At Midnight Hour
[Goethe relates that a remarkable situation he was in one bright moonlight night led to the composition of this sweet song，which was“the dearer to him because he could not say whence[241]it came and whither it would.”]
AT midnight hour I went,not willingly,
A little,little boy,yon churchyard past,
To Father Vicar’s house;the stars on high
On all around their beauteous radiance cast,
At midnight hour.
And when,in journeying o’er the path of life,
My love I follow’d,as she onward moved,
With stars and northern lights o’er head in strife,
Going and coming,perfect bliss I proved
At midnight hour.
Until at length the full moon,lustre-fraught,
Burst thro’the gloom wherein she was enshrined;
And then the willing,active,rapid thought
Around the past,as round the future twined,
At midnight hour.
1818.