Living
To the Kind Reader
Translated by Edgar Alfred Bowring (1853) · From Songs
No one talks more than a Poet;
Fain he'd have the people know it.
Praise or blame he ever loves;
None in prose confess an error,
Yet we do so, void of terror,
In the Muses' silent groves.
What I err'd in, what corrected,
What I suffer'd, what effected,
To this wreath as flow'rs belong;
For the aged, and the youthful,
And the vicious, and the truthful,
All are fair when viewed in song.
Cite this poem
MLA
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. “To the Kind Reader.” Translated by Edgar Alfred Bowring. Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/goethe/1/.
Chicago
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. “To the Kind Reader.” Translated by Edgar Alfred Bowring. Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/goethe/1/.
Read this poem with the Codex →