The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• The Life of Goethe By Hjalmar H. Boyesen, Ph.d.
• Poems
• Dedication.
• Songs
• Sound, Sweet Song.
• To the Kind Reader.
• The New Amadis
• When the Fox Dies, His Skin Counts.
• The Heathrose.
• Blindman’s Buff.
• Christel.
• The Coy One.
• The Convert.
• Preservation.
• The Muses’ Son.
• Found.
• Like and Like.
• Reciprocal Invitation to the Dance.
• Self-deceit.
• Declaration of War.
• Lover In All Shapes.
• The Goldsmith’s Apprentice.
• Joy and Sorrow.
• March.
• Answers In a Game of Questions.
• Different Emotions On the Same Spot.
• Who’ll Buy Gods of Love?
• The Misanthrope.
• True Enjoyment.
• Happiness and Vision.
• The Farewell.
• The Beautiful Night.
• Apparent Death.
• Proximity.
• Living Remembrance.
• The Bliss of Absence.
• To Luna.
• The Wedding Night.
• Mischievous Joy.
• Farewell.
• The Exchange.
• November Song.
• To the Chosen One.
• First Loss.
• After-sensations.
• Proximity of the Beloved One.
• Presence.
• To the Distant One.
• By the River.
• Night Song.
• Calm At Sea.
• The Prosperous Voyage.
• Courage.
• Admonition.
• Welcome and Farewell.
• New Love, New Life.
• To Belinda.
• May Song.
• With a Painted Ribbon.
• With a Golden Necklace.
• To Charlotte.
• On the Lake.
• From the Mountain.
• Flower Salute.
• May Song.
• Premature Spring.
• Autumn Feelings
• Restless Love.
• The Shepherd’s Lament.
• Comfort In Tears.
• Longing.
• To Mignon.
• The Mountain Castle
• The Spirit’s Salute.
• To a Golden Heart That He Wore Round His Neck.
• The Bliss of Sorrow.
• The Wanderer’s Night-song.
• The Same.
• To the Moon.
• The Hunter’s Even-song.
• My Only Property.
• To Lina.
• Familiar Songs
• On the New Year.
• Anniversary Song.
• The Spring Oracle.
• The Happy Couple.
• Song of Fellowship.
• Constancy In Change.
• Table Song.
• Wont and Done.
• General Confession.
• Coptic Song.
• Another.
• Vanitas! Vanitatum Vanitas!
• Swiss Song.
• Fortune of War.
• Open Table.
• The Reckoning.
• Ergo Bibamus!
• Epiphanias.
• Finnish Song.
• Gypsy Song.
• From Wilhelm Meister.
• Mignon.
• The Same.
• The Harper.
• Philine.
• Ballads
• Mignon.
• The Harper.
• Ballad of the Banished and Returning Count.
• The Violet.
• The Faithless Boy.
• The Erl-king.
• Johanna Sebus
• The Fisherman.
• The King of Thule.
• The Beauteous Flower. Song of the Imprisoned Count.
• Sir Curt’s Wedding-journey.
• Wedding Song.
• The Treasure-digger.
• The Rat-catcher.
• The Spinner.
• Before a Court of Justice.
• The Page and the Miller’s Daughter.
• The Youth and the Millstream.
• The Maid of the Mill’s Treachery.
• The Maid of the Mill’s Repentance.
• The Traveller and the Farm-maiden.
• Effects At a Distance.
• The Walking Bell.
• Faithful Eckart.
• The Pupil In Magic.
• The Dance of Death.
• The Bride of Corinth.
• The God and the Bayadere. an Indian Legend.
• The Pariah. the Pariah’s Prayer.
• Legend.
• The Pariah’s Thanks.
• The First Walpurgis-night.
• Death-lament of the Noble Wife of Asan Aga.
• Antiques
• Leopold, Duke of Brunswick. 1785.
• To the Husbandman.
• Anacreon’s Grave.
• The Brethren.
• Measure of Time.
• Warning.
• SakÓntala.
• Solitude.
