Faust. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

      An Goethe

      I

       Erhabener Geist, im Geisterreich verloren!

       Wo immer Deine lichte Wohnung sey,

       Zum hoeh’ren Schaffen bist Du neugeboren,

       Und singest dort die voll’re Litanei.

       Von jenem Streben das Du auserkoren,

       Vom reinsten Aether, drin Du athmest frei,

       O neige Dich zu gnaedigem Erwiedern

       Des letzten Wiederhalls von Deinen Liedern!

      II

       Den alten Musen die bestaeubten Kronen

       Nahmst Du, zu neuem Glanz, mit kuehner Hand:

       Du loest die Raethsel aeltester Aeonen

       Durch juengeren Glauben, helleren Verstand,

       Und machst, wo rege Menschengeister wohnen,

       Die ganze Erde Dir zum Vaterland;

       Und Deine Juenger sehn in Dir, verwundert,

       Verkoerpert schon das werdende Jahrhundert.

      III

       Was Du gesungen, Aller Lust und Klagen,

       Des Lebens Wiedersprueche, neu vermaehlt,–

       Die Harfe tausendstimmig frisch geschlagen,

       Die Shakspeare einst, die einst Homer gewaehlt,–

       Darf ich in fremde Klaenge uebertragen

       Das Alles, wo so Mancher schon gefehlt?

       Lass Deinen Geist in meiner Stimme klingen,

       Und was Du sangst, lass mich es Dir nachsingen!

      B.T.

      Again ye come, ye hovering Forms! I find ye,

      As early to my clouded sight ye shone!

      Shall I attempt, this once, to seize and bind ye?

      Still o’er my heart is that illusion thrown?

      Ye crowd more near! Then, be the reign assigned ye,

      And sway me from your misty, shadowy zone!

      My bosom thrills, with youthful passion shaken,

      From magic airs that round your march awaken.

      Of joyous days ye bring the blissful vision;

      The dear, familiar phantoms rise again,

      And, like an old and half-extinct tradition,

      First Love returns, with Friendship in his train.

      Renewed is Pain: with mournful repetition

      Life tracks his devious, labyrinthine chain,

      And names the Good, whose cheating fortune tore them

      From happy hours, and left me to deplore them.

      They hear no longer these succeeding measures,

      The souls, to whom my earliest songs I sang:

      Dispersed the friendly troop, with all its pleasures,

      And still, alas! the echoes first that rang!

      I bring the unknown multitude my treasures;

      Their very plaudits give my heart a pang,

      And those beside, whose joy my Song so flattered,

      If still they live, wide through the world are scattered.

      And grasps me now a long-unwonted yearning

      For that serene and solemn Spirit-Land:

      My song, to faint Aeolian murmurs turning,

      Sways like a harp-string by the breezes fanned.

      I thrill and tremble; tear on tear is burning,

      And the stern heart is tenderly unmanned.

      What I possess, I see far distant lying,

      And what I lost, grows real and undying.

      MANAGER

      DRAMATIC POET

      MERRY-ANDREW

      MANAGER

      You two, who oft a helping hand

      Have lent, in need and tribulation.

      Come, let me know your expectation

      Of this, our enterprise, in German land!

      I wish the crowd to feel itself well treated,

      Especially since it lives and lets me live;

      The posts are set, the booth of boards completed.

      And each awaits the banquet I shall give.

      Already there, with curious eyebrows raised,

      They sit sedate, and hope to be amazed.

      I know how one the People’s taste may flatter,

      Yet here a huge embarrassment I feel:

      What they’re accustomed to, is no great matter,

      But then, alas! they’ve read an awful deal.

      How shall we plan, that all be fresh and new,–

      Important matter, yet attractive too?

      For ‘tis my pleasure-to behold them surging,

      When to our booth the current sets apace,

      And with tremendous, oft-repeated urging,

      Squeeze onward through the narrow gate of grace:

      By daylight even, they push and cram in

      To reach the seller’s box, a fighting host,

      And as for bread, around a baker’s door, in famine,

      To get a ticket break their necks almost.

      This miracle