# The Works of J. W. von Goethe/Volume 9/Hartz Mountains

RIDE TO THE HARTZ IN WINTER.
[The following explanation is necessary in order to make this ode in any way intelligible. The poet is supposed to leave his companions, who are proceeding on a hunting expedition in winter, in order himself to pay a visit to a hypochondriacal friend, and also to see the mining in the Hartz mountains. The ode alternately describes, in a very fragmentary and peculiar way, the naturally happy disposition of the poet himself and the unhappiness of his friend; it pictures the wildness of the road and the dreariness of the prospect, which is relieved at one spot by the distant sight of a town, a very vague allusion to which is made in the third strophe; it recalls the hunting party on which his companions have gone: and, after an address to Love, concludes by a contrast between unexplored recesses of the highest peak of the Hartz and the metalliferous veins of its smaller brethren.]
Free as the hawk, Which, on yon dark morning cloud-pile, With soft spread pinion resting, Looks out for prey, Float my loose song!
Sure a God hath Unto each his path Fore-appointed, Which the fortunate Swift to happiest Goal pursues: But whom misfortune Hath frozen to the heart, He frets him vainly Against the restraint of The wire-woven cord, which Soon shall the bitter scissors Snap once for all.
​To gloomy thicket Rushes the reindeer wild, And with the sparrows have Long ago the rich folks Into their swamps for shelter sunk. Easy to follow the chariot, When 'tis Fortune drives. Just as the lumbering cart Over the hard, smooth road rolls, After a monarch's march.
But aside who fareth? In the woods he loses his path; Swiftly behind him The boughs fly together, The grass stands up again, The desert o'erwhelms him.
Ah, but who healeth the pangs of Him, whose balm becomes poison? Who but hate for man From the fulness of love hath drunk? First despised, and now a despiser, Wastes he secretly All his own best worth, Brooding over himself.
Is there on thy psalter, Father of love, one tone Which his ear would welcome? Oh, then, quicken his heart! Open his beclouded look Over the thousand fountains All around him thirsting there In the desert.
​Thou, who on each bestowest Joys, a superabundant share, Bless the brothers of the chase, Out in search of wild beasts, With danger-loving zeal of youth, Eager to take life, Late avengers of mischief, Which for years hath defied the Farmer's threatening cudgel.
But the lone wanderer wrap In thy golden cloud-fleeces; And wreathe with evergreen, Till the summer roses be blowing, The dripping ringlets, O Love, of this thy poet!
With thy flickering torch thou Lightest him on Through the fords, in the night, Over treacherous footing On desolate commons. With the thousand tints of the moon, thou Smilest to his heart so! With the bitter cold blast Bearest him gloriously up. Winter torrents down from the rocks roll Into his anthems. An altar of cheerfulest thanks Seems to him the terrible summit's Snow-hung, hoary crown, Wreathed vdth rows of pale spirits By the marvellous people.
Thou standest, with unexplored bosom Mysteriously prominent, ​Over the astonished world, And lookest from the clouds there Down on its riches and majesty, Which thou from the veins of these thy brothers Round thee here waterest.