Aug 26, 2026 · 4 hr 19 min · 16 segments
"Faust I" by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe delves into the profound themes of ambition, desire, and the quest for knowledge through the story of a scholar who makes a pact with the devil. This timeless…
DEDICATION 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 my heart, is that illusion thrown? Ye crowd more near, then be the rain assigned ye, And sway me from your misty, shadowy zone.
My bosom thrills, with youthful passion shaken, For 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 is flattered, If still they live, wide through the world are scattered.
And grasps me now a long unwanted 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.
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DEDICATION 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 my heart, is that illusion thrown? Ye crowd more near, then be the rain assigned ye, And sway me from your misty, shadowy zone.
My bosom thrills, with youthful passion shaken, For 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 is flattered, If still they live, wide through the world are scattered.
And grasps me now a long unwanted 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.
