At homage paid thee by this crowd! Thrice blest
Who from the gifts by him possessed
Such benefit can draw! The sire
Thee to his boy with reverence shows,
They press around, inquire, advance,
Hush’d is the fiddle, check’d the dance.
Where thou dost pass they stand in rows,
And each aloft his bonnet throws,
But little fails and they to thee,
As though the Host came by, would bend the knee.
FAUST
A few steps further, up to yonder stone!
Here rest we from our walk. In times long past,
Absorb’d in thought, here oft I sat alone,
And disciplin’d myself with prayer and fast.
Then rich in hope, with faith sincere,
With sighs, and hands in anguish press’d,
The end of that sore plague, with many a tear,
From heaven’s dread Lord, I sought to wrest.
The crowd’s applause assumes a scornful tone.
Oh, could’st thou in my inner being read
How little either sire or son
Of such renown deserves the meed!
My sire, of good repute, and sombre mood,
O’er nature’s powers and every mystic zone,
With honest zeal, but methods of his own,
With toil fantastic loved to brood;
His time in dark alchemic cell,
With brother-adepts he would spend,
And there antagonists compel
Through numberless receipts to blend.
A ruddy lion there, a suitor bold,
In tepid bath was with the lily wed.
Thence both, while open flames around them roll’d,
Were tortur’d to another bridal bed.
Was then the youthful queen descried
With varied colors in the flask —
This was our medicine; the patients died;
“Who were restored?” none cared to ask.
With our infernal mixture thus, ere long.
These hills and peaceful vales among
We rag’d more fiercely than the pest;
Myself the deadly poison did to thousands give;
They pined away, I yet must live
To hear the reckless murderers blest.
WAGNER
Why let this thought your soul o’ercast?
Can man do more than with nice skill,
With firm and conscientious will,
Practise the art transmitted from the past?
If thou thy sire dost honor in thy youth,
His lore thou gladly wilt receive;
In manhood, dost thou spread the bounds of truth,
Then may thy son a higher goal achieve.
FAUST
How blest, in whom the fond desire
From error’s sea to rise, hope still renews!
What a man knows not, that he doth require,
And what he knoweth, that he cannot use.
But let not moody thoughts their shadow throw
O’er the calm beauty of this hour serene!
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 life.
Oh for a pinion from the earth to soar,
And after, ever after him to strive!
Then should I see the world below,
Bathed in the deathless evening-beams,
The vales reposing, every height a-glow,
The silver brooklets meeting golden streams.
The savage mountain, with its cavern’d side,
Bars not my godlike progress. Lo, the ocean,
Its warm bays heaving with a tranquil motion,
To my rapt vision opes its ample tide!
But now at length the god appears to sink
A new-born impulse wings my flight,
Onward I press, his quenchless light to drink,
The day before me, and behind the night,
The pathless waves beneath, and over me the skies.
Fair dream, it vanish’d with the parting day!
Alas! that when on spirit-wing we rise,
No wing material lifts our mortal clay.
But ’tis our inborn impulse, deep and strong,
Upwards and onwards still to urge our flight,
When far above us pours its thrilling song
The sky-lark, lost in azure light;
When on extended wing amain
O’er pine-crown’d height the eagle soars;
And over moor and lake, the crane
Still striveth toward its native shores.
WAGNER
To strange conceits oft I myself must own,
But impulse such as this I ne’er have known
Nor woods, nor fields, can long our thoughts engage;
Their wings I envy not the feather’d kind;
Far otherwise the pleasures of the mind
Bear us from book to book, from page to page I
Then winter nights grow cheerful; keen delight
Warms every limb; and ah! when we unroll
Some old and precious parchment, at the sight
All heaven itself descends upon the soul.
FAUST
Thy heart by one sole impulse is possess’d;
Unconscious of the other still remain!
Two souls, alas! are lodg’d within my breast,
Which struggle there for undivided reign
One to the world, with obstinate desire,
And closely-cleaving organs, still adheres;
Above the mist, the other doth aspire,
With sacred vehemence, to purer spheres.
Oh, are there spirits in the air
Who float ‘twixt heaven and earth dominion wielding,
Stoop hither from your golden atmosphere,
Lead me to scenes, new life and fuller yielding!
A magic mantle did I but possess,
Abroad to waft me as on viewless wings,
I’d prize it far beyond the costliest dress,
Nor would I change it for the robe of kings.
WAGNER
Call not the spirits who on mischief wait!
Their troop familiar, streaming through the air,
From every quarter threaten man’s estate,
And danger in a thousand forms prepare!
