Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Aug. 28, 1749 - Mar. 22, 1832

 

Holy Family

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

O child of beauty rare --
O mother chaste and fair --
How happy seem they both, so far beyond compare!
She, in her infant blest,
And he in conscious rest,
Nestling within the soft warm cradle of her breast!
What joy that sight might bear
To him who sees them there,
If, with a pure and guilt-untroubled eye,
He look'd upon the twain, like Joseph standing by.

A.

Source:

Poems And Ballads Of Goethe
Copyright 1859
Translator:
William Edmondstoune Aytoun, D.C.L. ("A.")
and Theodore Martin ("M.")
Delisser & Procter
508 Broadway, New York