Night.

Faust discovered sitting restless at his desk, in a narrow high-vaulted 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.

Arise! forth to the fields, arise!

And this mysterious magic page,

From Nostradamus’ hand so sage,[n1]

Should guide thee well. Thy raptured eyes

Shall then behold what force compels

The tuneful spheres to chime together;

When, taught by Nature’s mightiest spells,

Thine innate spring of soul upwells,

As speaks one spirit to another.

In vain my thought gropes blindly here,

To make those sacred symbols clear;

Ye unseen Powers that hover near me,

Answer, I charge ye, when ye hear me!

[He opens the book, and sees the sign of the Macrocosm.][n2]

Ha! what ecstatic joy this page reveals,

At once through all my thrilling senses flowing!

Young holy zest of life my spirit feels

In every vein, in every nerve, new glowing!

Was it a God whose finger drew these signs,

That, with mild pulse of joy, and breath of rest,

Smooth the tumultuous heaving of my breast,

And with mysterious virtue spread the lines

Of Nature’s cipher bare to mortal sight?

Am I a God? so wondrous pure the light

Within me! in these tokens I behold

The powers by which all Nature is besouled.

Now may I reach the sage’s words aright;

“The world of spirits is not barred;

Thy sense is shut, thy heart is dead!

Up, scholars, bathe your hearts so hard,

In the fresh dew of morning’s red!”

[He scans carefully the sign.]

How mingles here in one the soul with soul,

And lives each portion in the living whole!

How heavenly Powers, ascending and descending,

From hand to hand their golden ewers are lending,

And bliss-exhaling swing from pole to pole!

From the high welkin to earth’s centre bounding,

Harmonious all through the great All resounding!

What wondrous show! but ah! ’tis but a show!

Where grasp I thee, thou infinite Nature, where?

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;

Reveal thee!

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,

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?

Yes! only let strong will high thought obey,

To turn thy back on the blest light of day,

And open burst the portals which by most

With fear, that fain would pass them by, are crossed.

Now is the time by deeds, not words, to prove

That earth-born man yields not to gods above.

Before that gloomy cavern not to tremble,

Where all those spectral shapes of dread assemble,

Which Fancy, slave of every childish fear,

Bids, to the torment of herself, appear;

Forward to strive unto that passage dire,

Whose narrow mouth seems fenced with hell’s collected fire;

With glad resolve this leap to make, even though

That thing we call our soul should into nothing flow!

Now come thou forth! thou crystal goblet clear,

From out thy worshipful old case,

Where thou hast lain unused this many a year.

In days of yore right gayly didst thou grace

The festive meetings of my grey-beard sires,

When passed from hand to hand the draught that glee inspires.

Thy goodly round, the figures there

Pictured with skill so quaint and rare,

Each lusty drinker’s duty to declare

In ready rhyme what meaning they might bear,

And at one draught to drain the brimming cup,—

All this recalls full many a youthful night.

Now to no comrade shall I yield thee up,

Nor whet my wit upon thy pictures bright;

Here is a juice intoxicates the soul

Quickly. With dark brown flood it crowns the bowl.

Let this last draught, my mingling and my choice,

With blithesome heart be quaffed, and joyful voice,

A solemn greeting to the rising morn!

[A sound of bells is heard, and distant quire-singing.

Quire of Angels.

Christ is arisen!

Joy be to mortal man,

Whom, since the world began,

Evils inherited,

By his sins merited,

Through his veins creeping,

Sin-bound are keeping.

Faust.

What sweet soft peals, what notes, so clear and pure,

Draw from my lips the glass perforce away?

Thus early do the bells their homage pay,

Of holy hymning to new Easter day!

Already sing the quires the soothing song

That erst, round the dark grave, an angel throng

Sang, to proclaim the great salvation sure!

Quire of Women.

With spices and balsams

All sweetly we bathed Him;

With cloths of fine linen

All cleanly we swathed Him;

In the tomb of the rock, where

His body was lain,

We come, and we seek

Our loved Master, in vain!

Quire of Angels.

Christ is arisen!

Praised be His name!

Whose love shared with sinners

Their sorrow and shame;

Who bore the hard trial

Of self-denial,

And, victorious, ascends to the skies whence

He came.

Faust.

What seek ye here, ye gently-swaying tones,

Sweet seraph-music ’mid a mortal’s groans?

Soft-natured men may own that soothing chaunt;

I hear the message, but the faith I want.

For still the child to Faith most dear

Was Miracle: nor I may vaunt

To mount, and mingle with the sphere

Whence such fair news floats down to mortal ear.

And yet, with youthful memories fraught, this strain

Hath power to call me back to life again.

A time there was when Heaven’s own kiss,

On solemn Sabbath, seemed to fall on me,

The minster-bell boomed forth no human bliss,

And prayer to God was burning ecstasy.

A dim desire of inarticulate good

Drove me o’er hill and dale, through wold and wood,

And, while hot tears streamed from mine eyes,

I felt a world within me rise.

This hymn proclaimed the sports of youthful days,

And merry-makings when the spring began;

Now Memory’s potent spell my spirit sways,

And thoughts of childhood rule the full-grown man.

O! sound thou on, thou sweet celestial strain,

The tear doth gush, Earth claims her truant son again!

Quire of the Disciples.

By death untimely, though

Laid in the lowly grave,

Soars He sublimely now

Whence He came us to save.

He on His Father’s breast,

Fountain of life and light;

We on the earth oppressed,

Groping through cloudy night;

Comfortless left are we,

Toiling through life’s annoy,

Weeping to envy thee,

Master, thy joy!

Quire of Angels.

Christ is risen

From Death’s corrupting thrall,

Break from your prison

And follow His call!

Praising by deeds of love

Him who now reigns above,

Feeding the brethren poor,

Preaching salvation sure,

Joys that shall aye endure,

Knowing nor doubt nor fear,

While He is near.

end of act first.