They drive impetuous from the frozen north,
With fangs sharp-piercing, and keen arrowy tongues;
From the ungenial east they issue forth,
And prey, with parching breath, upon thy lungs;
If, waft’d on the desert’s flaming wing,
They from the south heap fire upon the brain,
Refreshment from the west at first they bring,
Anon to drown thyself and field and plain.
In wait for mischief, they are prompt to hear;
With guileful purpose our behests obey;
Like ministers of grace they oft appear,
And lisp like angels, to betray.
But let us hence! Gray eve doth all things blend,
The air grows chill, the mists descend!
’Tis in the evening first our home we prize —
Why stand you thus, and gaze with wondering eyes?
What in the gloom thus moves you?
FAUST
Yon black hound
See ‘st thou, through corn and stubble scampering round?
WAGNER
I’ve mark’d him long, naught strange in him I see!
FAUST
Note him! What takest thou the brute to be?
WAGNER
But for a poodle, whom his instinct serves
His master’s track to find once more.
FAUST
Dost mark how round us, with wide spiral curves,
He wheels, each circle clo
ser than before?
And, if I err not, he appears to me
A line of ‘fire upon his track to leave.
WAGNER
Naught but a poodle black of hue I see;
’Tis some illusion doth your sight deceive.
FAUST
Methinks a magic coil our feet around,
He for a future snare doth lightly spread.
WAGNER
Around us as in doubt I see him shyly bound,
Since he two strangers seeth in his master’s stead.
FAUST
The circle narrows, he’s already near!
WAGNER
A dog dost see, no spectre have we here;
He growls, doubts, lays him on his belly too,
And wags his tail-as dogs are wont to do.
FAUST
Come hither, Sirrah! join our company!
WAGNER
A very poodle, he appears to be!
Thou standest still, for thee he’ll wait;
Thou speak’st to him, he fawns upon thee straight;
Aught thou mayst lose, again he’ll bring,
And for thy stick will into water spring.
FAUST
Thou’rt right indeed; no traces now I see
Whatever of a spirit’s agency,
’Tis training — nothing more.
WAGNER
A dog well taught
E’en by the wisest of us may be sought.
Ay, to your favor he’s entitled too,
Apt scholar of the students, ’tis his due!
[They enter the gate of the town.]
STUDY
FAUST (entering with, the poodle)
Now field and meadow I’ve forsaken;
O’er them deep night her veil doth draw;
In us the better soul doth waken,
With feelings of foreboding awe.
All lawless promptings, deeds unholy,
Now slumber, and all wild desires;
The love of man doth sway us wholly,
And love to God the soul inspires.
Peace, poodle, peace! Scamper not thus; obey me!
Why at the threshold snuffest thou so?
Behind the stove now quietly lay thee,
My softest cushion to thee I’ll throw.
As thou, without, didst please and amuse me,
Running and frisking about on the hill,
So tendance now I will not refuse thee;
A welcome guest, if thou’lt be still.
Ah! when the friendly taper gloweth,
Once more within our narrow cell,
Then in the heart itself that knoweth,
A light the darkness doth dispel.
Reason her voice resumes; returneth
Hope’s gracious bloom, with promise rife;
For streams of life the spirit yearneth,
Ah! for the very fount of life.
Poodle, snarl not! with the tone that arises,
Hallow’d and peaceful, my soul within,
Accords not thy growl, thy bestial din.
We find it not strange, that man despises
What he conceives not;
That he the good and fair misprizes —
Finding them often beyond his ken;
Will the dog snarl at them like men?
But ah! Despite my will, it stands confessed;
Contentment welleth up no longer in my breast.
Yet wherefore must the stream, alas, so soon be dry,
That we once more athirst should lie?
Full oft this sad experience hath been mine;
Nathless the want admits of compensation;
For things above the earth we learn to pine,
Our spirits yearn for revelation,
Which nowhere burns with purer beauty blent,
Than here in the New Testament.
To ope the ancient text an impulse strong
Impels me, and its sacred lore,
With honest purpose to explore,
And render into my loved German tongue.
[He opens a volume and applies himself to it.]
’Tis writ, “In the beginning was the Word!”
I pause, perplex’d! Who now will help afford?
I cannot the mere Word so highly prize;
I must translate it otherwise,
If by the spirit guided as I read.
“In the beginning was the Sense!” Take heed,
The import of this primal sentence weigh,
Lest thy too hasty pen be led astray!
Is force creative then of Sense the dower?
“In the beginning was the Power!”
Thus should it stand: yet, while the line I trace,
A something warns me, once more to efface.
The spirit aids! from anxious scruples freed,
I write, “In the beginning was the Deed!”
