Pardon; no words of fine address I know,

Nor could, though all should hoot me down with sneers;
My pathos would move laughter, and not tears,
Wert thou not weaned from laughter long ago.
Of suns and worlds I've nought to say,

I only see how men must fret their lives away.

The little god o' the world jogs and jogs on, the same

As when from ruddy clay he took his name;

And, sooth to say, remains a riddle, just

As much as when you shaped him from the dust.

Perhaps a little better he had thriven,

Had he not got the show of glimmering light from

heaven:

He calls it reason, and it makes him free

To be more brutish than a brute can be;

He is, methinks, with reverence of your grace,

Like one of the long-legged race

Of grasshoppers that leap in the air, and spring,

And straightway in the grass the same old song they

sing;

'Twere well that from the grass he never rose,

On every stubble he must break his nose!

THE LORD.-Hast thou then nothing more to say?
And art thou here again to-day

To vent thy grudge in peevish spite

Against the earth, still finding nothing right? MEPHISTOPHELES.-True, Lord; I find things there no better

than before;

I must confess I do deplore

Man's hopeless case, and scarce have heart myself

To torture the poor miserable elf.

THE LORD.-Dost thou know Faust?

MEPHISTOPHELES.—

THE LORD.

The Doctor?

Ay: my servant.

MEPHISTOPHELES.-Indeed! and of his master's will observant,

In fashion quite peculiar to himself;

His food and drink are of no earthly taste,

A restless fever drives him to the waste.

Himself half seems to understand

How his poor wits have run astrand;

From heaven he asks each loveliest star,

Earth's chiefest joy must jump to his demand,
And all that's near, and all that's far,

Soothes not his deep-moved spirit's war.

THE LORD.-Though for a time he blindly grope his way,
Soon will I lead him into open day;

Well knows the gardener, when green shoots appear, That bloom and fruit await the ripening year. MEPHISTOPHELES.-What wager you? you yet shall lose that soul!

Only give me full license, and you'll see How I shall lead him softly to my goal. THE LORD.-As long as on the earth he lives Thou hast my license full and free;

Man still must stumble while he strives.
MEPHISTOPHELES.-My thanks for that! the dead for me
Have little charm; my humor seeks

The bloom of lusty life, with plump and rosy cheeks;
For a vile corpse my tooth is far too nice,

I do just as the cat does with the mice.

THE LORD.-So be it; meanwhile, to tempt him thou are free; Go, drag this spirit from his native fount,

And lead him on, canst thou his will surmount,

Into perdition down with thee;

But stand ashamed at last, when thou shalt see An honest man, 'mid all his strivings dark, Finds the right way, though lit but by a spark. MEPHISTOPHELES.-Well, well; short time will show; into my

net

I'll draw the fish, and then I've won my bet;
And when I've carried through my measure
Loud blast of trump shall blaze my glory;
Dust shall he eat, and that with pleasure,
Like my cousin the snake in the rare old story.
THE LORD.-And thou mayst show thee here in upper sky
Unhindered, when thou hast a mind;

I never hated much thee or thy kind;

Of all the spirits that deny,

The clever rogue sins least against my mind.

For, in good sooth, the mortal generation,

When a soft pillow they may haply find,
Are far too apt to sink into stagnation;
And therefore man for comrade wisely gets
A devil, who spurs, and stimulates, and whets.
But you, ye sons of heaven's own choice,
In the one living Beautiful rejoice!
The self-evolving Energy divine

Enclasp you round with love's embrace benign,
And on the floating forms of earth and sky
Stamp the fair type of thought that may not die.
MEPHISTOPHELES.-From time to time the ancient gentleman
I see, and keep on the best terms I can.

In a great Lord 'tis surely wondrous civil
So face to face to hold talk with the devil.

FAUST

ACT FIRST

Scene I.-Night

Faust discovered sitting restless at his desk, in a narrow highvaulted Gothic chamber.

FAUST.-There now, I've toiled my way quite through
Law, Medicine, and Philosophy,

And, to my sorrow, also thee,
Theology, with much ado;

And here I stand, poor human fool,
As wise as when I went to school.
Master, ay, Doctor, titled duly,
An urchin-brood of boys unruly
For ten slow-creeping years and mo,
Up and down, and to and fro,

I lead by the nose: and this I know,
That vain is all our boasted lore-
A thought that burns me to the core!
True, I am wiser than all their tribe,
Doctor, Master, Priest, and Scribe;

No scruples nor doubts in my bosom dwell,
I fear no devil, believe no hell;
But with my fear all joy is gone,
All rare conceit of wisdom won;
All dreams so fond, all faith so fair,
To make men better than they are.
Nor gold have I, nor gear, nor fame,
Station, or rank, or honored name,
Here like a kennelled cur I lie!
Therefore the magic art I'll try,

From spirit's might and mouth to draw,
Mayhap, some key to Nature's law;

That I no more, with solemn show,
May sweat to teach what I do not know;
That I may ken the bond that holds
The world, through all its mystic folds;
The hidden seeds of things explore,

And cheat my thought with words no more.
O might thou shine, thou full moon bright,
For the last time upon my woes,
Thou whom, by this brown desk alone,
So oft my wakeful eyes have known.
Then over books and paper rose

On me thy sad familiar light!

Oh, that beneath thy friendly ray,

On peaky summit I might stray,

Round mountain caves with spirits hover,
And flit the glimmering meadows over,
And from all fevered fumes of thinking free,
Bathe me to health within thy dewy sea.
In vain! still pines my prisoned soul
Within this curst dank dungeon-hole!
Where dimly finds ev'n heaven's blest ray,
Through painted glass, its struggling way.
Shut in by heaps of books up-piled,
All worm-begnawed and dust-besoiled,
With yellowed papers, from the ground
To the smoked ceiling, stuck around;
Caged in with old ancestral lumber,
Cases, boxes, without number,

Broken glass, and crazy chair,

Dust and brittleness everywhere;

This is thy world, a world for a man's soul to breathe in! And ask I still why in my breast,

My heart beats heavy and oppressed?

And why some secret unknown sorrow

Freezes my blood, and numbs my marrow?
'Stead of the living sphere of Nature,
Where man was placed by his Creator,
Surrounds thee mouldering dust alone,
The grinning skull and skeleton.