Read Ebook: Fausto: Primera parte by Goethe Johann Wolfgang Von Llorente Teodoro Translator

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 2171 lines and 82357 words, and 44 pages

Rains have left the sea-banks ill to climb: Waveward sinks the loosening seaboard's floor: Half the sliding cliffs are mire and slime. Earth, a fruit rain-rotted to the core, Drops dissolving down in flakes, that pour Dense as gouts from eaves grown foul with grime. One sole rock which years that scathe not score Stands a sea-mark in the tides of time.

Time were even as even the rainiest clime, Life were even as even this lapsing shore, Might not aught outlive their trustless prime: Vainly fear would wail or hope implore, Vainly grief revile or love adore Seasons clothed in sunshine, rain, or rime Now for me one comfort held in store Stands a sea-mark in the tides of time.

Once, by fate's default or chance's crime, Each apart, our burdens each we bore; Heard, in monotones like bells that chime, Chime the sounds of sorrows, float and soar Joy's full carols, near or far before; Heard not yet across the alternate rhyme Time's tongue tell what sign set fast of yore Stands a sea-mark in the tides of time.

Friend, the sign we knew not heretofore Towers in sight here present and sublime. Faith in faith established evermore Stands a sea-mark in the tides of time.

THE CLIFFSIDE PATH.

Seaward goes the sun, and homeward by the down We, before the night upon his grave be sealed. Low behind us lies the bright steep murmuring town, High before us heaves the steep rough silent field. Breach by ghastlier breach, the cliffs collapsing yield: Half the path is broken, half the banks divide; Flawed and crumbled, riven and rent, they cleave and slide Toward the ridged and wrinkled waste of girdling sand Deep beneath, whose furrows tell how far and wide Wind is lord and change is sovereign of the strand.

Star by star on the unsunned waters twiring down. Golden spear-points glance against a silver shield. Over banks and bents, across the headland's crown, As by pulse of gradual plumes through twilight wheeled, Soft as sleep, the waking wind awakes the weald. Moor and copse and fallow, near or far descried. Feel the mild wings move, and gladden where they glide: Silence, uttering love that all things understand, Bids the quiet fields forget that hard beside Wind is lord and change is sovereign of the strand.

Yet may sight, ere all the hoar soft shade grow brown, Hardly reckon half the lifts and rents unhealed Where the scarred cliffs downward sundering drive and drown, Hewn as if with stroke of swords in tempest steeled, Wielded as the night's will and the wind's may wield. Crowned and zoned in vain with flowers of autumn-tide, Soon the blasts shall break them, soon the waters hide, Soon, where late we stood, shall no man ever stand. Life and love seek harbourage on the landward side: Wind is lord and change is sovereign of the strand.

Friend, though man be less than these, for all his pride, Yet, for all his weakness, shall not hope abide? Wind and change can wreck but life and waste but land: Truth and trust are sure, though here till all subside Wind is lord and change is sovereign of the strand.

IN THE WATER.

The sea is awake, and the sound of the song of the joy of her waking is rolled From afar to the star that recedes, from anear to the wastes of the wild wide shore. Her call is a trumpet compelling us homeward: if dawn in her east be acold, From the sea shall we crave not her grace to rekindle the life that it kindled before, Her breath to requicken, her bosom to rock us, her kisses to bless as of yore? For the wind, with his wings half open, at pause in the sky, neither fettered nor free, Leans waveward and flutters the ripple to laughter and fain would the twain of us be Where lightly the wave yearns forward from under the curve of the deep dawn's dome, And, full of the morning and fired with the pride of the glory thereof and the glee, Strike out from the shore as the heart in us bids and beseeches, athirst for the foam.

Life holds not an hour that is better to live in: the past is a tale that is told, The future a sun-flecked shadow, alive and asleep, with a blessing in store. As we give us again to the waters, the rapture of limbs that the waters enfold Is less than the rapture of spirit whereby, though the burden it quits were sore, Our souls and the bodies they wield at their will are absorbed in the life they adore-- In the life that endures no burden, and bows not the forehead, and bends not the knee-- In the life everlasting of earth and of heaven, in the laws that atone and agree, In the measureless music of things, in the fervour of forces that rest or that roam, That cross and return and reissue, as I after you and as you after me Strike out from the shore as the heart in us bids and beseeches, athirst for the foam.

