he Furies' torch, nor the hounds of hell with their barking,
Awe the delinquent so much, down in the plains of despair,
As by the motionless spectre I'm awed, that shows me the fair one
Far away: of a truth, open the garden door stands!
And another one cometh! For him the fruit, too, is falling,
And for him also the fig strengthening honey doth yield!
Doth she entice him as well to the arbor? He follows? Oh, make me
Blind, ye Immortals! efface visions like this from my mind!
Yes, she is but a maiden! And she who to one doth so quickly
Yield, to another erelong, doubtless, will turn herself round.
Smile not, Zeus, for this once, at an oath so cruelly broken!
Thunder more fearfully! Strike!--Stay--thy fierce lightnings
withhold!
Hurl at me thy quivering bolt! In the darkness of midnight
Strike with thy lightning this mast, make it a pitiful wreck!
Scatter the planks all around, and give to the boisterous billows
All these wares, and let _me_ be to the dolphins a prey!--
Now, ye Muses, enough! In vain would ye strive to depicture
How, in a love-laden breast, anguish alternates with bliss.
Ye cannot heal the wounds, it is true, that love hath inflicted;
Yet from you only proceeds, kindly ones, comfort and balm.

Translation of E. A. Bowring.

MAXIMS AND REFLECTIONS

From 'Maxims and Reflections of Goethe.'

Translation of Bailey Saunders. Copyright 1892, by Macmillan & Co.

It is not always needful for truth to take a definite shape: it is
enough if it hovers about us like a spirit and produces harmony; if it
is wafted through the air like the sound of a bell, grave and kindly.

* * * * *

I must hold it for the greatest calamity of our time, which lets nothing
come to maturity, that one moment is consumed by the next, and the day
spent in the day; so that a man is always living from hand to mouth,
without having anything to show for it. Have we not already newspapers
for every hour of the day? A good head could assuredly intercalate one
or other of them. They publish abroad everything that every one does, or
is busy with or meditating; nay, his very designs are thereby dragged
into publicity. No one can rejoice or be sorry, but as a pastime for
others; and so it goes on from house to house, from city to city, from
kingdom to kingdom, and at last from one hemisphere to the o