Faust Part 9

With what a feeling, thou great man, must thou Receive the people's honest veneration!

How lucky he, whose gifts his station With such advantages endow!

Thou'rt shown to all the younger generation: Each asks, and presses near to gaze; The fiddle stops, the dance delays.

Thou goest, they stand in rows to see, And all the caps are lifted high; A little more, and they would bend the knee As if the Holy Host came by.

FAUST

A few more steps ascend, as far as yonder stone!- Here from our wandering will we rest contented.

Here, lost in thought, I've lingered oft alone, When foolish fasts and prayers my life tormented.

Here, rich in hope and firm in faith, With tears, wrung hands and sighs, I've striven, The end of that far-spreading death Entreating from the Lord of Heaven!

Now like contempt the crowd's applauses seem: Couldst thou but read, within mine inmost spirit, How little now I deem, That sire or son such praises merit!

My father's was a sombre, brooding brain, Which through the holy spheres of Nature groped and wandered, And honestly, in his own fashion, pondered With labor whimsical, and pain: Who, in his dusky work-shop bending, With proved adepts in company, Made, from his recipes unending, Opposing substances agree.

There was a Lion red, a wooer daring, Within the Lily's tepid bath espoused, And both, tormented then by flame unsparing, By turns in either bridal chamber housed.

If then appeared, with colors splendid, The young Queen in her crystal sh.e.l.l, This was the medicine-the patients' woes soon ended, And none demanded: who got well?

Thus we, our h.e.l.lish boluses compounding, Among these vales and hills surrounding, Worse than the pestilence, have pa.s.sed.

Thousands were done to death from poison of my giving; And I must hear, by all the living, The shameless murderers praised at last!

WAGNER

Why, therefore, yield to such depression?

A good man does his honest share In exercising, with the strictest care, The art bequeathed to his possession!

Dost thou thy father honor, as a youth?

Then may his teaching cheerfully impel thee: Dost thou, as man, increase the stores of truth?

Then may thine own son afterwards excel thee.

FAUST

O happy he, who still renews The hope, from Error's deeps to rise forever!

That which one does not know, one needs to use; And what one knows, one uses never.

But let us not, by such despondence, so The fortune of this hour embitter!

Mark how, beneath the evening sunlight's glow, The green-embosomed houses glitter!

The glow retreats, done is the day of toil; It yonder hastes, new fields of life exploring; Ah, that no wing can lift me from the soil, Upon its track to follow, follow soaring!

Then would I see eternal Evening gild The silent world beneath me glowing, On fire each mountain-peak, with peace each valley filled, The silver brook to golden rivers flowing.

The mountain-chain, with all its gorges deep, Would then no more impede my G.o.dlike motion; And now before mine eyes expands the ocean With all its bays, in shining sleep!

Yet, finally, the weary G.o.d is sinking; The new-born impulse fires my mind,- I hasten on, his beams eternal drinking, The Day before me and the Night behind, Above me heaven unfurled, the floor of waves beneath me,- A glorious dream! though now the glories fade.

Alas! the wings that lift the mind no aid Of wings to lift the body can bequeath me.

Yet in each soul is born the pleasure Of yearning onward, upward and away, When o'er our heads, lost in the vaulted azure, The lark sends down his flickering lay,- When over crags and piny highlands The poising eagle slowly soars, And over plains and lakes and islands The crane sails by to other sh.o.r.es.

WAGNER

I've had, myself, at times, some odd caprices, But never yet such impulse felt, as this is.

One soon fatigues, on woods and fields to look, Nor would I beg the bird his wing to spare us: How otherwise the mental raptures bear us From page to page, from book to book!

Then winter nights take loveliness untold, As warmer life in every limb had crowned you; And when your hands unroll some parchment rare and old, All Heaven descends, and opens bright around you!

FAUST

One impulse art thou conscious of, at best; O, never seek to know the other!

Two souls, alas! reside within my breast, And each withdraws from, and repels, its brother.

One with tenacious organs holds in love And clinging l.u.s.t the world in its embraces; The other strongly sweeps, this dust above, Into the high ancestral s.p.a.ces.

If there be airy spirits near, 'Twixt Heaven and Earth on potent errands fleeing, Let them drop down the golden atmosphere, And bear me forth to new and varied being!

Yea, if a magic mantle once were mine, To waft me o'er the world at pleasure, I would not for the costliest stores of treasure- Not for a monarch's robe-the gift resign.

WAGNER

Invoke not thus the well-known throng, Which through the firmament diffused is faring, And danger thousand-fold, our race to wrong.

In every quarter is preparing.

Swift from the North the spirit-fangs so sharp Sweep down, and with their barbed points a.s.sail you; Then from the East they come, to dry and warp Your lungs, till breath and being fail you: If from the Desert sendeth them the South, With fire on fire your throbbing forehead crowning, The West leads on a host, to cure the drouth Only when meadow, field, and you are drowning.

They gladly hearken, prompt for injury,- Gladly obey, because they gladly cheat us; From Heaven they represent themselves to be, And lisp like angels, when with lies they meet us.

But, let us go! 'Tis gray and dusky all: The air is cold, the vapors fall.

At night, one learns his house to prize:- Why stand you thus, with such astonished eyes?

What, in the twilight, can your mind so trouble?

FAUST

Seest thou the black dog coursing there, through corn and stubble?

WAGNER

Long since: yet deemed him not important in the least.

FAUST

Inspect him close: for what tak'st thou the beast?

WAGNER

Why, for a poodle who has lost his master, And scents about, his track to find.

FAUST

Seest thou the spiral circles, narrowing faster, Which he, approaching, round us seems to wind?

A streaming trail of fire, if I see rightly, Follows his path of mystery.

WAGNER

It may be that your eyes deceive you slightly; Naught but a plain black poodle do I see.

FAUST

It seems to me that with enchanted cunning He snares our feet, some future chain to bind.

WAGNER

I see him timidly, in doubt, around us running, Since, in his master's stead, two strangers doth he find.

FAUST

The circle narrows: he is near!