Goethe - To Luna

Steppenwolf constantly refers to Goethe, so I looked him up and found one of his poems. Good stuff

To Luna

ISTER of the earliest light,

Type of loveliness in sorrow,

Silver mists thy radiance borrow,

Even as they cross thy sight.

When thou comest to the sky,

In their dusky hollows waken,

Spirits that are sad, forsaken,

Birds that shun the day, and I.




Looking downward far and wide,

Hidden things thou dost discover.

Luna! help a hapless lover,

Lift him kindly to thy side!

Aided by thy friendly beams,

Let him through the lattice peeping,

Look into the room where, sleeping,

Lies the maiden of his dreams.




Ah, I see her! Now I gaze,

Bending in a trance Elysian,

And I strain my inmost vision,

And I gather all thy rays.

Bright and brighter yet I see

Charms no envious robes encumber;

And she draws me to her slumber

As Endymion once drew thee.

Now, it's a good poem without the Endymion reference, but I had to look that up too
and heres what I found. It pretty much transforms the poem.



"Endymion was a beautiful youth who fed his flock on Mount Latmos. One calm, clear night, Diana, the Moon, looked down and saw him sleeping. The cold heart of the virgin goddess was warmed by his surpassing beauty, and she came down to him, kissed him, and watched over him while he slept.

Another story was that Jupiter bestowed on him the gift of perpetual youth united with perpetual sleep. Of one so gifted we can have but few adventures to record. Diana, it was said, took care that his fortunes should not suffer by his inactive life, for she made his flock increase and guarded his sheep and lambs from wild beasts.

The story of Endymion has a peculiar charm from the human meaning which it so thinly veils. We see in Endymion the young poet, his fancy and his heart seeking in vain for that which can satisfy them, finding his favorite hour in the quiet moonlight, and nursing there beneath the beams of the bright and silent witness the melancholy and the ardor which consumes him. The story suggests aspiring and poetic love, a life spent more in dreams than in reality, and an early and welcome death."

Attempting to read more of Greek mythology at the moment, it's fucking confusing haha! so far i've gathered that almighty Zeus, likes to have sex with anything he see's fit. Whether that be his mother, or sister lol.

x