Of what my late father handed me down, I most value some books and a habit.
Each Easter, after a long walk through the woods, he and I opened volume 2 of his 1864 Gotha edition of Goethe’s collected works and read Faust, the Easter Walk.
The scholar Faust, he later sells his soul to the devil, is haunted by his thrieve for godlike knowledge. Thinking of suicide, happy Easter songs from outside his study remember him not on religion, but on happy moments in his childhood and stop him. He takes a Sunday walk with his student Wagner and remarks:
Loosed from their fetters are streams and rills
Through the gracious spring-tide’s all-quickening glow;
Hope’s budding joy in the vale doth blow;
Old Winter back to the savage hills
Withdraweth his force, decrepid now.Thence only impotent icy grains
Scatters he as he wings his flight,
Striping with sleet the verdant plains;
But the sun endureth no trace of white;Everywhere growth and movement are rife,
All things investing with hues of life:Though flowers are lacking, varied of dye,
Their colours the motly throng supply.
Turn thee around, and from this height,
Back to the town direct thy sight.Forth from the hollow, gloomy gate,
Stream forth the masses, in bright array.
Gladly seek they the sun to-day;
The Lord’s Resurrection they celebrate:For they themselves have risen, with joy,
From tenement sordid, from cheerless room,
From bonds of toil, from care and annoy,
From gable and roof’s o’er-hanging gloom,
From crowded alley and narrow street,
And from the churches’ awe-breathing night,
All now have come forth into the light.Look, only look, on nimble feet,
Through garden and field how spread the throng,
How o’er the river’s ample sheet,
Many a gay wherry glides along;And see, deep sinking in the tide,
Pushes the last boat now away.
E’en from yon far hill’s path-worn side,
Flash the bright hues of garments gay.Hark! Sounds of village mirth arise;
This is the people’s paradise.Both great and small send up a cheer;
Here am I man, I feel it here.