Econlib

The Library

Other Sites

Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow Timur Nameh. - 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

Timur Nameh. - 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.


Timur Nameh.

BOOK OF TIMUR.

THE WINTER AND TIMUR.

  • SO the winter now clos’d round them
  • With resistless fury. Scatt’ring
  • Over all his breath so icy,
  • He inflam’d each wind that bloweth
  • To assail them angrily.
  • Over them he gave dominion
  • To his frost-ensharpen’d tempests;
  • Down to Timur’s council went he,
  • And with threat’ning voice address’d him:—
  • “Softly, slowly, wretched being!
  • Live, the tyrant of injustice;
  • But shall hearts be scorch’d much longer
  • By thy flames,—consume before them?
  • If amongst the evil spirits
  • Thou art one,—good! I’m another.
  • Thou a graybeard art—so I am;
  • Land and men we make to stiffen.
  • Thou art Mars! And I Saturnus,—
  • Both are evil-working planets,
  • When united, horror-fraught.
  • Thou dost kill the soul, thou freezest
  • E’en the atmosphere; still colder
  • Is my breath than thine was ever.
  • Thy wild armies vex the faithful
  • With a thousand varying torments;
  • Well! God grant that I discover
  • Even worse, before I perish!
  • And by God, I’ll give thee none.
  • Let God hear what now I tell thee!
  • Yes, by God! from Death’s cold clutches
  • Naught, O graybeard, shall protect thee,
  • Not the hearth’s broad coalfire’s ardor,
  • Not December’s brightest flame.”

TO SULEIKA.

    • FITTING perfumes to prepare,
    • And to raise thy rapture high,
    • Must a thousand rosebuds fair
    • First in fiery torments die.
    • One small flask’s contents to glean,
    • Whose sweet fragrance aye may live,
    • Slender as thy finger e’en,
    • Must a world its treasures give;
    • Yes, a world where life is moving,
    • Which, with impulse full and strong,
    • Could forebode the bulbul’s loving,
    • Sweet, and spirit-stirring song.
    • Since they thus have swell’d our joy,
    • Should such torments grieve us, then?
    • Doth not Timur’s rule destroy
    • Myriad souls of living men?
lf0841-01_figure_112 lf0841-01_figure_113

artist: f. simm.

SULEIKA.