To The Golden Heart That He Wore Around His Neck
Oh thou token loved of joys now perish'd
That I still wear from my neck suspended,
Art thou stronger than our spirit-bond so cherish'd?
Or canst thou prolong love's days untimely ended?
Lily, I fly from thee! I still am doom'd to range
Thro' countries strange,
Thro' distant vales and woods, link'd on to thee!
Ah, Lily's heart could surely never fall
So soon away from me!
As when a bird hath broken from his thrall,
And seeks the forest green,
Proof of imprisonment he bears behind him,
A morsel of the thread once used to bind him;
The free-born bird of old no more is seen,
For he another's prey hath been.
Poems by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
