Harzreise im Winter

"Harzreise im Winter" (‘Winter Journey in the Harz’) is a poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, inspired by his ascent of the Brocken in the Harz mountains during the winter of 1777. He reached the summit in the heat of midday, in deep snow, with the landscape below him shrouded in cloud. The Brocken had always been a place of mystery, connected with witches and devils; where illusions such as the Brocken spectre might confuse an unwary traveller, and where few ventured by choice. This was the inspiration and the setting for his poem.

"Harzreise im Winter" was the last of Goethe's works in his Sturm und Drang period, marking the end of a series of long, free-verse poems hymns by the young poet that had begun with ‘Wandrers Sturmlied’, and it is less self-absorbed than his earlier writing. It was first published in 1789 in the eighth volume of his works.