He viewed the wine, he quaffed it up: "O draught of sweetest savor! [Pg 6440]O happy house, where such a cup Is thought a little favor! If well you fare, remember me, And thank kind Heaven, from envy free, As now for this I thank you." Who never ate his bread in sorrow, Who never spent the darksome hours Weeping and watching for the morrow,— He knows ye not, ye gloomy Powers. To earth, this weary earth, ye bring us, To guilt ye let us heedless go, Then leave repentance fierce to wring us; A moment's guilt, an age of woe! MIGNON'S SONG From 'Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship' Such let me seem, till such I be; Take not my snow-white dress away! Soon from this dusk of earth I flee, Up to the glittering lands of day. There first a little space I rest, Then wake so glad, to scenes so kind; In earthly robes no longer drest, This band, this girdle left behind. And those calm shining sons of morn, They ask not who is maid or boy; No robes, no garments there are worn, Our body pure from sin's alloy. Through little life not much I toiled, Yet anguish long this heart has wrung, Untimely woe my blossoms spoiled: Make me again forever young! [Pg 6441] PHILINA'S SONG From 'Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship' Sing me not with such emotion How the night so lonesome is; Pretty maids, I've got a notion It is the reverse of this. For as wife and man are plighted, And the better half the wife, So is night to day united,— Night's the better half of life. Can you joy in bustling daytime,— Day, when none can get his will? It is good for work, for haytime; For much other it is ill. But when in the nightly glooming, Social lamp on table glows, Face for faces dear illuming, And such jest and joyance goes; When the fiery pert young fellow, Wont by day to run or ride, Whispering now some tale would tell O,— All so gentle by your side; When the nightingale to lovers Lovingly her songlet sings, Which for exiles and sad rovers Like mere woe and wailing rings; With a heart how lightsome-feeling Do ye count the kindly clock, Which, twelve times deliberate pealing, Tells you none to-night shall knock! Therefore, on all fit occasions, Mark it, maidens, what I sing: Every day its own vexations, And the night its joys will bring. [Pg 6442] PROMETHEUS Blacken thy heavens, Jove, With thunder-clouds, And exercise thee, like a boy Who thistles crops, With smiting oaks and mountain-tops: Yet must leave me standing My own firm earth; Must leave my cottage, which thou didst not build, And my warm hearth, Whose cheerful glow Thou enviest me. I know naught more pitiful Under the sun, than you, gods! Ye nourish scantily With altar taxes And with cold lip-service, This your majesty;— Would perish, were not Children and beggars Credulous fools. When I was a child, And knew not whence or whither, I would turn my 'wildered eye