The Poems of Goethe

Translated in the original metres
by Edgar Alfred Bowring

THE TRANSLATOR'S ORIGINAL DEDICATION.
TO THE COUNTESS GRANVILLE.

MY DEAR LADY GRANVILLE,--
THE reluctance which must naturally be felt by any one in

venturing to give to the world a book such as the present, where
the beauties of the great original must inevitably be diminished,

if not destroyed, in the process of passing through the
translator's hands, cannot but be felt in all its force when that

translator has not penetrated beyond the outer courts of the
poetic fane, and can have no hope of advancing further, or of

reaching its sanctuary. But it is to me a subject of peculiar
satisfaction that your kind permission to have your name

inscribed upon this page serves to attain a twofold end--one
direct and personal, and relating to the present day; the other

reflected and historical, and belonging to times long gone by. Of
the first little need now be said, for the privilege is wholly

mine, in making this dedication: as to the second, one word of
explanation will suffice for those who have made the greatest

poet of Germany, almost of the world, their study, and to whom
the story of his life is not unknown. All who have followed the

career of GOETHE are familiar with the name and character of
DALBERG, and also with the deep and lasting friendship that

existed between them, from which SCHILLER too was not absent;
recalling to the mind the days of old, when a Virgil and a Horace

and a Maecenas sat side by side.
Remembering, then, the connection that, in a former century,

was formed and riveted between your illustriousancestor and him
whom it is the object of these pages to represent, I deem it a

happy augury that the link then established finds itself not
wholly severed even now (although its strength may be

immeasurably weakened in the comparison), inasmuch as this page
brings them once more in contact, the one in the person of his

own descendant, the other in that of the translator of his Poems.
Believe me, with great truth,

Very faithfully yours,
EDGAR A. BOWRING.

London, April, 1853.
ORIGINAL PREFACE.

I feel no small reluctance in venturing to give to the public a
work of the character of that indicated by the title-page to the

present volume; for, difficult as it must always be to render
satisfactorily into one's own tongue the writings of the bards of

other lands, the responsibility assumed by the translator is
immeasurably increased when he attempts to transfer the thoughts

of those great men, who have lived for all the world and for all
ages, from the language in which they were originally clothed, to

one to which they may as yet have been strangers. Preeminently
is this the case with Goethe, the most masterly of all the master

minds of modern times, whose name is already inscribed on the
tablets of immortality, and whose fame already extends over the

earth, although as yet only in its infancy. Scarcely have two
decades passed away since he ceased to dwell among men, yet he

now stands before us, not as a mere individual, like those whom
the world is wont to call great, but as a type, as an emblem--the

recognised emblem and representative of the human mind in its
present stage of culture and advancement.

Among the infinitelyvaried effusions of Goethe's pen, perhaps
there are none which are of as general interest as his Poems,

which breathe the very spirit of Nature, and embody the real
music of the feelings. In Germany, they are universally" target="_blank" title="ad.普遍地">universally known,

and are considered as the most delightful of his works. Yet in
this country, this kindred country, sprung from the same stem,

and so strongly resembling her sister in so many points, they are
nearly unknown. Almost the only poetical work of the greatest

Poet that the world has seen for ages, that is really and
generally read in England, is Faust, the translations of which

are almost endless; while no single person has as yet appeared to
attempt to give, in an English dress, in any collective or

systematic manner, those smaller productions of the genius of
Goethe which it is the object of the present volume to lay before

the reader, whose indulgence is requested for its many
imperfections. In addition to the beauty of the language in which

the Poet has given utterance to his thoughts, there is a depth of
meaning in those thoughts which is not easily discoverable at

first sight, and the translator incurs great risk of overlooking
it, and of giving a prosaic effect to that which in the original

contains the very essence of poetry. It is probably this
difficulty that has deterred others from undertaking the task I

have set myself, and in which I do not pretend to do more than
attempt to give an idea of the minstrelsy of one so unrivalled,

by as truthful an interpretation of it as lies in my power.
The principles which have guided me on the present occasion are

the same as those followed in the translation of Schiller's
complete Poems that was published by me in 1851, namely, as

literal a rendering of the original as is consistent with good
English, and also a very strict adherence to the metre of the

original. Although translators usually allow themselves great
license in both these points, it appears to me that by so doing

they of necessity destroy the very soul of the work they profess
to translate. In fact, it is not a translation, but a paraphrase

that they give. It may perhaps be thought that the present
translations go almost to the other extreme, and that a rendering

of metre, line for line, and word for word, makes it impossible
to preserve the poetry of the original both in substance and in

sound. But experience has convinced me that it is not so, and
that great fidelity is even the most essential element of

success, whether in translating poetry or prose. It was therefore
very satisfactory to me to find that the principle laid down by

me to myself in translating Schiller met with the very general,
if not universal, approval of the reader. At the same time, I

have endeavoured to profit in the case of this, the younger born
of the two attempts made by me to transplant the muse of Germany

to the shores of Britain, by the criticisms, whether friendly or
hostile, that have been evoked or provoked by the appearance of

its elder brother.
As already mentioned, the latter contained the whole of the

Poems of Schiller. It is impossible, in anything like the same
compass, to give all the writings of Goethe comprised under the

general title of Gedichte, or poems. They contain between 30,000
and 40,000 verses, exclusive of his plays. and similar works.

Very many of these would be absolutely without interest to the
English reader,--such as those having only a local application,

those addressed to individuals, and so on. Others again, from
their extreme length, could only be published in separate

volumes. But the impossibility of giving all need form no
obstacle to giving as much as possible; and it so happens that

the real interest of Goethe's Poems centres in those classes of
them which are not too diffuse to run any risk when translated of

offending the reader by their too great number. Those by far the
more generally admired are the Songs and Ballads, which are about

150 in number, and the whole of which are contained in this
volume (with the exception of one or two of the former, which

have been, on consideration, left out by me owing to their
trifling and uninteresting nature). The same may be said of the

Odes, Sonnets, Miscellaneous Poems, &c.
In addition to those portions of Goethe's poetical works which

are given in this complete form, specimens of the different other
classes of them, such as the Epigrams, Elegies, &c., are added,

as well as a collection of the various Songs found in his Plays,
making a total number of about 400 Poems, embraced in the present

volume.
A sketch of the life of Goethe is prefixed, in order that the