Of the finest inspiration is
the contrast between the remarks of the peasant woman wholly engrossed
in the immediate needs of the day, and the speculations of the
Wanderer as he comes upon the ruins that time has wrought upon the
choicest works of man's hand. Here we are far from all vapid and
artificial sentiment; we have philosophical meditation proceeding from
the profoundest source of the pathos of human life, the transitoriness
of man and his works. Completely in accord with the philosophy of his
ripest years, however, the poet finds no ground for melancholy regrets
in the spectacle of nature triumphing over man's handiwork. Even in
her work of corrosion she provides for the welfare of her children; in
a home reared out of a ruined temple happy human lives are spent. And
it is in the spirit of the broadest humanity--a spirit that marks him
off from the sentimentalists of the Darmstadt circle--that he regards
the "ruins of time."
[Footnote 114: On account of his constant travels between Frankfort
and Darmstadt, Goethe was known among his friends as the _Wanderer_.
The poem was written in the autumn, during Goethe's residence in
Wetzlar.
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