Faust Part 1 | Page 5

final form much that is realistic in the best sense, the carousal in Auerbach's cellar, the portrait of Martha, the Easter-morning walk, the character and fate of Margaret. It is such elements as these that have appealed to the larger reading public and that have naturally been emphasized by performance on the stage, and by virtue of these alone "Faust" may rank as a great drama; but it is the result of Goethe's broodings on the mystery of human life, shadowed forth in the symbolic parts and elaborated with still greater complexity and still more far-reaching suggestiveness--and, it must be added, with deepening obscurity --in the Second Part, that have given the work its place with "Job," with the "Prometheus Bound," with "The Divine Comedy," and with "Hamlet."
Dedication
YE wavering shapes, again ye do enfold me, As erst upon my troubled sight ye stole; Shall I this time attempt to clasp, to hold ye? Still for the fond illusion yearns my soul? Ye press around! Come then, your captive hold me, As upward from the vapoury mist ye roll; Within my breast youth's throbbing pulse is bounding, Fann'd by the magic breath your march surrounding.
Shades fondly loved appear, your train attending, And visions fair of many a blissful day; First-love and friendship their fond accents blending, Like to some ancient, half-expiring lay; Sorrow revives, her wail of anguish sending Back o'er life's devious labyrinthine way, And names the dear ones, they whom Fate bereaving Of life's fair hours, left me behind them grieving.
They hear me not my later cadence singing, The souls to whom my earlier lays I sang; Dispersed the throng, their severed flight now winging; Mute are the voices that responsive rang. For stranger crowds the Orphean lyre now stringing, E'en their applause is to my heart a pang; Of old who listened to my song, glad hearted, If yet they live, now wander widely parted.
A yearning long unfelt, each impulse swaying, To yon calm spirit-realm uplifts my soul; In faltering cadence, as when Zephyr playing, Fans the Aeolian harp, my numbers roll; Tear follows tear, my steadfast heart obeying The tender impulse, loses its control; What I possess as from afar I see; Those I have lost become realities to me.
PROLOGUE FOR THE THEATRE
MANAGER. DRAMATIC POET. MERRYMAN.
MANAGER
YE twain, in trouble and distress True friends whom I so oft have found, Say, for our scheme on German ground, What prospect have we of success? Fain would I please the public, win their thanks; They live and let live, hence it is but meet. The posts are now erected, and the planks, And all look forward to a festal treat. Their places taken, they, with eyebrows rais'd, Sit patiently, and fain would be amaz'd. I know the art to hit the public taste, Yet ne'er of failure felt so keen a dread; True, they are not accustomed to the best, But then appalling the amount they've read.. How make our entertainment striking, new, And yet significant and pleasing too? For to be plain, I love to see the throng, As to our booth the living tide progresses; As wave on wave successive rolls along, And through heaven's narrow portal forceful presses; Still in broad daylight, ere the clock strikes four, With blows their way towards the box they take; And, as for bread in famine, at the baker's door, For tickets are content their necks to break. Such various minds the bard alone can sway, My friend, oh work this miracle to-day!
POET
Oh of the motley throng speak not before me, At whose aspect the Spirit wings its flight!
Conceal the surging concourse, I implore thee, Whose vortex draws us with resistless might. No, to some peaceful heavenly nook restore me, Where only for the bard blooms pure delight, Where love and friendship yield their choicest blessing, Our heart's true bliss, with god-like hand caressing.
What in the spirit's depths was there created, What shyly there the lip shaped forth in sound; A failure now, with words now fitly mated, In the wild tumult of the hour is drown'd; Full oft the poet's thought for years bath waited Until at length with perfect form 'tis crowned; What dazzles, for the moment born, must perish; What genuine is posterity will cherish.
MERRYMAN
This cant about posterity I hate; About posterity were I to prate, Who then the living would amuse? For they Will have diversion, ay, and 'tis their due. A sprightly fellow's presence at your play, Methinks should also count for something too; Whose genial wit the audience still inspires, Knows from their changeful mood no angry feeling; A wider circle he desires, To their heart's depths more surely thus appealing. To work, then! Give a master-piece, my friend; Bring Fancy with her choral trains before us, Sense, reason, feeling, passion, but attend! Let folly