e written or shaped this in English, had that been his
native language, instead of seeking _con amore_ (and _con fidelita_) as
they should have done, to reproduce, both in spirit and in form, the
movement, so free and yet orderly, of the singularly endowed and
accomplished poet whom they undertook to represent.

As to the objections which Hayward and some of his reviewers have
instituted in advance against the possibility of a good and faithful
metrical translation of a poem like Faust, they seem to the present
translator full of paradox and sophistry. For instance, take this
assertion of one of the reviewers: "The sacred and mysterious union of
thought with verse, twin-born and immortally wedded from the moment of
their common birth, can never be understood by those who desire verse
translations of good poetry." If the last part of this statement had read
"by those who can be contented with _prose_ translations of good poetry,"
the position would have been nearer the truth. This much we might well
admit, that, if the alternative were either to have a poem like Faust in a
metre different and glaringly different from the original, or to have it
in simple and strong prose, then the latter alternative would be the one
every tasteful and feeling scholar would prefer; but surely to every one
who can read the original or wants to know how this great song _sung
itself_ (as Carlyle says) out of Goethe's soul, a mere prose rendering
must be, comparatively, a _corpus mortuum._

The translator most heartily dissents from Hayward's assertion that a
translator of Faust "must sacrifice either metre or meaning." At least he
flatters himself that he has made, in the main, (not a compromise between
meaning and melody, though in certain instances he may have fallen into
that, but) a combination of the meaning with the melody, which latter is
so important, so vital a part of the lyric poem's meaning, in any worthy
sense. "No poetic translation," says Hayward's reviewer, already quoted,
"can give the rhythm and rhyme of the original; it can only substitute the
rhythm and rhyme of the translator." One might just as well say "no
_prose_ translation can give the _sense and spirit_ of the original; it
can only substitute the _sense and spirit of the words and phrases of the
translator's language_;" and then, these two assertions balancing each
other, there will remain in the metrical translator's favor, that he may
come as near to giving both