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.

LILY’S MENAGERIE.

• • THERE’S no menagerie, I vow,
  • Excels my Lily’s at this minute;
  • She keeps the strangest creatures in it,
  • And catches them, she knows not how.
  • Oh, how they hop, and run, and rave,
  • And their clipp’d pinions wildly wave,—
  • Poor princes, who must all endure
  • The pangs of love that naught can cure.
• • What is the fairy’s name?—Is’t Lily?—Ask not me!
  • Give thanks to Heaven if she’s unknown to thee.
• • Oh, what a cackling, what a shrieking,
  • When near the door she takes her stand
  • With her food-basket in her hand!
  • Oh, what a croaking, what a squeaking!
  • Alive all the trees and the bushes appear,
  • While to her feet whole troops draw near;
  • The very fish within the water clear
  • Splash with impatience and their heads protrude;
  • And then she throws around the food
  • With such a look!—the very gods delighting
  • (To say naught of beasts). There begins then a biting,
  • A picking, a pecking, a sipping,
  • And each o’er the legs of another is tripping,
  • And pushing, and pressing, and flapping,
  • And chasing, and fuming, and snapping,
  • And all for one small piece of bread,
  • To which, though dry, her fair hands give a taste,
  • As though it in ambrosia had been plac’d.
• • And then her look! the tone
  • With which she calls: Pipi! Pipi!
  • Would draw Jove’s eagle from his throne;
  • Yes, Venus’ turtle-doves, I ween,
  • And the vain peacock e’en,
  • Would come, I swear,
  • Soon as that tone had reach’d them through the air.
• • E’en from a forest dark had she
  • Entic’d a bear, unlick’d, ill-bred,
  • And by her wiles alluring led
  • To join the gentle company,
  • Until as tame as they was he:
  • (Up to a certain point, be’t understood!)
  • How fair, and, ah, how good
  • She seem’d to be! I would have drain’d my blood
  • To water e’en her flow’rets sweet.
• • Thou sayest: “I! Who? How? And where?”—
  • Well, to be plain, good Sirs—I am the bear;
  • In a net-apron caught, alas!
  • Chain’d by a silk-thread at her feet.
  • But how this wonder came to pass
  • I’ll tell some day, if ye are curious;
  • Just now, my temper’s much too furious.
• • Ah, when I’m in the corner plac’d,
  • And hear afar the creatures snapping,
  • And see the flipping and the flapping,
  • I turn around
  • With growling sound,
  • And backward run a step in haste,
  • And look around
  • With growling sound,
  • Then run again a step in haste,
  • And to my former post go round.
• • But suddenly my anger grows,
  • A mighty spirit fills my nose,
  • My inward feelings all revolt.
  • A creature such as thou! a dolt!
  • Pipi, a squirrel able nuts to crack!
  • I bristle up my shaggy back,
  • Unused a slave to be.
  • I’m laugh’d at by each trim and upstart tree
  • To scorn. The bowling-green I fly,
  • With neatly-mown and well-kept grass;
  • The box makes faces as I pass,—
  • Into the darkest thicket hasten I,
  • Hoping to ’scape from the ring,
  • Over the palings to spring!
  • Vainly I leap and climb;
  • I feel a leaden spell
  • That pinions me as well;
  • And when I’m fully wearied out in time
  • I lay me down beside some mock cascade,
  • And roll myself half dead, and foam, and cry,
  • And, ah! no Oreads hear my sigh
  • Excepting those of china made!
• • But, ah, with sudden power
  • In all my members blissful feelings reign!
  • ’Tis she who singeth yonder in her bower!
  • I hear that darling, darling voice again.
• • The air is warm, and teems with fragrance clear,
  • Sings she perchance for me alone to hear?
  • I haste, and trample down the shrubs amain;
  • The trees make way, the bushes all retreat,
  • And so—the beast is lying at her feet.
• • She looks at him: “The monster’s droll enough!
  • He’s for a bear too mild,
  • Yet for a dog too wild,
  • So shaggy, clumsy, rough!”
  • Upon his back she gently strokes her foot;
  • He thinks himself in Paradise.
  • What feelings through his seven senses shoot!
  • But she looks on with careless eyes.
  • I lick her soles, and kiss her shoes,
  • As gently as a bear well may;
  • Softly I rise, and with a clever ruse
  • Leap on her knee.—On a propitious day
  • She suffers it; my ears then tickles she,
  • And hits me a hard blow in wanton play;
  • I growl with new-born ecstasy;
  • Then speaks she in a sweet vain jest, I wot:
  • “Allons tout doux! eh! la menotte!
  • Et faites serviteur
  • Comme un joli seigneur.”
• • Thus she proceeds with sport and glee;
  • Hope fills the oft-deluded beast;
  • Yet if one moment he would lazy be
  • Her fondness all at once hath ceas’d.
• • She doth a flask of balsam-fire possess
  • Sweeter than honey-bees can make,
  • One drop of which she’ll on her finger take,
  • When soften’d by his love and faithfulness,
  • Wherewith her monster’s raging thirst to slake;
  • Then leaves me to myself, and flies at last,
  • And I, unbound, yet prison’d fast
  • By magic, follow in her train,
  • Seek for her, tremble, fly again.
  • The hapless creature thus tormenteth she,
  • Regardless of his pleasure or his woe;
  • Ha! oft half-open’d does she leave the door for me,
  • And sideways looks to learn if I will fly or no.
  • And I—O gods! your hands alone
  • Can end the spell that’s o’er me thrown;
  • Free me, and gratitude my heart will fill;
  • And yet from heaven ye send me down no aid—
  • Not quite in vain doth life my limbs pervade:
  • I feel it! Strength is left me still.