Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Switzerland and Austria: Vol. XVI. 1876–79.

Switzerland: Zurich, the Lake

On the Lake

By Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832)

Translated by J. S. Dwight

MY blood flows fresh, my soul finds food,

I roam the world at large;

And Nature,—smiles she not most good?

She holds my heart in charge.

The wavelets lift our little boat,

With the oars, in measured beat,

And hills, piled cloudlike, hither float

Our bounding bark to meet.

Eye, mine eye, why art thou sinking?

Of those dreams must still be thinking?

Go, Dream! golden as thou art;

Here, too, love and life have part.

Under the wave fly, blinking,

Shoals of stars, as I ponder;

Flocks of clouds hang drinking

Round the hills away yonder;

Morning wind is dancing

O’er the shadowy cove,

From the lake come glancing

Fruits half hid in the grove.