Versos English Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Mephistopheles

English poem

Mephistopheles

by (1749–1832)

Listen in the reader

A blessing drawn from supernatural fountains! In night and dew to lie upon the mountains; All Heaven and Earth in rapture penetrating; Thyself to Godhood haughtily inflating; To grub with yearning force through Earth’s dark marrow, Compress the six days’ work within thy bosom narrow,— To taste, I know not what, in haughty power, Thine own ecstatic life on all things shower, Thine earthly self behind thee cast, And then the lofty instinct, thus—

(With a gesture:)

at last,— daren’t say how—to pluck the final flower!