• The Chosen Cliff.
• The Consecrated Spot.
• The Instructors.
• The Unequal Marriage.
• Excuse.
• The Muse’s Mirror.
• PhŒbus and Hermes.
• The New Amor.
• The Garlands.
• The Swiss Alps.
• Elegies
• Roman Elegies.
• Alexis and Dora.
• Epigrams
• Venice, 1790.
• The Four Seasons.
• Spring.
• Summer.
• Autumn.
• Winter.
• Sonnets.
• The Friendly Meeting.
• In a Word.
• The Maiden Speaks.
• Growth.
• Food In Travel.
• Departure.
• The Loving One Writes.
• The Loving One Once More.
• She Cannot End.
• Nemesis.
• The Christmas-box.
• The Warning.
• The Doubters and the Lovers.
• The Epochs.
• Charade.
• Miscellaneous Poems.
• The German Parnassus.
• Mahomet’s Song.
• Spirit Song Over the Waters.
• My Goddess.
• Winter Journey Over the Hartz Mountains.
• To Father Kronos.
• The Wanderer’s Storm-song.
• The Sea-voyage.
• Prometheus.
• The Eagle and Dove.
• Ganymede.
• The Boundaries of Humanity.
• The Godlike.
• Royal Prayer.
• Human Feelings.
• Lily’s Menagerie.
• Love’s Distresses.
• To His Coy One.
• Petition.
• The Musagetes.
• Morning Lament.
• The Visit.
• The Magic Net.
• The Goblet.
• Night Thoughts.
• To Lida.
• Forever.
• From an Album of 1604.
• To the Rising Full Moon.
• Betrothed.
• At Midnight Hour.
• Lines On Seeing Schiller’s Skull.
• Trilogy of Passion.
• To Werther.
• Elegy.
• Atonement.
• April.
• May.
• June.
• Ever and Everywhere.
• Next Year’s Spring.
• Such, Such Is He Who Pleaseth Me.
• St. Nepomuk’s Eve. Carlsbad, May 15, 1820.
• The Freebooter.
• Reciprocal.
• Song of the Emigrants.
• Explanation of an Ancient Woodcut Representing Hans Sachs’ Poetical Mission.
• Thoughts On Jesus Christ’s Descent Into Hell.
• Art
• The Drops of Nectar.
• The Wanderer.
• Love As a Landscape-painter.
• Artist’s Evening Song.
• Parables
• Explanation of an Antique Gem.
• Cat-pie.
• Legend.
• The Critic.
• Authors.
• The Dilettante and the Critic.
• Celebrity.
• The Yelpers.
• The Wrangler.
• Joy.
• Playing At Priests.
• Songs.
• Poetry.
• A Parable.
• Cupid and Psyche.
• The Death of the Fly.
• By the River.
• The Fox and Crane.
• The Fox and Huntsman.
• The Stork’s Vocation.
• The Frogs.
• The Wedding.
• Burial.
• Threatening Signs.
• The Buyers.
• The Mountain Village.
• Symbols.
• Three Palinodias.
• Valediction.
• The Country Schoolmaster.
• The Legend of the Horseshoe.
• Epigrams.
• To Originals.
• The Soldier’s Consolation.
• Genial Impulse.
• Neither This Nor That.
• The Way to Behave.
• The Best.
• As Broad As It’s Long.
• Calm At Sea.
• The Rule of Life.
• The Same, Expanded.
• The Fair At Huehenefeld. July 25th, 1814.
• The Little Girl’s Wish.
• Epitaph.
• Admonition.
• My Only Property.
• Old Age.
• Courage.
• Rule For Monarchs.
• Memories.
• Paulo Post Futuri.
• The Fool’s Epilogue.
• On the Divan.
• God and World.
• Prooemion.
• The Metamorphosis of Plants.
• The Sages and the People.
• Rhymed Distichs.
• God, Soul and World.
• Distichs.
• West-eastern Divan.
• Moganni Nameh.
• Hafis Nameh.
• Uschk Nameh.
• Teskir Nameh.
