And you, ye teeming breasts? ye founts whence flow
All living influences fresh and fair?
Whereon the heavens and earth dependent hang,
Where seeks relief the withered bosom's pang?
Your founts still well, and I must pine in vain!
[He turns the book over impatiently, and beholds the sign of the Spirit of the Earth.
What different working hath this sign?
Thou Spirit of the Earth, I feel thee nearer;
Already sees my strengthened spirit clearer;
I glow as I had drunk new wine.
New strength I feel to plunge into the strife,
And bear the woes and share the joys of life,
Buffet the blasts, and where the wild waves dash,
Look calmly on the shipwreck's fearful crash!
Clouds hover o'er me-
The moon is dim!
The lamp's flame wanes!
It smokes!-Red beams dart forth
Around my head-and from the vaulted roof
Falls a cold shudder down,
And grips me!—I feel
Thou hover'st near me, conjured Spirit, now;
Ha! how swells with wild delight
My bursting heart!
And feelings, strange and new,
At once through all my ravished senses dart!
I feel my inmost soul made thrall to thee!
Thou must! thou must! and were my life the fee!
[He seizes the book, and pronounces with a mysterious air the sign of the Spirit. A red flame darts forth, and the Spirit appears in the flame.
SPIRIT. Who calls me?
FAUST [turning away].-Vision of affright!
SPIRIT. Thou hast with mighty spell invoked me,
And to obey thy call provoked me,
SPIRIT. Thy panting prayer besought my might to view,
To hear my voice, and know my semblance too:
Now bending from my native sphere to please thee,
Here am I-ha! what pitiful terrors seize thee,
And overman thee quite! where now the call
Of that proud soul, that scorned to own the thrall
Of earth, a world within itself created,
And bore and cherished? that with its fellows sated
Swelled with prophetic joy to leave its sphere,
And live a spirit with spirits, their rightful peer.
Where art thou, Faust? whose invocation rung
Upon mine ear, whose powers all round me clung?
Art thou that Faust? whom melts my breath away,
Trembling even to the life-depths of thy frame,
Like a poor worm that crawls into his clay!
FAUST.-Shall I then yield to thee, thou thing of flame?
I am that Faust, and Spirit is my name!
Where life's floods flow
And its tempests rave,
Up and down I wave,
Flit I to and fro!
Birth and the grave,
Life's hidden glow,
A shifting motion,
A boundless ocean
Whose waters heave
Thus on the sounding loom of Time I weave
The living mantle of the Deity.
FAUST.-Thou who round the wide world wendest,
Thou busy Spirit, how near I feel to thee!
SPIRIT.-Thou'rt like the spirit whom thou comprehendest,
FAUST.-Not thee!
Whom, then?
I, image of the Godhead,
Dwarfed by thee!
O death!-'tis Wagner's knock-I know it well,
My famulus; he comes to mar the spell!
Woe's me that such bright vision of the spheres
Must vanish when this pedant-slave appears!
Enter Wagner in night-gown and nightcap; a lamp in his hand.
WAGNER.-Your pardon, sir, I heard your voice declaiming, No doubt some old Greek drama, and I came in,
To profit by your learned recitation;
For in these days the art of declamation
Is held in highest estimation;
And I have heard asserted that a preacher
Might wisely have an actor for his teacher.
FAUST.-Yes; when our parsons preach to make grimaces,
As here and there a not uncommon case is.
WAGNER.-Alack! when a poor wight is so confined
Amid his books, shut up from all mankind,
And sees the world scarce on a holiday,
As through a telescope and far away,
How may he hope, with nicely tempered skill,
To bend the hearts he knows not to his will?
FAUST. What you don't feel, you'll hunt to find in vain.
It must gush from the soul, possess the brain,
And with an instinct kindly force compel
All captive hearts to own the grateful spell;
Go to sit o'er your books, and snip and glue
Your wretched piece-work, dressing your ragout
From others' feasts, your piteous flames still blowing
From sparks beneath dull heaps of ashes glowing;
Vain wonderment of children and of apes,
If with such paltry meed content thou art;
The human heart to heart he only shapes,
Whose words flow warm from human heart to heart.
WAGNER.- But the delivery is a chief concern
In Rhetoric; and alas! here I have much to learn.
Be thine to seek the honest gain,
No shallow-tinkling fool!
Sound sense finds utterance for itself,
Without the critic's rule.
If clear your thought, and your intention true,
What need to hunt for words with much ado?
The trim orations your fine speaker weaves,
Crisping light shreds of thought for shallow minds,
Are unrefreshing as the foggy winds
That whistle through the sapless autumn leaves.
Alas! how long is art,
And human life how short!
I feel at times with all my learned pains,
As if a weight of lead were at my heart,
And palsy on my brains.
How high to climb up learning's lofty stair,
How hard to find the helps that guide us there;
And when scarce half the way behind him lies,
His glass is run, and the poor devil dies!
FAUST. The parchment-roll is that the holy river,
From which one draught shall slake the thirst forever?
The quickening power of science only he
Can know, from whose own soul it gushes free.
And yet the spirit of a bygone age,
To re-create may well the wise engage;
To know the choicest thoughts of every ancient sage, And think how far above their best we've mounted high! FAUST. O yes, I trow, even to the stars, so high!
My friend, the ages that are past
Are as a book with seven seals made fast;
And what men call the spirit of the age,
Is but the spirit of the gentlemen
Who glass their own thoughts in the pliant page,
And image back themselves. O, then,
What precious stuff they dish, and call't a book,
Your stomach turns at the first look;
A heap of rubbish, and a lumber room,
At best some great state farce with proclamations,
Pragmatic maxims, protocols, orations,
Such as from puppet-mouths do fitly come!
WAGNER.-But then the world!-the human heart and mind!
Somewhat of this to know are all inclined.
FAUST.-Yes! as such knowledge goes! but what man dares
To call the child by the true name it bears?
The noble few that something better knew,
And to the gross reach of the general view,
Their finer feelings bared, and insight true,
From oldest times were burnt and crucified.
I do beseech thee, friend-'tis getting late,
'Twere wise to put an end to our debate.
WAGNER.-Such learned talk to draw through all the night
With Doctor Faust were my supreme delight;
But on the morrow, being Easter, I
Your patience with some questions more may try.
With zeal I've followed Learning's lofty call,
Much I have learned, but fain would master all.
FAUST [alone].-Strange how his pate alone hope never leaves,
Who still to shallow husks of learning cleaves !
With greedy hand who digs for hidden treasure,
And, when he finds a grub, rejoiceth above measure!
Durst such a mortal voice usurp mine ear
When all the spirit-world was floating near?
Yet, for this once, my thanks are free,
Thou meanest of earth's sons, to thee!
Thy presence drew me back from sheer despair,
And shock too keen for mortal nerve to bear;
Alas! so giant-great the vision came,
That I might feel me dwarf, ev'n as I am.
I, God's own image that already seemed
To gaze where Truth's eternal mirror gleamed,
And, clean divested of this cumbering clay,
Basked in the bliss of heaven's vivific ray;
I, more than cherub, with fresh pulses glowing,
Who well-nigh seemed through Nature's deep veins
flowing
Like a pure god, creative virtue knowing,
What sharp reproof my hot presumption found!
One word of thunder smote me to the ground.
Alas! 'tis true! not I with thee and thine
May dare to cope! the strength indeed was mine
To make thee own my call, but not
To chain thee to the charmed spot.
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