Johann Wolfgang Goethe
Blessed Longing
What I tell you, better censor.
Bruit it only to the wiser.
I celebrate what lives intenser:
Life that yearns for death-by-fire.
Nights of loving, nights of cooling,
Where you’re begot, where you’re begetting,
Seize you with what eerie feeling
When hushed candle-rays are jetting.
Shadows of the dark no longer
Bind you down to be night’s plaything.
Now you’re launched by newer longing
Up to ever higher mating.
Now no distance is too distant.
Wafted spirit, spellbound flesh.
Moth compelled by flame’s insistent
Magnet, you must burn to ash.
And till you confront this test,
This dying-and-becoming,
You’ll only be a dismal guest
at the earth’s dim gloaming.
Translated by Peter Viereck
Page(s) 242-243
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