Part 41 (1/2)

Or bathes like the moon in the ocean.

The parting glance of Mother Sun broods on the grapes.

'Morning came frightening away light sleep with its footsteps.'

'The young day arose with delight.'

The moon: 'Thou spreadest thy glance soothingly over my abode.'

On a cloudy night: 'Evening already rocked earth, and night hung on the mountains; from a hill of clouds the moon looked mournfully out of the mist.'

'The lofty stars turn their clear eyes down to me.'

Even the rock lives: 'The hard rock opens its bosom, not envying earth its deep springs.'

The stream: 'Thou hurriest on with joyful light mood; see the rock spring bright with the glance of the stars, yet no shady valley, no flowers make him tarry ... his course winds downwards to the plain, then he scatters in delightful spray, in cloud waves ... foams gloomily to the abyss.'

With gradual step from out the far-off grey, Self-heralded draws on the storm.

Birds on the wing fly low across the water, weighted down, And seamen hasten to reef in the sail Before its stubborn wrath.

His flowers are alive:

The beauteous snowdrops Droop o'er the plain, The crocus opens Its glowing bud ...

With saucy gesture Primroses flare, And roguish violets Hidden with care.

But these are only examples. To obtain a clear idea of Goethe's att.i.tude, we must take a more general survey of his work, for his poetic relations.h.i.+p to Nature, like his mental development in general, pa.s.sed through various stages of growth. That it was a warm one even in youth is shewn by the letter in 1766 from Leipzig[9]:

You live contented in M. I even so here. Lonely, lonely, altogether lonely. Dearest Riese, this loneliness has impressed my soul with a certain sadness.

This solitary joy is mine, When far apart from all mankind, By shady brook-side to recline.

And keep my loved ones in my mind....

He goes on with these lines:

Then is my heart with sorrow filled, Sad is mine eye.

The flooded brook now rages by, That heretofore so gently rilled.

No bird sings in the bushes now, The tree so green is dry, The zephyr which on me did blow So cheering, now storms northerly, And scattered blossoms bears on high.

He was already in full sympathy with Nature. A few of his earlier poems[10] shew prevalent taste, the allusions to Zephyr and Lima, for instance, in _Night_; but they are followed by lines which are all his own.

He had an incomparable way of striking the chords of love and Nature together.

Where his lady-love dwells, 'there is love, and goodness is Nature.'

He thinks of her

When the bright sunlight s.h.i.+mmers Across the sea, When the clear fountain in the moonbeam glimmers.

Thou art seductive and charming; flowers, Sun, moon, and stars only wors.h.i.+p thee.

There is pa.s.sionate feeling for Nature in the _May Song_ of his Sesenheimer period:

How gloriously gleameth All Nature to me!