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FRIEDRICH L. VON STOLBERG.

[1750-1819.]

THE MOUNTAIN TORRENT.

UNDYING youth,

Forth streamest thou

From the rocky cleft.

No mortal hath seen

The strong one's first cradle ;

No ear ever heard

The noble one's lisping in spray-tossing fountains.

How fair art thou, fair

In thy silvery tresses!

How fearful art thou

In the thunder of echoing rocks!

Thou shakest the fir-tree,

O'erthrowest the fir-tree

With root and with branch.

The rocks would flee from thee,

Thou holdest them firmly;

Like pebbles thou castest them from thee in sport.

Thou'rt clothed by the sun

In his glorious rays;

He paints, with the hues of the heavenly rainbow,

The hovering clouds of the spray-covered flood. Why hastenest thou

To the emerald sea?

Art thou not happy thus nearer to heaven?

In echoing rocks, in the oak trees o'erhanging!

Oh, hasten not thus

To the emerald sea!

Youth, thou art yet as strong as a god,

Free as a god!

Though smile there beneath thee the rest and the

stillness,

The sea in its silence, its trembling emotion,

Now silvered by soft-falling moonbeams,

Now crimson and gold in the rays of the west.

Oh youth! what availeth the silken reposing?
What is the smile that the moonbeam bestoweth,

The sunset's radiance of purple and gold,

To him who in fetters of slavery dwells?

Still streamest thou wild

As thy heart commands.

Beneath thee, oft winds ever fickle are reigning,

Oft stillness of death in the time-serving sea.

Oh, hasten not thus

To the emerald sea!

Youth, thou art yet as strong as a god,

Free as a god!

JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE.

[1749-1832.]

MIGNON.

OH! let me seem until in truth I be!

The snow-white dress, oh, let me keep!

For soon I from this beauteous earth must flee
Down to yon house secure and deep.

There shall my rest a little while endure,
Till I behold a brighter day;

Then shall I lay aside this raiment pure,

The wreath and girdle cast away.

And nought those beings cast in heav'nly mould

Of man and woman heed or know,

And never earthly robes and garments' fold

Around their radiant bodies flow.

Though free I lived from toil and anxious fears, I have enough of grief and pain:

'Tis sorrow ages me before my years; Make me for ever young again!

THE FISHER.

THE water swelled, the water rose,

A fisher sat anear,

Gazed at his float in calm repose,

Calm as the waters clear;

And as he sits and listens there,

He sees the floods divide,

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