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Home  »  library  »  poem  »  From ‘The Wanderer’s Storm Song’

C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

From ‘The Wanderer’s Storm Song’

By Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832)

Translation of Charles Harvey Genung

WHOM thou desertest not, O Genius,

Neither blinding rain nor storm

Breathes upon his heart a chill.

Whom thou desertest not, O Genius,

To the lowering clouds,

To the beating hail,

He will sing cheerly,

As the lark there,

Thou that soarest.

Whom thou desertest not, O Genius,

Him thou’lt lift o’er miry places

On thy flaming pinions:

He will traverse

As on feet of flowers

Slime of Deucalion’s deluge;

Slaying Python, strong, great,

Pythius Apollo!

Whom thou desertest not, O Genius,

Thou wilt spread thy downy wings beneath him,

When he sleeps upon the crags;

Thou wilt cover him with guardian pinions

In the midnight forest depths.

Whom thou desertest not, O Genius,

Thou wilt in whirling snow-storm

Warmly wrap him round;

To the warmth fly the Muses,

To the warmth fly the Graces.

Around me float, ye Muses,

And float, ye Graces!

This is water, this is earth

And the son of water and of earth,

Over whom I wander

Like the gods.

You are pure like the heart of water,

You are pure like the core of earth;

You float around me, and I float

Over water, over earth,

Like the gods.