Goethe - Faust - Dedication

This Dedication, written probably on June 24, 1797, is more properly an "Invocation" by the author who, at the age forty-eight, is about to resume work on his open which has lain all but untouched since he was twenty-six. The first stanza refers to the characters in the poem; the third stanza refers to Goethe's deceased father, sister, and friends of his youth. The Dedication was prefixed to the completed Part I of Faust in 1808 and is reckoned an integral part of the total work.