For, albeit he were less than the least of them, haply the heart of a man may be bold To rejoice in the word of the sea as a mother's that saith to the son she bore, Child, was not the life in thee mine, and my spirit the breath in thy lips from of old? Have I let not thy weakness exult in my strength, and thy foolishness learn of my lore? Have I helped not or healed not thine anguish, or made not the might of thy gladness more? And surely his heart should answer, The light of the love of my life is in thee. She is fairer than earth, and the sun is not fairer, the wind is not blither than she: From my youth hath she shown me the joy of her bays that I crossed, of her cliffs that I clomb, Till now that the twain of us here, in desire of the dawn and in trust of the sea, Strike out from the shore as the heart in us bids and beseeches, athirst for the foam.

Friend, earth is a harbour of refuge for winter, a covert whereunder to flee When day is the vassal of night, and the strength of the hosts of her mightier than he; But here is the presence adored of me, here my desire is at rest and at home. There are cliffs to be climbed upon land, there are ways to be trodden and ridden, but we Strike out from the shore as the heart in us bids and beseeches, athirst for the foam.

THE SUNBOWS.

Spray of song that springs in April, light of love that laughs through May, Live and die and live for ever: nought of all thing far less fair Keeps a surer life than these that seem to pass like fire away. In the souls they live which are but all the brighter that they were; In the hearts that kindle, thinking what delight of old was there. Wind that shapes and lifts and shifts them bids perpetual memory play Over dreams and in and out of deeds and thoughts which seem to wear Light that leaps and runs and revels through the springing flames of spray.

Dawn is wild upon the waters where we drink of dawn to-day: Wide, from wave to wave rekindling in rebound through radiant air, Flash the fires unwoven and woven again of wind that works in play, Working wonders more than heart may note or sight may wellnigh dare, Wefts of rarer light than colours rain from heaven, though this be rare. Arch on arch unbuilt in building, reared and ruined ray by ray, Breaks and brightens, laughs and lessens, even till eyes may hardly bear Light that leaps and runs and revels through the springing flames of spray.

Year on year sheds light and music rolled and flashed from bay to bay Round the summer capes of time and winter headlands keen and bare Whence the soul keeps watch, and bids her vassal memory watch and pray, If perchance the dawn may quicken, or perchance the midnight spare. Silence quells not music, darkness takes not sunlight in her snare; Shall not joys endure that perish? Yea, saith dawn, though night say nay: Life on life goes out, but very life enkindles everywhere Light that leaps and runs and revels through the springing flames of spray.

Friend, were life no more than this is, well would yet the living fare. All aflower and all afire and all flung heavenward, who shall say Such a flash of life were worthless? This is worth a world of care-- Light that leaps and runs and revels through the springing flames of spray.

ON THE VERGE.

Here begins the sea that ends not till the world's end. Where we stand, Could we know the next high sea-mark set beyond these waves that gleam, We should know what never man hath known, nor eye of man hath scanned. Nought beyond these coiling clouds that melt like fume of shrines that steam Breaks or stays the strength of waters till they pass our bounds of dream. Where the waste Land's End leans westward, all the seas it watches roll Find their border fixed beyond them, and a worldwide shore's control: These whereby we stand no shore beyond us limits: these are free. Gazing hence, we see the water that grows iron round the Pole, From the shore that hath no shore beyond it set in all the sea.

Sail on sail along the sea-line fades and flashes; here on land Flash and fade the wheeling wings on wings of mews that plunge and scream. Hour on hour along the line of life and time's evasive strand Shines and darkens, wanes and waxes, slays and dies: and scarce they seem More than motes that thronged and trembled in the brief noon's breath and beam. Some with crying and wailing, some with notes like sound of bells that toll, Some with sighing and laughing, some with words that blessed and made us whole, Passed, and left us, and we know not what they were, nor what were we. Would we know, being mortal? Never breath of answering whisper stole From the shore that hath no shore beyond it set in all the sea.

Shadows, would we question darkness? Ere our eyes and brows be fanned Round with airs of twilight, washed with dews from sleep's eternal stream, Would we know sleep's guarded secret? Ere the fire consume the brand, Would it know if yet its ashes may requicken? yet we deem Surely man may know, or ever night unyoke her starry team, What the dawn shall be, or if the dawn shall be not, yea, the scroll Would we read of sleep's dark scripture, pledge of peace or doom of dole. Ah, but here man's heart leaps, yearning toward the gloom with venturous glee, Though his pilot eye behold nor bay nor harbour, rock nor shoal, From the shore that hath no shore beyond it set in all the sea.

