TO J. ANTHONY FROUDE
Dear friend of many years, accept
This book, which into life has crept
In hours that have been snatched from those
Were due to dearly earned repose.
Well do I know how deep and strong
Your reverence is for Goethe's song.
And how the problems, thickly sown
Throughout this book of his, have grown
Familiar to your thought and tongue
As the rare words in which they're sung.
You know—who better?—all that gives
This book its charm, the grace that lives
And breathes throughout its perfect verse,
The saws sarcastic, vivid, terse,
The wild wit flashing to and fro,
The varied lore, the sunny glow
Of fancy and of passion, fit
To glorify the exquisite
Conception of a Helen meet
To make Faust's dream of bliss complete,—
The tender beauty of the thought
That his deliverance should be wrought
By her who could in death forget
The wrong he did her—Margaret,
And twined his soul with hers by love
Eternal, pure, in realms above.
You, too, can measure well how great
His perils are, who would translate
The thoughts on aptest language strung,
And wed them to another tongue.
But you, like all true Masters, will
Look gently on my lack of skill,
And with a large allowance take
My effort for our friendship's sake.
vii
