Goethe (Germany)
I lost my peace,
Inner boredom;
In order to find peace,
Not anymore.
He's not here,
It's like a graveyard everywhere,
The whole world makes me sad.
My poor head is crazy,
My poor heart broke into ten thousand pieces.
I lost my peace,
Inner boredom;
In order to find peace,
Not anymore.
I looked out of the window,
Just looking at him,
I walked out of the house,
Just looking for him.
His bold steps,
A noble gesture,
Grinning,
The charm of eyes.
Like a hanging river
His eloquence,
His handshake,
Ah, his kiss!
I lost my peace,
Inner boredom;
Looking for peace
Not anymore.
My mind
Thinking about him,
Oh, I wish I could.
Hold him tight,
Let me kiss him,
Give a heartfelt kiss,
He kissed me,
It's okay to die!
(translated by Qian Chunkun)
The main source of Goethe's lyric poetry is love. This poem is another lyric masterpiece about love that he wrote between 1773 and 1775.
The whole poem has ten stanzas. The first three sections mainly describe the emotional surge and restless psychological state of the heroine Gresham when she misses her sweetheart. Since the hero saw "him", he has lost his quiet life in the past, so that he has no peace for a moment now. The power of love is so magical. Without it, everything around me becomes dull, like a graveyard, and even the whole world "makes me feel sad". Because of love, she has been tortured to madness, which shows how deep her love is! How persistent!
The middle four sections mainly describe the hero's lover. "His bold gait, noble posture, smiling at each other, and his charming eyes." And "His eloquence, his handshake ..." His every move fascinated her, and his caress fascinated her even more, making her fidgety and unable to eat.
The last three paragraphs are Gresham's monologues, which express her passionate and persistent love for him and her loyalty to love over life. No one in love wants to leave his lover. Here, Gresham sighed directly for her heart, "Oh, I wish I could/hold him tight", which shows her sincerity to love. There is beauty in music and beauty in straightness.
This poem uses the technique of repetition. In the poem, the poet said, "I lost my peace,/I was bored," and I could never find peace again. "I repeated it three times, which not only took care of the title, but also reflected Gresham's mind standing beside the spinning wheel, which gradually deepened and strengthened the lyricism and showed Gresham's stormy emotional world under the burning of love.
In addition, poetic language is bold and clear; Passionate and hearty, it shows that Goethe, under the influence of Herder, got rid of the shackles of classicism and used artistic methods suitable for expressing the anti-feudal spirit of hurricane movement. It is worthy of being a masterpiece in German poetry.