To have creation’s inmost power
Resounding through my mind!
A shape of things, in vivid flower,
Issue from my hand!
My touch uncertain, stammering speech,
But now resolve beget;
I feel, I know you, in my reach,
Nature, I’ll have you yet.
Still, down the years my mind has shed
Some of it’s trammelings;
Where once all parched a heathland spread
Flow now delightful springs;
Nature, that thought, and then I long
Truly to feel you near;
Your thousand flutes I’ll be among,
Your fountain I shall hear;
Lift to the light you surely will
All faculties of mine,
Out of this straited life distil
A sense defeating time.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – Germany – (1789 - 1832)
Goethe. J.W. von (1994) Selected Poems (Goethe: The Collected Works, Vol. 1). Princeton University Press, Princeton. AN ARTIST'S EVENING SONG. Page Number 45.