and the idyllic evening mood, which gives way to a burst of longing: 

  In the rich sunset see how brightly glow
  Yon cottage homes girt round with verdant green. 
  Slow sinks the orb, the day is now no more;
  Yonder he hastens to diffuse new light. 
  Oh! for a pinion from the earth to soar,
  And after, ever after him to strive! 
  Then should I see the world outspread below,
  Illumined by the deathless evening beams,
  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: