Prometheus

Here's a reason to love this poet-
Bedecke deinen Himmel, Zeus, Bedeck your Heaven, Zeus,
Mit Wolkendunst With cloudy vapors
Und ube, dem Knaben gleich, And practice, boyishly (like a young knave),
Der Disteln kopft, Who is beheading thistles,
An Eichen dich un Bergeshohn; Upon the oaks and the mountain tops,
Must mir meine Erde You must to me my Earth
Doch lassen stehn Indeed (or still) let stand
Und meine Hutte, die du nicht gebaut, And my hut, which you built not,
Und meinen Herd, And my hearth,
Um dessen Glut Whose glow
Du mich beneidest. You envy me.

Now Goethe goes on to have Prometheus defy Zeus, and promise the tyrant, whom he once was so naive to think heard his prayers, that he will raise man in his own image, to live, love, suffer, and rejoice without thinking one whit of Zeus.
It's quite clear that Goethe, like Shelley, realized the potential for an epic in the Prometheus story (who I argue is a Christ figure who defies Satan in the guise of Zeus), but that neither had the theology to make much sense out of it. After all, the Black Sea region is also the origin by legend of wine, as well as fire.
In any case, one can see how related German is to English, and get a feel for the beauty of the language, which is, contrary to belief, not guttural at all, but just French enough sounding to soften its strange English.