FOUND
I walked in the woods
All by myself,
To seek nothing,
That was on my mind.
I saw in the shade
A little flower stand,
Bright like the stars
Like beautiful eyes.
I wanted to pluck it,
But it said sweetly:
Is it to wilt
That I must be broken?
I took it out
With all its roots,
Carried it to the garden
At the pretty house
And planted it again In a quiet place; Now it ever spreads And blossoms forth. Goethe, walking with no purpose in mind, is attracted by the brilliant little flower. He reports having the same impulse as Tennyson: to pluck it. But unlike Tennyson, Goethe is aware that this means killing the flower. For Goethe the flower is so much alive that it speaks and warns him; and he solves the problem differently from either Tennyson or Basho. He takes the flower "with all its roots" and plants it again so that its life is not destroyed. Goethe stands, as it were, between Tennyson and Basho: for him, at the crucial moment, the force of life is stronger than the force of mere intellectual curiosity. Needless to say that in this beautif
And planted it again In a quiet place; Now it ever spreads And blossoms forth. Goethe, walking with no purpose in mind, is attracted by the brilliant little flower. He reports having the same impulse as Tennyson: to pluck it. But unlike Tennyson, Goethe is aware that this means killing the flower. For Goethe the flower is so much alive that it speaks and warns him; and he solves the problem differently from either Tennyson or Basho. He takes the flower "with all its roots" and plants it again so that its life is not destroyed. Goethe stands, as it were, between Tennyson and Basho: for him, at the crucial moment, the force of life is stronger than the force of mere intellectual curiosity. Needless to say that in this beautif
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