Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Poems

Go! obedient to my call,

Turn to profit thy young days,
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WHAT makes time short to me?

Activity!
What makes it long and spiritless?
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OH world, with what baseness and guilt thou art rife!

Thou nurtures, trainest, and illest the while.
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OH, enter old minstrel, thou time-honour'd one!
We children are here in the hall all alone,

The portals we straightway will bar.
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THE bed of flowers

Loosens amain,
The beauteous snowdrops
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CARELESSLY over the plain away,
Where by the boldest man no path
Cut before thee thou canst discern,
Make for thyself a path!
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OH, my Theresa dear!
Thine eyes, I greatly fear,

Can through the bandage see!
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WHEREFORE ever ramble on?

For the Good is lying near,
Fortune learn to seize alone,
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THE father's name ye ne'er shall be told

Of my darling unborn life;
"Shame, shame," ye cry, "on the strumpet bold!"
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MODEST men must needs endure,

And the bold must humbly bow;
Thus thy fate's the same, be sure,
...