Friend, who knows if death indeed have life or life have death for goal? Day nor night can tell us, nor may seas declare nor skies unroll What has been from everlasting, or if aught shall always be. Silence answering only strikes response reverberate on the soul From the shore that hath no shore beyond it set in all the sea.

TO VICTOR HUGO

Twice twelve times have the springs of years refilled Their fountains from the river-head of time Since by the green sea's marge, ere autumn chilled Waters and woods with sense of changing clime, A great light rose upon my soul, and thrilled My spirit of sense with sense of spheres in chime, Sound as of song wherewith a God would build Towers that no force of conquering war might climb. Wind shook the glimmering sea Even as my soul in me Was stirred with breath of mastery more sublime, Uplift and borne along More thunderous tides of song, Where wave rang back to wave more rapturous rhyme And world on world flashed lordlier light Than ever lit the wandering ways of ships by night.

The spirit of God, whose breath of life is song, Moved, though his word was human, on the face Of those deep waters of the soul, too long Dumb, dark, and cold, that waited for the grace Wherewith day kindles heaven: and as some throng Of quiring wings fills full some lone chill place With sudden rush of life and joy, more strong Than death or sorrow or all night's darkling race, So was my heart, that heard All heaven in each deep word, Filled full with light of thought, and waxed apace Itself more wide and deep, To take that gift and keep And cherish while my days fulfilled their space; A record wide as earth and sea, The Legend writ of Ages past and yet to be.

As high the chant of Paradise and Hell Rose, when the soul of Milton gave it wings; As wide the sweep of Shakespeare's empire fell, When life had bared for him her secret springs; But not his various soul might range and dwell Amid the mysteries of the founts of things; Nor Milton's range of rule so far might swell Across the kingdoms of forgotten kings. Men, centuries, nations, time, Life, death, love, trust, and crime, Rang record through the change of smitten strings That felt an exile's hand Sound hope for every land More loud than storm's cloud-sundering trumpet rings, And bid strong death for judgment rise, And life bow down for judgment of his awless eyes.

And death, soul-stricken in his strength, resigned The keeping of the sepulchres to song; And life was humbled, and his height of mind Brought lower than lies a grave-stone fallen along; And like a ghost and like a God mankind Rose clad with light and darkness; weak and strong, Clean and unclean, with eyes afire and blind, Wounded and whole, fast bound with cord and thong, Free; fair and foul, sin-stained, And sinless; crowned and chained; Fleet-limbed, and halting all his lifetime long; Glad of deep shame, and sad For shame's sake; wise, and mad; Girt round with love and hate of right and wrong; Armed and disarmed for sleep and strife; Proud, and sore fear made havoc of his pride of life.

Shadows and shapes of fable and storied sooth Rose glorious as with gleam of gold unpriced; Eve, clothed with heavenly nakedness and youth That matched the morning's; Cain, self-sacrificed On crime's first altar: legends wise as truth, And truth in legends deep embalmed and spiced; The stars that saw the starlike eyes of Ruth, The grave that heard the clarion call of Christ. And higher than sorrow and mirth The heavenly song of earth Sprang, in such notes as might have well sufficed To still the storms of time And sin's contentious clime With peace renewed of life reparadised: Earth, scarred not yet with temporal scars; Goddess of gods, our mother, chosen among the stars.

Earth fair as heaven, ere change and time set odds Between them, light and darkness know not when, And fear, grown strong through panic periods, Crouched, a crowned worm, in faith's Lernean fen, And love lay bound, and hope was scourged with rods, And death cried out from desert and from den, Seeing all the heaven above him dark with gods And all the world about him marred of men. Cities that nought might purge Save the sea's whelming surge From all the pent pollutions in their pen Deep death drank down, and wrought, With wreck of all things, nought, That none might live of all their names again, Nor aught of all whose life is breath Serve any God whose likeness was not like to death.

Till by the lips and eyes of one live nation The blind mute world found grace to see and speak, And light watched rise a more divine creation At that more godlike utterance of the Greek, Let there be freedom. Kings whose orient station Made pale the morn, and all her presage bleak, Girt each with strengths of all his generation, Dim tribes of shamefaced soul and sun-swart cheek, Twice, urged with one desire, Son following hard on sire, With all the wrath of all a world to wreak, And all the rage of night Afire against the light Whose weakness makes her strong-winged empire weak, Stood up to unsay that saying, and fell Too far for song, though song were thousand-tongued, to tell.

