A poem from Faust

Wenn über schroffen Fichtenhöhen
Der Adler ausgebreitet schwebt,
Und über Flächen, über Seen
Der Kranich nach der Heimat strebt.

(Faust. Der Tragödie erster Teil. Vor dem Tor)
(von Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Oh, happy he, who still hopes that he can
Emerge from Error’s boundless sea!
What man knows not, is needed most by man,
And what man knows, for that no use has he.

But what fair blessing that this hour can show
Let’s not with mournful thoughts like these embitter!
Behold how in the evening sunset-glow
The green-encircled hamlets glitter.

The sun retreats - the day, outlived, is o’er -
It hastens hence and lo! a new world is alive!
Oh, that from earth no wing can lift me up to soar
And after, ever after it to strive!

I’d see in that eternal evening beam,
Beneath my feet, the world in stillness glowing,
Each valley hushed and every height agleam,
The silver brook to golden rivers flowing.

The mountain wild with all its gorges
Would hinder not the godlike course for me;
Before astounded eyes already surges,
With bays yet warm, the open sea.

And yet at last the god seems to be sinking;
But new impulse awakes, to light
I hasten on, eternal brightness drinking,
Before me day, behind me night,

Above me heaven, and under me the billow.
A lovely dream, the while the glory fades from sight.
Alas! To wings that lift the spirit light
No earthly wing will ever be a fellow.

Yet ‘tis inborn in everyone, each fancies
His feeling presses upward and along,
When over us lost amid the blue expanses
The lark sings down his showering song,

When over rough heights of firs and larches
The outspread eagles soaring roam,
And over lakes and over marshes
The crane strives onward toward his home.

(Faust. The Tragedy part one. In Front of the Gate)
(Translated by George Madison Priest (1873 - 1947))