| Margarete Münsterberg, ed., trans. A Harvest of German Verse. 1916. | | | | The Fisher | | By Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) |
| | | THE WATER roared, the water rose, | |
| The fisher on the sand | |
| Looked at his angle in repose; | |
| Right cool were heart and hand. | |
| And as he sits and harks at ease, | 5 |
| The waters rise and part: | |
| Out of the whirling waves he sees | |
| A dewy woman dart. | |
| |
| She sang to him, she said to him: | |
| “Why lurest thou my brood | 10 |
| To death with human ruse and whim | |
| And scorching sunbeams rude? | |
| Ah, if thou knewest how below | |
| The little fishes feel, | |
| Thou straight into the deep wouldst go, | 15 |
| All weariness to heal. | |
| |
| “Does not the sun refresh his face, | |
| The moon hers in the sea? | |
| Do they not shine with double grace, | |
| When breathing billows free? | 20 |
| Does not the lucid heavenly deep | |
| Entice thee, all this blue? | |
| Dost thou not long thy face to steep | |
| Into eternal dew?” | |
| |
| The water roared, the water rose, | 25 |
| His foot was wet and bare; | |
| And in his heart a longing grows, | |
| As if his love were there. | |
| She sang to him and said her say, | |
| And then it all was o’er: | 30 |
| She pulled half-way, he sank half-way, | |
| And he was seen no more. | | | | |
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