A star more prosperous than the storm-clothed east's Clothed all the warm south-west with light like spring's, When hands of strong men spread the wolves their feasts And from snake-spirited princes plucked the stings; Ere earth, grown all one den of hurtling beasts, Had for her sunshine and her watersprings The fire of hell that warmed the hearts of priests, The wells of blood that slaked the lips of kings. The shadow of night made stone Stood populous and alone, Dense with its dead and loathed of living things That draw not life from death, And as with hell's own breath And clangour of immitigable wings Vexed the fair face of Paris, made Foul in its murderous imminence of sound and shade.

And all these things were parcels of the vision That moved a cloud before his eyes, or stood A tower half shattered by the strong collision Of spirit and spirit, of evil gods with good; A ruinous wall rent through with grim division, Where time had marked his every monstrous mood Of scorn and strength and pride and self-derision: The Tower of Things, that felt upon it brood Night, and about it cast The storm of all the past Now mute and forceless as a fire subdued: Yet through the rifted years And centuries veiled with tears And ages as with very death imbrued Freedom, whence hope and faith grow strong, Smiles, and firm love sustains the indissoluble song.

Above the cloudy coil of days deceased, Its might of flight, with mists and storms beset, Burns heavenward, as with heart and hope increased, For all the change of tempests, all the fret Of frost or fire, keen fraud or force released, Wherewith the world once wasted knows not yet If evil or good lit all the darkling east From the ardent moon of sovereign Mahomet. Sublime in work and will The song sublimer still Salutes him, ere the splendour shrink and set; Then with imperious eye And wing that sounds the sky Soars and sees risen as ghosts in concourse met The old world's seven elder wonders, firm As dust and fixed as shadows, weaker than the worm.

High witness borne of knights high-souled and hoary Before death's face and empire's rings and glows Even from the dust their life poured forth left gory, As the eagle's cry rings after from the snows Supreme rebuke of shame clothed round with glory And hosts whose track the false crowned eagle shows; More loud than sounds through stormiest song and story The laugh of slayers whose names the sea-wind knows; More loud than peals on land In many a red wet hand The clash of gold and cymbals as they close; Loud as the blast that meets The might of marshalled fleets And sheds it into shipwreck, like a rose Blown from a child's light grasp in sign That earth's high lords are lords not over breeze and brine.

Above the dust and mire of man's dejection The wide-winged spirit of song resurgent sees His wingless and long-labouring resurrection Up the arduous heaven, by sore and strange degrees Mount, and with splendour of the soul's reflection Strike heaven's dark sovereign down upon his knees, Pale in the light of orient insurrection, And dumb before the almightier lord's decrees Who bade him be of yore, Who bids him be no more: And all earth's heart is quickened as the sea's, Even as when sunrise burns The very sea's heart yearns That heard not on the midnight-walking breeze The wail that woke with evensong From hearts of poor folk watching all the darkness long.

Nor lacked these lights of constellated age A star among them fed with life more dire, Lit with his bloodied fame, whose withering rage Made earth for heaven's sake one funereal pyre And life in faith's name one appointed stage For death to purge the souls of men with fire. Heaven, earth, and hell on one thrice tragic page Mixed all their light and darkness: one man's lyre Gave all their echoes voice; Bade rose-cheeked love rejoice, And cold-lipped craft with ravenous fear conspire, And fire-eyed faith smite hope Dead, seeing enthroned as Pope And crowned of heaven on earth at hell's desire Sin, called by death's incestuous name Borgia: the world that heard it flushed and quailed with shame.

Another year, and hope triumphant heard The consummating sound of song that spake Conclusion to the multitudinous word Whose expectation held her spirit awake Till full delight for twice twelve years deferred Bade all souls entering eat and drink, and take A third time comfort given them, that the third Might heap the measure up of twain, and make The sinking year sublime Among all sons of time And fan in all men's memories for his sake. Each thought of ours became Fire, kindling from his flame, And music widening in his wide song's wake. Yea, and the world bore witness here How great a light was risen upon this darkening year.

