Faust

Excerpt

IErhabener Geist, im Geisterreich verloren!Wo immer Deine lichte Wohnung sey,Zum höh'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 gnädigem ErwiedernDes letzten Wiederhalls von Deinen Liedern!IIDen alten Musen die bestäubten KronenNahmst Du, zu neuem Glanz, mit kühner Hand:Du löst die Räthsel ältester AeonenDurch jüngeren Glauben, helleren Verstand,Und machst, wo rege Menschengeister wohnen,Die ganze Erde Dir zum Vaterland;Und Deine Jünger sehn in Dir, verwundert,Verkörpert schon das werdende Jahrhundert.IIIWas Du gesungen, Aller Lust und Klagen,Des Lebens Wiedersprüche, neu vermählt,—Die Harfe tausendstimmig frisch geschlagen,Die Shakspeare einst, die einst Homer gewählt,—Darf ich in fremde Klänge übertragenDas 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 repetitionLife tracks his devious, labyrinthine chain,And names the Good, whose cheating fortune tore themFrom 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 yearningFor 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-ANDREWMANAGERYou two, who oft a helping handHave lent, in need and tribulation.Come, let me know your expectationOf 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....