Goethe

I am rereading Faust and found the following poem which captures some of the same themes that are on display in Goethe's great drama:



ONE AND ALL

Into the limitless to sink,
No one. I trow, will ever blink,
For there all sorrow we dismiss.
Instead of cravings, wants untold,
Fatiguing demands and duties cold.
Surrender of one's self is bliss.

O. World-soul, come to fill our lives,
For he who with thy spirit strives
Attains the height of his vocation.
Then, sympathetic spirits, speed us;
Great masters, gently higher lead us
To the Creator of creation.

In re-creating the created,
Lest fossilize the animated,
Aye, active power, is manifest;
The non-existing actualizing.

In younger worlds and suns is rising,
But never, nowhere, can be rest.
In active deeds life proves unfolding;
It must be moulded and keep moulding;

Sometimes but seeming rest 'twill gain.
The eternal stirreth in us all;
And into naught we all must fall,
If e'er in life we shall remain.

- Goethe, 1821