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Subject Area: Literature

AUTHORS. - 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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AUTHORS.

    • OVER the meadows, and down the stream,
    • And through the garden-walks straying,
    • He plucks the flowers that fairest seem;
    • His throbbing heart brooks no delaying.
    • His maiden then comes—oh, what ecstasy!
    • Thy flowers thou giv’st for one glance of her eye!
    • The gard’ner next door o’er the hedge sees the youth:
    • “I’m not such a fool as that, in good truth;
    • My pleasure is ever to cherish each flower,
    • And see that no birds my fruit e’er devour.
    • But when ’tis ripe, your money, good neighbor!
    • ’Twas not for nothing I took all this labor!”
    • And such, methinks, are the author-tribe.
    • The one his pleasures around him strews,
    • That his friends, the public, may reap, if they choose:
    • The other would fain make them all subscribe.