Stars unsullied round us burn.

If ye, in repentant mood,

From your wanderings would return,—­
If ye fail to find the bliss

That ye found with us of yore,—­
Or when lawless mirth like this

Gives your hearts delight no more,—­
Then return in pilgrim guise,

Gladly up the mountain go,
While your strains repentant rise,

And our brethren’s advent show.

Let a new-born wreath entwine

Solemnly your temples round;
Rapture glows in hearts divine

When a long-lost sinner’s found. 
Swifter e’en than Lathe’s flood

Round Death’s silent house can play,
Ev’ry error of the good

Will love’s chalice wash away. 
All will haste your steps to meet,

As ye come in majesty,—­
Men your blessing will entreat;—­

Ours ye thus will doubly be!

1798. (* Aganippe—­A spring in Boeotia, which arose out of Mount Helicon, and was sacred to Apollo and the Muses.) ----- Lily’s menagerie.

[Goethe describes this much-admired Poem, which he wrote in honour of his love Lily, as being “designed to change his surrender of her into despair, by drolly-fretful images.”]

There’s no menagerie, I vow,

Excels my Lily’s at this minute;

She keeps the strangest creatures in it,
And catches them, she knows not how.

Oh, how they hop, and run, and rave,
And their clipp’d pinions wildly wave,—­
Poor princes, who must all endure
The pangs of love that nought can cure.

What is the fairy’s name?—­Is’t Lily?—­Ask not me! 
Give thanks to Heaven if she’s unknown to thee.

Oh what a cackling, what a shrieking,

When near the door she takes her stand,

With her food-basket in her hand! 
Oh what a croaking, what a squeaking! 
Alive all the trees and the bushes appear,
While to her feet whole troops draw near;
The very fish within, the water clear
Splash with impatience and their heads protrude;
And then she throws around the food
With such a look!—­the very gods delighting
(To say nought of beasts).  There begins, then, a biting,
A picking, a pecking, a sipping,
And each o’er the legs of another is tripping,
And pushing, and pressing, and flapping,
And chasing, and fuming, and snapping,
And all for one small piece of bread,
To which, though dry, her fair hands give a taste,
As though it in ambrosia had been plac’d.

And then her look! the tone

With which she calls:  Pipi!  Pipi! 
Would draw Jove’s eagle from his throne;
Yes, Venus’ turtle doves, I wean,
And the vain peacock e’en,
Would come, I swear,
Soon as that tone had reach’d them through the air.

E’en from a forest dark had she

Enticed a bear, unlick’d, ill-bred,

And, by her wiles alluring, led
To join the gentle company,
Until as tame as they was he: 
(Up to a certain point, be’t understood!)
How fair, and, ah, how good
She seem’d to be!  I would have drain’d my blood
To water e’en her flow’rets sweet.