Faust | Page 8

ill intention??Find'st nothing right on earth, eternally?
MEPHISTOPHELES
No, Lord! I find things, there, still bad as they can be.?Man's misery even to pity moves my nature;?I've scarce the heart to plague the wretched creature.
THE LORD
Know'st Faust?
MEPHISTOPHELES
The Doctor Faust?
THE LORD
My servant, he!
MEPHISTOPHELES
Forsooth! He serves you after strange devices:?No earthly meat or drink the fool suffices:?His spirit's ferment far aspireth;?Half conscious of his frenzied, crazed unrest,?The fairest stars from Heaven he requireth,?From Earth the highest raptures and the best,?And all the Near and Far that he desireth?Fails to subdue the tumult of his breast.
THE LORD
Though still confused his service unto Me,?I soon shall lead him to a clearer morning.?Sees not the gardener, even while buds his tree,?Both flower and fruit the future years adorning?
MEPHISTOPHELES
What will you bet? There's still a chance to gain him,?If unto me full leave you give,?Gently upon my road to train him!
THE LORD
As long as he on earth shall live,?So long I make no prohibition.?While Man's desires and aspirations stir,?He cannot choose but err.
MEPHISTOPHELES
My thanks! I find the dead no acquisition,?And never cared to have them in my keeping.?I much prefer the cheeks where ruddy blood is leaping,?And when a corpse approaches, close my house:?It goes with me, as with the cat the mouse.
THE LORD
Enough! What thou hast asked is granted.?Turn off this spirit from his fountain-head;?To trap him, let thy snares be planted,?And him, with thee, be downward led;?Then stand abashed, when thou art forced to say:?A good man, through obscurest aspiration,?Has still an instinct of the one true way.
MEPHISTOPHELES
Agreed! But 'tis a short probation.?About my bet I feel no trepidation.?If I fulfill my expectation,?You'll let me triumph with a swelling breast:?Dust shall he eat, and with a zest,?As did a certain snake, my near relation.
THE LORD
Therein thou'rt free, according to thy merits;?The like of thee have never moved My hate.?Of all the bold, denying Spirits,?The waggish knave least trouble doth create.?Man's active nature, flagging, seeks too soon the level;?Unqualified repose he learns to crave;?Whence, willingly, the comrade him I gave,?Who works, excites, and must create, as Devil.?But ye, God's sons in love and duty,?Enjoy the rich, the ever-living Beauty!?Creative Power, that works eternal schemes,?Clasp you in bonds of love, relaxing never,?And what in wavering apparition gleams?Fix in its place with thoughts that stand forever!
(Heaven closes: the_ ARCHANGELS _separate.)
MEPHISTOPHELES (solus)
I like, at times, to hear The Ancient's word,?And have a care to be most civil:?It's really kind of such a noble Lord?So humanly to gossip with the Devil!?[Illustration]?[Illustration]
FIRST PART OF THE TRAGEDY
I
NIGHT
(A lofty-arched, narrow, Gothic chamber_. FAUST, in a chair at his desk, restless_.)
FAUST
I've studied now Philosophy?And Jurisprudence, Medicine,--?And even, alas! Theology,--?From end to end, with labor keen;?And here, poor fool! with all my lore?I stand, no wiser than before:?I'm Magister--yea, Doctor--hight,?And straight or cross-wise, wrong or right,?These ten years long, with many woes,?I've led my scholars by the nose,--?And see, that nothing can be known!?That knowledge cuts me to the bone.?I'm cleverer, true, than those fops of teachers,?Doctors and Magisters, Scribes and Preachers;?Neither scruples nor doubts come now to smite me,?Nor Hell nor Devil can longer affright me.
For this, all pleasure am I foregoing;?I do not pretend to aught worth knowing,?I do not pretend I could be a teacher?To help or convert a fellow-creature.?Then, too, I've neither lands nor gold,?Nor the world's least pomp or honor hold--?No dog would endure such a curst existence!?Wherefore, from Magic I seek assistance,?That many a secret perchance I reach?Through spirit-power and spirit-speech,?And thus the bitter task forego?Of saying the things I do not know,--?That I may detect the inmost force?Which binds the world, and guides its course;?Its germs, productive powers explore,?And rummage in empty words no more!
O full and splendid Moon, whom I?Have, from this desk, seen climb the sky?So many a midnight,--would thy glow?For the last time beheld my woe!?Ever thine eye, most mournful friend,?O'er books and papers saw me bend;?But would that I, on mountains grand,?Amid thy blessed light could stand,?With spirits through mountain-caverns hover,?Float in thy twilight the meadows over,?And, freed from the fumes of lore that swathe me,?To health in thy dewy fountains bathe me!
Ah, me! this dungeon still I see.?This drear, accursed masonry,?Where even the welcome daylight strains?But duskly through the painted panes.?Hemmed in by many a toppling heap?Of books worm-eaten, gray with dust,?Which to the vaulted ceiling creep,?Against the smoky paper thrust,--?With glasses, boxes, round me stacked,?And instruments together hurled,?Ancestral lumber, stuffed and packed--?Such is my world: and what a world!
And do I ask, wherefore my heart?Falters, oppressed with unknown needs??Why some inexplicable smart?All movement of my life impedes??Alas! in living Nature's stead,?Where God His human creature set,?In smoke and mould the fleshless dead?And bones of beasts surround me yet!
Fly! Up, and seek the broad, free land!?And this one Book of Mystery?From Nostradamus' very hand,?Is't not sufficient company??When I the starry courses know,?And Nature's wise