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THREE PALINODIAS. - 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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THREE PALINODIAS.

    • I.

    • “Incense is but a tribute for the gods,—
    • To mortals ’tis but poison.”
    • THE smoke that from thine altar blows,
    • Can it the gods offend?
    • For I observe thou hold’st thy nose—
    • Pray what does this portend?
    • Mankind deem incense to excel
    • Each other earthly thing,
    • So he that cannot bear its smell
    • No incense e’er should bring.
    • With unmov’d face by thee at least
    • To dolls is homage given;
    • If not obstructed by the priest
    • The scent mounts up to heaven.
  • II.
  • CONFLICT OF WIT AND BEAUTY.
  • SIR WIT, who is so much esteem’d,
  • And who is worthy of all honor,
  • Saw Beauty his superior deem’d
  • By folks who lov’d to gaze upon her;
  • At this he was most sorely vex’d.
  • Then came Sir Breath (long known as fit
  • To represent the cause of wit),
  • Beginning, rudely, I admit,
  • To treat the lady with a text.
  • To this she hearken’d not at all,
  • But hasten’d to his principal:
  • “None are so wise, they say, as you,—
  • Is not the world enough for two?
  • If you are obstinate, good-bye!
  • If wise, to love me you will try,
  • For be assur’d the world can ne’er
  • Give birth to a more handsome pair.”
  • Ἄλλως.
  • Fair daughters were by Beauty rear’d,
  • Wit had but dull sons for his lot;
  • So for a season it appear’d
  • Beauty was constant, Wit was not.
  • But Wit’s a native of the soil,
  • So he return’d, work’d, strove amain,
  • And found—sweet guerdon for his toil!—
  • Beauty to quicken him again.
  • III.
  • RAIN AND RAINBOW.
  • DURING a heavy storm it chanc’d
  • That from his room a cockney glanc’d
  • At the fierce tempest as it broke,
  • While to his neighbor thus he spoke:
  • “The thunder has our awe inspir’d,
  • Our barns by lightning have been fir’d,—
  • Our sins to punish, I suppose;
  • But in return, to soothe our woes,
  • See how the rain in torrents fell,
  • Making the harvest promise well!
  • But is’t a rainbow that I spy
  • Extending o’er the dark-gray sky?
  • With it I’m sure we may dispense,
  • The color’d cheat! The vain pretence!”
  • Dame Iris straightway thus replied:
  • “Dost dare my beauty to deride?
  • In realms of space God station’d me
  • A type of better worlds to be
  • To eyes that from life’s sorrows rove
  • In cheerful hope to heav’n above,
  • And, through the mists that hover here,
  • God and His precepts bless’d revere.
  • Do thou, then, grovel like the swine,
  • And to the ground thy snout confine,
  • But suffer the enlighten’d eye
  • To feast upon my majesty.”