Bettine to Goethe

“Be friendly, pray, with these fancies of mine.” BETTINE.

Could youth discrown thy head of its gray hair, I could not love it as I love it now; Could one grand line be smoothed from thy brow, ’Twould seem to me less stately and less fair. O no, be as thou art! For thou dost wear The signs of noble age that cannot bow Thine intellect like thy form, and I who know How each year that did visibly impair Thy first fresh youth, left inwardly such grand And gracious gifts, would rather have thee so— Believe me, master, who erect doth stand In soul and purpose, age cannot lay low Till he receive, new from the Father’s hand The youth he did but outwardly forego.