Calm At Sea.

Silence deep rules o'er the waters,

Calmly slumb'ring lies the main,
While the sailor views with trouble

Nought but one vast level plain.

Not a zephyr is in motion!

Silence fearful as the grave!
In the mighty waste of ocean

Sunk to rest is ev'ry wave.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, poet, playwright, and natural philosopher, born on August 28, 1749, and died on March 22, 1832. He is considered one of the most important literary figures of the modern era. Goethe's best-known work, 'Faust,' is a profound exploration of human ambition, desire, and redemption. His contributions extend beyond literature into various fields, including science and politics. His writings and thoughts have had a lasting influence on Western culture.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The God And The Bayadere. An Indian Legend.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Simple Poetry

Distichs.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Simple Poetry

From An Album Of 1604.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Simple Poetry

The Convert.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Simple Poetry

English

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The Sea-Voyage.

Many a day and night my bark stood ready laden;
Waiting fav'ring winds, I sat with true friends round me,
Pledging me to patience and to courage,
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And they spoke thus with impatience twofold:
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And when morning came, arose an uproar,
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And the sails soon in the breeze are swelling,
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The sun is couched, the sea-fowl gone to rest,
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And by the tide alone the water swayed.
Stealthy withdrawings, interminglings mild
Of light with shade in beauty reconciled,
Such is the prospect far as sight can range,
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Composed By The Seashore

What mischief cleaves to unsubdued regret,
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O sad it is, in sight of foreign shores,
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Or, tossed about along a waste of foam,
To ruminate on that delightful home
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The Ocean (From Arnljot Gelline)

(See Note 8)

... Oceanward I am ever yearning,
Where far it rolls in its calm and grandeur,
The weight of mountain-like fogbanks bearing,
Forever wandering and returning.
The skies may lower, the land may call it,
It knows no resting and knows no yielding.
In nights of summer, in storms of winter,
Its surges murmur the self-same longing.

Yes, oceanward I am ever yearning,
Where far is lifted its broad, cold forehead!
Thereon the world throws its deepest shadow
And mirrors whispering all its anguish.
Though warm and blithesome the bright sun stroke it
With joyous message, that life is gladness,
Yet ice-cold, changelessly melancholy,
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The full moon pulling, the tempest lifting,
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At Sea

        When the dim, tall sails of the ships were in motion,
            Ghostly, and slow, and silent-shod,
        We gazed where the dusk fled over the ocean,
            A great gray hush, like the shadow of God.

        The sky dome cut with its compass in sunder
            A circle of sea from the darkened land,--
        A circle of tremulous waste and wonder,
            O'er which one groped with a childish hand.

        The true stars came to their stations in heaven,
            The false stars shivered deep down in the sea,
        And the white crests went like monsters, driven
            By winds that never would let them be,

        And there, where the elements mingled and muttered,
            We stood, each man with a lone dumb heart,

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A Sea Dialogue

Cabin Passenger.            Man at Wheel.

CABIN PASSENGER.
Friend, you seem thoughtful. I not wonder much
That he who sails the ocean should be sad.
I am myself reflective. When I think
Of all this wallowing beast, the Sea, has sucked
Between his sharp, thin lips, the wedgy waves,
What heaps of diamonds, rubies, emeralds, pearls;
What piles of shekels, talents, ducats, crowns,
What bales of Tyrian mantles, Indian shawls,
Of laces that have blanked the weavers' eyes,
Of silken tissues, wrought by worm and man,
The half-starved workman, and the well-fed worm;
What marbles, bronzes, pictures, parchments, books;
What many-lobuled, thought-engendering brains;
Lie with the gaping sea-shells in his maw, -
I, too, am silent; for all language seems
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