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LOVE’S DISTRESSES. - 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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LOVE’S DISTRESSES.

  • WHO will hear me? Whom shall I lament to?
  • Who would pity me that heard my sorrows?
  • Ah, the lip that erst so many raptures
  • Used to taste, and used to give responsive,
  • Now is cloven, and it pains me sorely;
  • And it is not thus severely wounded
  • By my mistress having caught me fiercely,
  • And then gently bitten me, intending
  • To secure her friend more firmly to her:
  • No, my tender lip is crack’d thus only
  • By the winds, o’er rime and frost proceeding,
  • Pointed, sharp, unloving, having met me.
  • Now the noble grape’s bright juice commingled
  • With the bee’s sweet juice, upon the fire
  • Of my hearth, shall ease me of my torment.
  • Ah, what use will all this be if with it
  • Love adds not a drop of his own balsam?