Cover your sky, Zeus,

With cloud-vapours!

And test your strength, like a boy

beheading thistles,

Against oak trees and mountain peaks!

You must leave me my earth

Yet standing,

And my hut,

Which you did not build,

And my hearth,

For whose embers,

You envy me.

I know nothing more miserable

Under the sun than you gods.

You feed meagerly

On victims’ offerings

And prayer-haze

Your Majesty

And would starve, if

Children and beggars were not

Hopeful fools.

When I was a child,

Didn’t know the ins and outs,

I turned my confused eye

To the sun, as if above there were

An ear, to hear my cries,

A heart like mine,

To pity the poor.

Who helped me against

The hubris of titans?

Who saved me from death,

From slavery?

Did you not accomplish it all yourself,

Holy glowing heart?

And glowed, young and good,

Betrayed, gratitude for being saved

Towards the sleeping one up there?

I should honour you? What for?

Did you ever ease the hurt

Of the burdened?

Did you ever wipe away the tears

Of those in fear?

Did not almighty Time

And unending Destiny

Your lords and mine

Make a man of me?

Did you honestly believe

That I would despise life,

Flee into the wild,

Because not all of my boyish budding

Dayspring-dreams bore fruit?

Here sit I, forging mankind

The image of my mind

A people to be my equal

To suffer and to cry

Enjoy and smile

And to revile you,

As I do.

By, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), translated from German by, Cecilia Feldmann