Econlib

The Library

Other Sites

Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow THE COUNTRY SCHOOLMASTER. - Goethe's Works, vol. 1 (Poems)

Return to Title Page for Goethe’s Works, vol. 1 (Poems)

Search this Title:

Also in the Library:

Subject Area: Literature

THE COUNTRY SCHOOLMASTER. - 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.

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


THE COUNTRY SCHOOLMASTER.

    • I.

    • A MASTER of a country school
    • Jump’d up one day from off his stool,
    • Inspir’d with firm resolve to try
    • To gain the best society;
    • So to the nearest baths he walk’d,
    • And into the saloon he stalk’d.
    • He felt quite startled at the door,
    • Ne’er having seen the like before.
    • To the first stranger made he now
    • A very low and graceful bow,
    • But quite forgot to bear in mind
    • That people also stood behind;
    • His left-hand neighbor’s paunch he struck
    • A grievous blow, by great ill luck;
    • Pardon for this he first entreated,
    • And then in haste his bow repeated.
    • His right-hand neighbor next he hit,
    • And begg’d him, too, to pardon it;
    • But on his granting his petition
    • Another was in like condition;
    • These compliments he paid to all,
    • Behind, before, across the hall;
    • At length one who could stand no more
    • Show’d him impatiently the door.
    • * * * * *
    • May many, pond’ring on their crimes,
    • A moral draw from this betimes!
    • II.

    • As he proceeded on his way
    • He thought, “I was too weak to-day;
    • To bow I’ll ne’er again be seen;
    • For goats will swallow what is green.”
    • Across the fields he now must speed,
    • Not over stumps and stones, indeed,
    • But over meads and cornfields sweet,
    • Trampling down all with clumsy feet.
    • A farmer met him by-and-by,
    • And didn’t ask him: how? or why?
    • But with his fist saluted him.
    • “I feel new life in every limb!”
    • Our traveller cried in ecstasy.
    • “Who art thou who thus gladden’st me?
    • May Heaven such blessings ever send!
    • Ne’er may I want a jovial friend!”
lf0841-01_figure_094

artist: b plockhorst.

THE LEGEND OF THE HORSE-SHOE.