From
Faust part II, Translated by G. Madison Priest
Page 10
Chiron.
The doctors of philology
Have fooled you like themselves, I see.
Peculiar is it with a mythologic dame;
The poet brings her, as he needs, to fame;
She never grows adult and never old,
Always of appetizing mould,
Ravished when young, still wooed long past her prime.
Enough, the poet is not bound by time.
Faust.
Then, here too, be no law of time thrown
round her!
On Pherae's isle indeed Achilles found her
Beyond the pale of time. A happiness, how rare!
In spite of fate itself love triumphed there.
Is it beyond my yearning passion's power
To bring to life the earth's most perfect flower?
That deathless being, peer of gods above,
Tender as great; sublime, yet made for love!
You saw her once, today I've seen her too,
Charming as fair, desired as fair to view.
My captured soul and being yearn to gain her;
I will not live unless I can attain her.
Goethe, Who yearns for the impossible I love
