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Home  »  A Harvest of German Verse  »  Friedrich Gottlob Klopstock (1724–1803)

Margarete Münsterberg, ed., trans. A Harvest of German Verse. 1916.

By The Early Graves

Friedrich Gottlob Klopstock (1724–1803)

BE welcome, oh silvery moon,

Quiet, beautiful friend of night!

Flee’st thou? Hasten not, stay, oh spirit-friend!

Lo, now she stays, only clouds wandered away.

The waking of May is alone

Fairer still than the summer night,

When the dew, clear as light, from her tresses drips,

When she, ascending the hill, ruddily glows.

Ye nobler ones! Gloomily grows

On your tombstones the sober moss!

Happy I was, alas, when I still with you

Looked upon roseate dawns, shimmering nights!