The Poetry of Ellin Anderson

THE SPINNER (DIE SPINNERIN)

By Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

English version by Ellin Anderson

 

Where I sat and calmly spun
What a spark could kindle,
Trod a young and handsome one
Too close to my spindle.

Praised what should be praised as fair —
What harm was there to dread?
Mine, a head of flaxen hair
Like my flaxen thread.

Calmer was he not, thereby —
Left not, as of old.
Rent in twain, the flossy ply,
Lengths I long had told.

And the flax's measured weight
Tipped the scales once more,
But I could not brag and prate
As I did before.

When I to the weaver trudged,
I felt something start:
Good swift kicks, or so I judged,
Slugged at my poor heart.

Now, though sunstruck, I must wend
Through the heat to bring
Linen for the bleach — and bend
With pains, above the spring.

That which in my little room
I calmly, finely spun
Comes — how could it fail to bloom? —
At last, and finds the sun.
 

© 2009 by Ellin Anderson. All rights reserved.
No part of this work may be copied or used in any way
without written permission from the author.


St. Patrick's Day
Seabrook
Tiger and Blue Jewel

Winter's Hill
Maple-Key Song
November in Camelot

Wassail Song
Veleda
Cinderella
The Rooster at Midsummer
Liberty Enlightens the People

The Leap
The Goldfinch
Three Bears
Song of the Lily
White Tree at Twilight
The Christmas Tree

Song-Sparrow
Grand Bois du Nord
The Owl
Moth Summer
Verticordia
The Little God of Joy
Pear-Petals
Photographing the Moon
A Rabbit
Rose, Do You Know
The Two Pining Bachelors
Lorelei
Persephone

Avalon
The Harvest Chorus
The Maple Mask
Ghost Cardinal

The Little Heath-Rose
Found
The Sorcerer's Apprentice
Song for the Harp


The Prayer of Cephalus
Circe and Ulysses
The Black Arts
Tristan and Isolde & Jupiter's Two Casks
Nectanebus

Home Page

More Poems by Ellin Anderson

The Little Mermaid
Vermeer
Anne's Hearth