C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
The Godlike
By Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832)
N
Helpful and good!
For that alone
Doth distinguish him
From all the beings
Which we know.
Higher Beings
Felt within us!
His pattern teach us
Faith in them!
Is Nature:
Still shineth the sun
Over good and evil;
And to the sinner
Smile, as to the best,
The moon and the stars.
Thunder and hailstones,
Rustle on their way,
Smiting down as
They dash along,
One for another.
Grope round in the crowd,
Seize now the innocent,
Curly-haired boy,
Now on the old, bald
Crown of the villain.
Laws everlasting,
Here we must all our
Round of existence
Faithfully finish.
Perform the Impossible.
He understandeth,
Chooseth, and judgeth;
He can impart to the
Moment duration.
The Good reward,
The Guilty punish,
Mend and deliver;
All the wayward, anomalous
Bind in the Useful.
Them we reverence,
As if they were men, and
Did, on a grand scale,
What the best man in little
Does, or fain would do.
Be helpful and good!
Ever creating
The Right and the Useful—
Type of those loftier
Beings of whom the heart whispers!