Wanderer's Nightsong

What it is

"Wandrers Nachtlied" refers to two poems written by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: one in 1776, sent in a letter to his friend Charlotte von Stein, and a second in 1780, said to have been written in pencil on the wall of a hunting lodge on the Kickelhahn mountain near Ilmenau. They were first published together in 1815.

Why it matters

The second poem is often considered one of the most perfect short lyrics in the German language. Its story — written on a wooden wall, remembered by friends like Karl Ludwig von Knebel and Johann Gottfried Herder, and revisited by an elderly Goethe who wept on seeing his own handwriting decades later — shows how deeply personal moments became part of his public legacy. The original wall text no longer survives.

Look closer

• Why might someone write a poem on a wall instead of paper?
• What does it mean that the original handwritten poem is lost, and we only know it through later copies?
• How might Goethe's feelings have changed between writing the poem and revisiting the spot decades later?