• Rendsch Nameh.
• Hikmet Nameh.
• Timur Nameh.
• Suleika Nameh.
• Safi Nameh.
• Mathal Nameh.
• Parsi Nameh.
• Chuld Nameh.
• Hermann and Dorothea
• Fate and Sympathy.
• Hermann.
• The Burghers.
• Mother and Son.
• The Cosmopolite.
• The Age.
• Dorothea.
• Hermann and Dorothea.
• Conclusion.

Parsi Nameh.

BOOK OF THE PARSEES.

THE BEQUEST OF THE ANCIENT PERSIAN FAITH.

• • BRETHREN, what bequest to you should come
  • From the lowly poor man, going home,
  • Whom ye younger ones with patience tended,
  • Whose last days ye honor’d and defended?
• • When we oft have seen the monarch ride,
  • Gold upon him, gold on ev’ry side;
  • Jewels on him, on his courtiers all,
  • Thickly strew’d as hailstones when they fall,
• • Have ye e’er known envy at the sight?
  • And not felt your gaze become more bright,
  • When the sun was, on the wings of morning,
  • Darnawend’s unnumber’d peaks adorning,
• • As he, bow-like, rose? How each eye dwelt
  • On the glorious scene! I felt, I felt,
  • Thousand times, as life’s days fleeted by,
  • Borne with him, the coming one, on high.
• • God upon His throne then to proclaim,
  • Him, the life-fount’s mighty Lord, to name,
  • Worthily to prize that glorious sight,
  • And to wander on beneath His light.
• • When the fiery orb was all defin’d,
  • There I stood, as though in darkness, blind,
  • Beat my breast, my quicken’d members threw
  • On the earth, brow foremost, at the view.
• • Let this holy, great bequest reward
  • Brotherly good-will and kind regard:
  • Solemn Duty’s daily observation.—
  • More than this, it needs no revelation.
• • If its gentle hands a new-born one
  • Move, then straightway turn it tow’rd the sun—
  • Soul and body dip in bath of fire!
  • Then each morning’s favor ’twill acquire.
• • To the living one commit the dead,
  • O’er the beast let earth and dust be spread,
  • And, so far as may extend your might,
  • What ye deem impure conceal from sight.
• • Till your plains to graceful purity,
  • That the sun with joy your labors see;
  • When ye plant, your trees in rows contrive,
  • For he makes the Regular to thrive.
• • E’en the floods that through the channel rush
  • Must not fail in fulness or in gush;
  • And as Senderud, from mountain high,
  • Rises pure, in pureness must it die.
• • Not to weaken water’s gentle fall,
  • Carefully cleanse out the channels all;
  • Salamander, snake, and rush, and reed,—
  • All destroy,—each monster and each weed.
• • If thus pure ye earth and water keep,
  • Through the air the sun will gladly peep,
  • Where he, worthily enshrin’d in space,
  • Worketh life, to life gives holy grace.
• • Ye, by toil on toil so sorely tried,
  • Comfort take, the All is purified;
  • And now man, as priest, may boldly dare
  • From the stone God’s image to prepare.
• • When the flame burns joyously and bright,
  • Limbs are supple, radiant is the night;
  • On the hearth when fire with ardor glows,
  • Ripe the sap of plants and creatures grows.
• • Dragging wood, with rapture be it done,
  • ’Tis the seed of many an earthly sun;
  • Plucking Pambeh, gladly may ye say:—
  • This, as wick, the Holy will convey.
• • If ye meekly, in each burning lamp,
  • See the nobler light’s resplendent stamp,
  • Ne’er will Fate prevent you, void of feeling,
  • At God’s throne at morningtide from kneeling.
• • This is Being’s mighty signet, then,
  • God’s pure glass to angels and to men;
  • Each word lisp’d the Highest’s praise to sound.
  • Ring in ring, united there is found;
• • From the shore of Senderud ascendeth,
  • Up to Darnawend its pinions bendeth,
  • As he dawns, with joy to greet his light,
  • You with endless blessings to requite.