Versos English Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Faust

English poem

Faust

by (1749–1832)

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One impulse art thou conscious of, at best; O, never seek to know the other! Two souls, alas! reside within my breast, And each withdraws from, and repels, its brother. One with tenacious organs holds in love And clinging lust the world in its embraces; The other strongly sweeps, this dust above, Into the high ancestral spaces. If there be airy spirits near, ’Twixt Heaven and Earth on potent errands fleeing, Let them drop down the golden atmosphere, And bear me forth to new and varied being! Yea, if a magic mantle once were mine, To waft me o’er the world at pleasure, I would not for the costliest stores of treasure— Not for a monarch’s robe—the gift resign.