The Sorrows of Young Werther - October Interlude II
The fourth of several poems to fill the long gap between Werther's letters
TO LINA
Should these songs, love, as they fleet,
Chance again to reach thy hand,
At the piano take thy seat,
Where thy friend was wont to stand!
Sweep with finger bold the string,
Then the book one moment see:
But read not! do nought but sing!
And each page thine own will be!
Ah, what grief the song imparts
With its letters, black on white,
That, when breath'd by thee, our hearts
Now can break and now delight!
-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1789
From The Poems of Goethe, Translated in the Original Metres by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Collected and translated by Edgar A. Bowring, 1853.
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