Am I with thee my room to share,
Poodle, thy barking now forbear,
Forbear thy howling!
Comrade so noisy, ever growling,
I cannot suffer here to dwell.
One or the other, mark me well,
Forthwith must leave the cell.
I’m loath the guest-right to withhold;
The door’s ajar, the passage clear;
But what must now mine eyes behold!
Are nature’s laws suspended here?
Real is it, or a phantom show?
In length and breadth how doth my poodle grow!
He lifts himself with threat’ning mien,
In likeness of a dog no longer seen!
What spectre have I harbor’d thus!
Huge as a hippopotamus,
With fiery eye, terrific tooth!
Ah! now I know thee, sure enough!
For such a base, half-hellish brood,
The key of Solomon is good.
SPIRITS (without)
Captur’d there within is one!
Stay without and follow none!
Like a fox in iron snare,
Hell’s old lynx is quaking there,
But take heed’!
Hover round, above, below,
To and fro,
Then from durance is he freed!
Can ye aid him, spirits all,
Leave him not in mortal thrall!
Many a time and oft hath he
Served us, when at liberty.
FAUST
The monster to confront, at first,
The spell of Four must be rehears’d;
Salamander shall kindle,
Writhe nymph of the wave,
In air sylph shall dwindle,
And Kobold shall slave.
Who doth ignore
The primal Four,
Nor knows aright
Their use and might,
O’er spirits will he
Ne’er master be!
Vanish in the fiery glow,
Salamander!
Rushingly together flow,
Undine!
Shimmer in the meteor’s gleam,
Sylphide!
Hither bring thine homely aid,
Incubus! Incubus!
Step forth! I do adjure thee thus!
None of the Four
Lurks in the beast;
He grins at me, untroubled as before;
I have not hurt him in the least.
A spell of fear
Thou now shalt hear.
Art thou, comrade fell,
Fugitive from Hell?
See then this sign,
Before which incline
The murky troops of Hell!
With bristling hair now doth the creature swell.
Canst thou, reprobate,
Read the uncreate,
Unspeakable, diffused
Throughout the heavenly sphere,
Shamefully abused,
Transpierced with nail and spear!
Behind the stove, tam’d by my spells,
Like an elephant he
swells;
Wholly now he fills the room,
He into mist will melt away.
Ascend not to the ceiling! Come,
Thyself at the master’s feet now lay!
Thou seest that mine is no idle threat.
With holy fire I will scorch thee yet!
Wait not the might
That lies in the triple-glowing light!
Wait not the might
Of all my arts in fullest measure!
MEPHISTOPHELES (as the mist sinks, comes forward from behind the stove, in the dress of a traveling scholar)
Why all this uproar? What’s the master’s pleasure?
FAUST
This then the kernel of the brute!
A traveling scholar? Why I needs must smile.
MEPHISTOPHELES
Your learned reverence humbly I salute!
You’ve made me swelter in a pretty style.
FAUST
Thy name?
MEPHISTOPHELES
The question trifling seems from one,
Who it appears the Word doth rate so low;
Who, undeluded by mere outward show,
To Being’s depths would penetrate alone.
FAUST
With gentlemen like you indeed
The inward essence from the name we read,
As all too plainly it doth appear,
When Beelzebub, Destroyer, Liar, meets the ear.
Who then art thou?
MEPHISTOPHELES
Part of that power which still Produceth good, whilst ever scheming ill.
FAUST
What hidden mystery in this riddle lies?
MEPHISTOPHELES
The spirit I, which evermore denies!
And justly; for whate’er to light is brought
Deserves again to be reduced to naught;
Then better ‘twere that naught should be.
Thus all the elements which ye
Destruction, Sin, or briefly, Evil, name,
As my peculiar element I claim.
FAUST
Thou nam’st thyself a part, and yet a whole I see.
MEPHISTOPHELES
The modest truth I speak to thee.
Though folly’s microcosm, man, it seems,
Himself to be a perfect whole esteems:
Part of the part am I, which at the first was all,
A part of darkness, which gave birth to light —
Proud light, who now his mother would enthrall,
Contesting space and ancient rank with night.
Yet he succeedeth not, for struggle as he will,
To forms material he adhereth still;
From them he streameth, them he maketh fair,
And still the progress of his beams they check;
And so, I trust, when comes the final wreck,
Light will, ere long, the doom of matter share.
FAUST
Thy worthy avocation now I guess!
Wholesale annihilation won’t prevail,
So thou’rt beginning on a smaller scale.
MEPHISTOPHELES
Masters of the Theatre Page 99