It was the dawn of winter: sword in sheath, Change, veiled and mild, came down the gradual air With cold slow smiles that hid the doom beneath. Five days to die in yet were autumn's, ere The last leaf withered from his flowerless wreath. South, east, and north, our skies were all blown bare, But westward over glimmering holt and heath Cloud, wind, and light had made a heaven more fair Than ever dream or truth Showed earth in time's keen youth When men with angels communed unaware. Above the sun's head, now Veiled even to the ardent brow, Rose two sheer wings of sundering cloud, that were As a bird's poised for vehement flight, Full-fledged with plumes of tawny fire and hoar grey light.

As midnight black, as twilight brown, they spread, But feathered thick with flame that streaked and lined Their living darkness, ominous else of dread, From south to northmost verge of heaven inclined Most like some giant angel's, whose bent head Bowed earthward, as with message for mankind Of doom or benediction to be shed From passage of his presence. Far behind, Even while they seemed to close, Stoop, and take flight, arose Above them, higher than heavenliest thought may find In light or night supreme Of vision or of dream, Immeasurable of men's eyes or mounting mind, Heaven, manifest in manifold Light of pure pallid amber, cheered with fire of gold.

And where the fine gold faded all the sky Shone green as the outer sea when April glows, Inlaid with flakes and feathers fledged to fly Of cloud suspense in rapture and repose, With large live petals, broad as love bids lie Full open when the sun salutes the rose, And small rent sprays wherewith the heavens most high Were strewn as autumn strews the garden-close With ruinous roseleaves whirled About their wan chill world, Through wind-worn bowers that now no music knows, Spoil of the dim dusk year Whose utter night is near, And near the flower of dawn beyond it blows; Till east and west were fire and light, As though the dawn to come had flushed the coming night.

The highways paced of men that toil or play, The byways known of none but lonely feet, Were paven of purple woven of night and day With hands that met as hands of friends might meet-- As though night's were not lifted up to slay And day's had waxed not weaker. Peace more sweet Than music, light more soft than shadow, lay On downs and moorlands wan with day's defeat, That watched afar above Life's very rose of love Let all its lustrous leaves fall, fade, and fleet, And fill all heaven and earth Full as with fires of birth Whence time should feed his years with light and heat: Nay, not life's, but a flower more strong Than life or time or death, love's very rose of song.

Nor only clouds of the everlasting sky, Nor only men that paced that sunward way To the utter bourne of evening, passed not by Unblest or unillumined: none might say, Of all things visible in the wide world's eye, That all too low for all that grace it lay: The lowliest lakelets of the moorland nigh, The narrowest pools where shallowest wavelets play, Were filled from heaven above With light like fire of love, With flames and colours like a dawn in May, As hearts that lowlier live With light of thoughts that give Light from the depth of souls more deep than they Through song's or story's kindling scroll, The splendour of the shadow that reveals the soul.

For, when such light is in the world, we share, All of us, all the rays thereof that shine: Its presence is alive in the unseen air, Its fire within our veins as quickening wine; A spirit is shed on all men everywhere, Known or not known of all men for divine. Yea, as the sun makes heaven, that light makes fair All souls of ours, all lesser souls than thine, Priest, prophet, seer and sage, Lord of a subject age That bears thy seal upon it for a sign; Whose name shall be thy name, Whose light thy light of fame, The light of love that makes thy soul a shrine; Whose record through all years to be Shall bear this witness written--that its womb bare thee.

Life, everlasting while the worlds endure, Death, self-abased before a power more high, Shall bear one witness, and their word stand sure, That not till time be dead shall this man die Love, like a bird, comes loyal to his lure; Fame flies before him, wingless else to fly. A child's heart toward his kind is not more pure, An eagle's toward the sun no lordlier eye. Awe sweet as love and proud As fame, though hushed and bowed, Yearns toward him silent as his face goes by: All crowns before his crown Triumphantly bow down, For pride that one more great than all draws nigh: All souls applaud, all hearts acclaim, One heart benign, one soul supreme, one conquering name.

NOTES

Italia, mother of the souls of men, Mother divine, Of all that served thee best with sword or pen, All sons of thine,

Thou knowest that here the likeness of the best Before thee stands, The head most high, the heart found faithfullest, The purest hands.

Above the fume and foam of time that flits, The soul, we know, Now sits on high where Alighieri sits With Angelo.

Not his own heavenly tongue hath heavenly speech Enough to say What this man was, whose praise no thought may reach, No words can weigh.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet