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Home  »  A Harvest of German Verse  »  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832)

Margarete Münsterberg, ed., trans. A Harvest of German Verse. 1916.

By The Harper

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832)

AH, he who seeketh solitude

Is all too soon alone;

Men live and love, but he must brood

Upon his pain and moan.

Leave agony with me!

When I at last shall be

Quite lonely grown—

I shall not be alone.

A lover steals upon his way

To hark if his love be alone.

Thus pain steals o’er me night and day

When I am lonely grown;

And thus creeps agony.

When I at last shall be

Within my grave unknown:

Then I’ll be left alone!