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C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

The Dedication of ‘Aladdin’—to Goethe

By Adam Gottlob Oehlenschläger (1779–1850)

Translation of Sir Theodore Martin

BORN in far northern clime,

Came to mine ears sweet tidings in my prime

From fairy-land;

Where flowers eternal blow,

Where power and beauty go,

Knit in a magic band.

Oft, when a child, I’d pore

In rapture on the ancient saga lore;

When on the wold

The snow was falling white,

I, shuddering with delight,

Felt not the cold.

When with his pinion chill

The winter smote the castle on the hill,

It fanned my hair;

I sat in my small room,

And through the lamp-lit gloom

Saw Spring smile fair.

And though my love in youth

Was all for Northern energy and truth,

And Northern feats,

Yet for my fancy’s feast

The flower-appareled East

Unveiled its sweets.

To manhood as I grew,

From North to South, from South to North, I flew;

I was possessed

By yearnings to give voice in song

To all that had been struggling long

Within my breast.

I heard bards manifold,

But at their minstrelsy my heart grew cold;

Dim, colorless, became

My childhood’s visions grand;

Their tameness only fanned

My wilder flame.

Who did the young bard save?

Who to his eye a keener vision gave,

That he the child

Amor beheld, astride

The lion, far off ride,

Careering wild?

Thou, great and good! Thy spell-like lays

Did the enchanted curtain raise

From fairy-land,

Where flowers eternal blow,

Where power and beauty go,

Knit in a loving band.

Well pleased thou heardest long

Within thy halls the stranger-minstrel’s song;

Taught to aspire

By thee, my spirit leapt

To bolder heights, and swept

The German lyre.

Oft have I sung before;

And many a hero of our Northern shore,

With grave stern mien,

By sad Melpomene

Called from his grave, we see

Stalk o’er the scene.

And greeting they will send

To friend Aladdin cheerly as a friend:

The oak’s thick gloom

Prevails not wholly where

Warbles the nightingale, and fair

Flowers waft perfume.

On thee, to whom I owe

New life, what shall my gratitude bestow?

Naught has the bard

Save his own song! And this

Thou dost not, trivial as the tribute is,

With scorn regard.