Faust. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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      What dreams are yours in high poetic places?

      You’re pleased, forsooth, full houses to behold?

      Draw near, and view your patrons’ faces!

      The half are coarse, the half are cold.

      One, when the play is out, goes home to cards;

      A wild night on a wench’s breast another chooses:

      Why should you rack, poor, foolish bards,

      For ends like these, the gracious Muses?

      I tell you, give but more–more, ever more, they ask:

      Thus shall you hit the mark of gain and glory.

      Seek to confound your auditory!

      To satisfy them is a task.–

      What ails you now? Is’t suffering, or pleasure?

      POET

      Go, find yourself a more obedient slave!

      What! shall the Poet that which Nature gave,

      The highest right, supreme Humanity,

      Forfeit so wantonly, to swell your treasure?

      Whence o’er the heart his empire free?

      The elements of Life how conquers he?

      Is’t not his heart’s accord, urged outward far and dim,

      To wind the world in unison with him?

      When on the spindle, spun to endless distance,

      By Nature’s listless hand the thread is twirled,

      And the discordant tones of all existence

      In sullen jangle are together hurled,

      Who, then, the changeless orders of creation

      Divides, and kindles into rhythmic dance?

      Who brings the One to join the general ordination,

      Where it may throb in grandest consonance?

      Who bids the storm to passion stir the bosom?

      In brooding souls the sunset burn above?

      Who scatters every fairest April blossom

      Along the shining path of Love?

      Who braids the noteless leaves to crowns, requiting

      Desert with fame, in Action’s every field?

      Who makes Olympus sure, the Gods uniting?

      The might of Man, as in the Bard revealed.

      MERRY-ANDREW

      So, these fine forces, in conjunction,

      Propel the high poetic function,

      As in a love-adventure they might play!

      You meet by accident; you feel, you stay,

      And by degrees your heart is tangled;

      Bliss grows apace, and then its course is jangled;

      You’re ravished quite, then comes a touch of woe,

      And there’s a neat romance, completed ere you know!

      Let us, then, such a drama give!

      Grasp the exhaustless life that all men live!

      Each shares therein, though few may comprehend:

      Where’er you touch, there’s interest without end.

      In motley pictures little light,

      Much error, and of truth a glimmering mite,

      Thus the best beverage is supplied,

      Whence all the world is cheered and edified.

      Then, at your play, behold the fairest flower

      Of youth collect, to hear the revelation!

      Each tender soul, with sentimental power,

      Sucks melancholy food from your creation;

      And now in this, now that, the leaven works.

      For each beholds what in his bosom lurks.

      They still are moved at once to weeping or to laughter,

      Still wonder at your flights, enjoy the show they see:

      A mind, once formed, is never suited after;

      One yet in growth will ever grateful be.

      POET

      Then give me back that time of pleasures,

      While yet in joyous growth I sang,–

      When, like a fount, the crowding measures

      Uninterrupted gushed and sprang!

      Then bright mist veiled the world before me,

      In opening buds a marvel woke,

      As I the thousand blossoms broke,

      Which every valley richly bore me!

      I nothing had, and yet enough for youth–

      Joy in Illusion, ardent thirst for Truth.

      Give, unrestrained, the old emotion,

      The bliss that touched the verge of pain,

      The strength of Hate, Love’s deep devotion,–

      O, give me back my youth again!

      MERRY ANDREW

      Youth, good my friend, you certainly require

      When foes in combat sorely press you;

      When lovely maids, in fond desire,

      Hang on your bosom and caress you;

      When from the hard-won goal the wreath

      Beckons afar, the race awaiting;

      When, after dancing out your breath,

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