Drove me to wander forth through wood and mead;
And in the thousand tear-drops warmly thronging,
I felt a world grow up, mine own indeed.
The joyous sports of youth those tones revealing,
Of the spring feast once more the joy unfolds,
And recollection, fraught with childish feeling,
Me from the last dread step of all withholds.
Oh sound, sound on, thou sweet celestial strain,
The tears well forth, the earth hath me again.
Goethe’s “Faust.”