Social Commentaries
The Buyers
Translated by Edgar Alfred Bowring (1853) · From Parables
To an apple-woman's stall
Once some children nimbly ran;
Longing much to purchase all,
They with joyous haste began
Snatching up the piles there raised,
While with eager eyes they gazed
On the rosy fruit so nice;
But when they found out the price,
Down they threw the whole they'd got,
Just as if they were red hot.
The man who gratis will his goods supply
Will never find a lack of folks to buy!
Cite this poem
MLA
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. “The Buyers.” Translated by Edgar Alfred Bowring. Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/goethe/244/.
Chicago
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. “The Buyers.” Translated by Edgar Alfred Bowring. Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/goethe/244/.
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