Note 201 — Chapter IX
Reading edition
One poem of his earliest period, Die Lehre (vol. iii. p. 276), published in Hamburgs Wächter, 1817 (Strodtmann, op. cit. i. 54), does seem to show it. In this the young bee, heedless of motherly advice, does not beware of the candle-flame and so "Flamme gab Flammentod." We at once recognize a familiar Persian thought, and are reminded of Goethe's fine line, "Das Lebend'ge will ich preisen das nach Flammentod sich sehnet." (Selige Sehnsucht, ed. Loeper, iv. 26.)