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FROM AN ALBUM OF 1604. - 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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FROM AN ALBUM OF 1604.

  • HOPE provides wings to thought, and love to hope.
  • Rise up to Cynthia, love, when night is clearest,
  • And say, that as on high her figure changeth,
  • So, upon earth, my joy decays and grows.
  • And whisper in her ear with modest softness
  • How doubt oft hung its head, and truth oft wept.
  • And O ye thoughts, distrustfully inclin’d,
  • If ye are therefore by the lov’d one chided,
  • Answer: ’tis true ye change, but alter not,
  • As she remains the same, yet changeth ever.
  • Doubt may invade the heart, but poisons not,
  • For love is sweeter, by suspicion flavor’d.
  • If it with anger overcasts the eye,
  • And heaven’s bright purity perversely blackens,
  • Then zephyr-sighs straight scare the clouds away,
  • And chang’d to tears dissolve them into rain.
  • Thought, hope, and love remain there as before,
  • Till Cynthia gleams upon me as of old.