Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, LONGING, by JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

LONGING, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: You never longed and loved
Last Line: I lie at thy feet!
Subject(s): Hearts; Longing; Singing & Singers; Songs


WHAT stirs in my heart so?
What lures me from home?
What forces me outwards,
And onwards to roam?
Far up on the mountains
Lie cloudlets like snow;
O were I but yonder,
'Tis there I must go!

Now by come the ravens
So solemn and black;
I mingle among them,
And follow their track:
By rock and by turret
We silently glide;
Ah, there is the bower, where
My lady doth bide!

She walks in the greenwood,
That beautiful may;
Like a bird, singing clearly,
I drop on the spray.
She lists, and she lingers,
And softly says she --
'How sweetly it singeth,
It singeth for me!'

The sunset is gilding
The peaks of the hill,
The day is declining,
Yet tarries she still:
She follows the brooklet
Through meadow and glade,
Till dark is the pathway,
And lost in the shade.

Then, then I come down, as
A swift-shooting star;
'What light glimmers yonder,
So near yet so far?'
Ere yet the amazement
Hath pass'd from thee, sweet,
My quest it is ended,
I lie at thy feet!





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