Faust: A Tragedy
Faust. [_turning away_]
Vision of affright!
Spirit.
Thou hast with mighty spell invoked me,
And to obey thy call provoked me,
And now--
Faust.
Hence from my sight!
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!
Spirit.
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
Eternally;
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,
Not me! [_Vanishes._
Faust.
Not thee!
Whom, then?
I, image of the Godhead,
Dwarfed by thee! [_Knocking is heard._]
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!
Scene II.
_Enter_ /Wagner/ _in night-gown and night-cap; 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.
Faust.
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.
Wagner.
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.
Wagner.
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. [_Exit._
Scene III.
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 charmèd spot.
When that blest rapture thrilled my frame,
I felt myself so small, so great;
But thou didst spurn me back with shame,
Into this crazy human state.
Where find I aid? what follow? what eschew?
Shall I that impulse of my soul obey?
Alas! alas! but I must feel it true,
The pains we suffer and the deeds we do,
Are clogs alike in the free spirit's way.
The godlike essence of our heaven-born powers
Must yield to strange and still more strange intrusion;
Soon as the good things of this world are ours,
We deem our nobler self a vain illusion,
And heaven-born instincts--very life of life--
Are strangled in the low terrestrial strife.
Young fancy, that once soared with flight sublime,
On venturous vans, ev'n to th' Eternal's throne,
Now schools her down a little space to own,
When in the dark engulfing stream of time,
Our fair-faced pleasures perish one by one.
Care nestles deep in every heart,
And, cradling there the secret smart,
Rocks to and fro, and peace and joy are gone.
What though new masks she still may wear,
Wealth, house and hall, with acres rich and rare,
As wife or child appear she, water, flame,
Dagger, or poison, she is still the same;
And still we fear the ill which happens never,
And what we lose not are bewailing ever.
Alas! alas! too deep 'tis felt! too deep!
With gods may vie no son of mortal clay;
More am I like to worms that crawl and creep,
And dig, and dig through earth their lightless way,
Which, while they feed on dust in narrow room,
Find from the wanderer's foot their death-blow and their tomb.
Is it not dust that this old wall
From all its musty benches shows me?
And dust the trifling trumperies all
That in this world of moths enclose me?
Here is it that I hope to find
Wherewith to sate my craving mind?
Need I spell out page after page,
To know that men in every age
And every clime, have spurred in vain
The jaded muscle and the tortured brain,
And here and there, with centuries between,
One happy man belike hath been?
Thou grinning skull, what wouldst thou say,
Save that thy brain, in chase of truth, like mine,
With patient toil pursued its floundering way
By glimmering lights that through dim twilight-shine?
Ye instruments, in sooth, now laugh at me,
With wheel, and cog-wheel, ring, and cylinder;
At Nature's door I stood; ye should have been the key,
But though your ward be good, the bolt ye cannot stir.
Mysterious Nature may not choose
To unveil her secrets to the stare of day,
And what from the mind's eye she stores away,
Thou canst not force from her with levers and with screws.
Thou antique gear, why dost thou cumber
My chamber with thy useless lumber?
My father housed thee on this spot,
And I must keep thee, though I need thee not!
Thou parchment roll that hast been smoked upon
Long as around this desk the sorry lamp-light shone;
Much better had I spent my little gear,
Than with this little to sit mouldering here;
Why should a man possess ancestral treasures,
But by possession to enlarge his pleasures?
The thing we use not a dead burden lies,
But what the moment brings the wise man knows to prize.
But what is this? there in the corner; why
Does that flask play the magnet to mine eye?
And why within me does this strange light shine,
As the soft nightly moon through groves of sombre pine?
I greet thee, matchless phial; and with devotion
I take thee down, and in thy mellow potion
I reverence human wit and human skill.
Fine essence of the opiate dew of sleep,
Dear extract of all subtle powers that kill,
Be mine the first-fruits of thy strength to reap!
I look on thee, and soothed is my heart's pain;
I grasp thee, straight is lulled my racking brain,
And wave by wave my soul's flood ebbs away.
I see wide ocean's swell invite my wistful eyes,
And at my feet her sparkling mirror lies;
To brighter shores invites a brighter day.
A car of fire comes hovering o'er my head,
With gentle wafture; now let me pursue
New flight adventurous, through the starry blue,
And be my wingèd steps unburdened sped
To spheres of uncramped energy divine!
And may indeed this life of gods be mine,
But now a worm, and cased in mortal clay?