Vales grow green, and hills are lifting
Through the shadow-rest of morn;
And in waves of silver, drifting
On to harvest, rolls the corn.
Wouldst thou win desires unbounded,
Yonder see the glory burn!
Lightly is thy life surrounded—
Sleep’s a shell, to break and spurn!
When the crowd sways, unbelieving,
Show the daring will that warms!
He is crowned with all achieving,
Who perceives and then performs.
(A tremendous tumult announces the approach of the Sun.)
ARIEL.
Hearken! Hark!—the Hours careering!
Sounding loud to spirit-hearing,
See the new-born Day appearing!
Rocky portals jarring shatter,
Phœbus’ wheels in rolling clatter,
With a crash the Light draws near![1]
Pealing rays and trumpet-blazes,—
Eye is blinded, ear amazes:
The Unheard can no one hear!
Slip within each blossom-bell,
Deeper, deeper, there to dwell,—
In the rocks, beneath the leaf!
If it strikes you, you are deaf.
FAUST.
Life’s pulses now with fresher force awaken
To greet the mild ethereal twilight o’er me;
This night, thou, Earth! hast also stood unshaken,
And now thou breathest new-refreshed before me,
- ↑ We may conjecture that Goethe had in his mind the Rospigliosi Aurora of Guido, which suggests noise and the sound of trumpets; but he also referred both to ancient myths and the guesses of the science of his day. Tacitus speaks of a legend current among the Germans, that, beyond the land of the Suiones, the sun gives forth audible sounds in setting. The same statement is found in Posidonius and Juvenal. In Macpherson’s Ossian, "the rustling sun comes forth from his green-headed waves." Also in the German mediæval poem of “Titurel,” the sun is said to utter sounds sweeter than lutes and the songs of birds, on rising. The crash described by Ariel is only audible to the “spirit-hearing” of the elves, who at once disappear, and Faust awakens, his being “cleansed from the suffered woes.”
