ms,
The vales reposing, every height aglow,
The silver brooklets meeting golden streams....
Alas! that when on Spirit wing we rise,
No wing material lifts our mortal clay.
But 'tis our inborn impulse, deep and strong,
To rush aloft, to struggle still towards heaven,
When far above us pours its thrilling song
The skylark lost amid the purple even,
When on extended pinion sweeps amain
The lordly eagle o'er the pine-crowned height.
And when, still striving towards its home, the crane
O'er moor and ocean wings its onward flight.

But the most complete expression of Goethe's attitude, not only in
the period of _Werther_ and the first part of _Faust_, but generally,
is contained in the _Monologue_, which was probably written not
earlier than the spring of 1788:

Spirit sublime! Thou gav'st me, gav'st me all
For which I prayed. Not vainly hast thou turn'd
To me thy countenance in flaming fire;
Thou gav'st me glorious Nature for my realm,
And also power to feel her and enjoy;
Not merely with a cold and wond'ring glance,
Thou didst permit me in her depths profound,
As in the bosom of a friend, to gaze;
Before me thou dost lead her living tribes,
And dost in silent grove, in air and stream,
Teach me to know my kindred....

His feeling was not admiration alone, nor reverence alone, but the
sympathy of _Childe Harold_:

Are not the mountains, waves, and skies a part
Of me and of my soul, as I of them?
Is not the love of these deep in my heart
With a pure passion? Should I not contemn
All objects, if compared with these?

and the very confession of faith of such poetic pantheism is in
Faust's words:

Him who dare name,
And yet proclaim,
Yes, I believe?...
The All-embracer,
All-sustainer,
Doth he not embrace, sustain
Thee, me, himself?
Lifts not the heaven its dome above?
Doth not the firm-set earth beneath us rise?
And beaming tenderly with looks of love,
Climb not the everlasting stars on high?

The poems which date directly after the Wetzlar period are full of
this sympathetic pantheistic love for Nature--_Mahomet's Song_, for
example, with its splendid comparison of pioneering genius to a
mountain torrent:

Ho! the spring that bursts
From the mountain height
Joyous and bright,
As the gleam of a star....
Down in the vale below
Flowers bud beneath his tread ...
And woo him with fond eyes.
And the streamlets of