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LOVE AS A LANDSCAPE-PAINTER. - 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 AS A LANDSCAPE-PAINTER.

lf0841-01_figure_090
    • ON a rocky peak once sat I early,
    • Gazing on the mist with eyes unmoving;
    • Stretch’d out like a pall of grayish texture,
    • All things round, and all above it cover’d.
    • Suddenly a boy appear’d beside me,
    • Saying, “Friend, what meanest thou by gazing
    • On the vacant pall with such composure?
    • Hast thou lost for evermore all pleasure
    • Both in painting cunningly, and forming?”
    • On the child I gaz’d, and thought in secret:
    • “Would the boy pretend to be a master?”
    • “Would’st thou be forever dull and idle,”
    • Said the boy, “no wisdom thou’lt attain to;
    • See, I’ll straightway paint for thee a figure,—
    • How to paint a beauteous figure, show thee.”
    • And he then extended his fore-finger,—
    • (Ruddy was it as a youthful rosebud)
    • Tow’rd the broad and far outstretching carpet,
    • And began to draw there with his finger.
    • First on high a radiant sun he painted,
    • Which upon mine eyes with splendor glisten’d,
    • And he made the clouds with golden border,
    • Through the clouds he let the sunbeams enter;
    • Painted then the soft and feathery summits
    • Of the fresh and quicken’d trees, behind them
    • One by one with freedom drew the mountains;
    • Underneath he left no lack of water,
    • But the river painted so like Nature,
    • That it seem’d to glitter in the sunbeams,
    • That it seem’d against its banks to murmur.
    • Ah, there blossom’d flowers beside the river.
    • And bright colors gleam’d upon the meadow.
    • Gold, and green, and purple, and enamell’d,
    • All like carbuncles and emeralds seeming!
    • Bright and clear he added then the heavens,
    • And the blue-tinged mountains far and farther,
    • So that I, as though newborn, enraptur’d
    • Gaz’d on, now the painter, now the picture.
    • Then spake he: “Although I have convinc’d thee
    • That this art I understand full surely,
    • Yet the hardest still is left to show thee.”
    • Thereupon he trac’d, with pointed finger,
    • And with anxious care, upon the forest,
    • At the utmost verge, where the strong sunbeams
    • From the shining ground appear’d reflected,
    • Trac’d the figure of a lovely maiden,
    • Fair in form, and clad in graceful fashion,
    • Fresh the cheeks beneath her brown locks’ ambush,
    • And the cheeks possess’d the selfsame color
    • As the finger that had serv’d to paint them.
    • “O thou boy!” exclaim’d I then, “what master
    • In his school receiv’d thee as his pupil,
    • Teaching thee so truthfully and quickly
    • Wisely to begin, and well to finish?”
    • Whilst I still was speaking, lo, a zephyr
    • Softly rose, and set the tree-tops moving,
    • Curling all the wavelets on the river,
    • And the perfect maiden’s veil, too, fill’d it,
    • And to make my wonderment still greater,
    • Soon the maiden set her foot in motion.
    • On she came, approaching tow’rd the station
    • Where still sat I with my arch instructor.
    • As now all, yes, all thus mov’d together,—
    • Flowers, rivers, trees, the veil,—all moving,—
    • And the gentle foot of that most fair one,
    • Can ye think that on my rock I linger’d,
    • Like a rock, as though fast-chain’d and silent?
lf0841-01_figure_091

Fr. Pecht del.

published by george barrie

A. Schultheiss sculp.

Frederika