.
• • And her painted cheeks he kisses,
  • And his vows her heart enthral;
  • Feeling love’s sharp pangs and blisses,
  • Soon her tears begin to fall.
  • At his feet she now must sink,
  • Not with thoughts of lust or gain,—
  • And her slender members shrink,
  • And devoid of power remain.
  • And so the bright hours with gladness prepare
  • Their dark, pleasing veil of a texture so fair,
  • And over the couch softly, tranquilly reign.
• • Late she falls asleep, thus bless’d,—
  • Early wakes, her slumbers fled,
  • And she finds the much-lov’d guest
  • On her bosom lying dead.
  • Screaming falls she on him there,
  • But, alas, too late to save!
  • And his rigid limbs they bear
  • Straightway to their fiery grave.
  • Then hears she the priests and the funeral song,
  • Then madly she runs, and she severs the throng:
  • “Why press tow’rd the pile thus? Why scream thus, and rave?”
• • Then she sinks beside his bier,
  • And her screams through air resound:
  • “I must seek my spouse so dear,
  • E’en if in the grave he’s bound.
  • Shall those limbs of grace divine
  • Fall to ashes in my sight?
  • Mine he was! Yes, only mine!
  • Ah, one single blissful night!”
  • The priests chaunt in chorus: “We bear out the old,
  • When long they’ve been weary, and late they’ve grown cold;
  • We bear out the young, too, so thoughtless and light.
• • “To thy priests’ commands give ear!
  • This one was thy husband ne’er;
  • Live still as a Bayadere,
  • And no duty thou need’st share.
  • To death’s silent realms from life,
  • None but shades attend man’s frame,
  • With the husband, none but wife,—
  • That is duty, that is fame.
  • Ye trumpets, your sacred lament haste to raise!
  • Oh, welcome, ye gods, the bright lustre of days!
  • Oh, welcome to heaven the youth from the flame!”
• • Thus increas’d her torments are
  • By the cruel, heartless quire;
  • And with arms outstretching far
  • Leaps she on the glowing pyre.
  • But the youth divine outsprings
  • From the flame with heav’nly grace,
  • And on high his flight he wings,
  • While his arms his love embrace.
  • In the sinner repentant the Godhead feels joy;
  • Immortals delight thus their might to employ,
  • Lost children to raise to a heavenly place.