**Faust:** You heavenly sounds, powerful...

Faust: You heavenly sounds, powerful and mild,

Why, in the dust, here, do you seek me?

Ring out where tender hearts are reconciled.

I hear your message, but faith fails me:

The marvellous is faith’s dearest child.

I don’t attempt to rise to that sphere,

From which the message rings:

Yet I know from childhood what it sings,

And I’m recalled to life once more.

In other times a Heavenly kiss would fall.

On me, in the deep Sabbath silence:

The bell notes filled with presentiments,

And a prayer was pleasure’s call:

A sweet yearning, beyond my understanding,

Set me wandering through woods and fields,

And while a thousand tears were burning

I felt a world around me come to be.

Love called out the lively games of youth,

The joy of spring’s idle holiday:

Memory’s childish feelings, in truth,

Hold me back from the last sombre way.

O, sing on you sweet songs of Heaven!

My tears flow, Earth claims me again!

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, Part One. Trans. A. S. Kline. https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/German/FaustIScenesItoIII.php

A full-text translation of Faust, with notes: https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/German/Fausthome.php