FROM THE FAUST OF GOETHE.
The LORD and the Host of Heaven.
THE sun makes music as of old Amid the rival spheres of Heaven, On its predestined circle rolled
With thunder speed: the Angels even Draw strength from gazing on its glance, Though none its meaning fathom may ;- The world's unwithered countenance Is bright as at creation's day.
And swift and swift, with rapid lightness, The adorned Earth spins silently, Alternating Elysian brightness
With deep and dreadful night; the sea Foams in broad billows from the deep
Up to the rocks; and rocks and ocean, Onward, with spheres which never sleep, Are hurried in eternal motion.
And tempests in contention roar
From land to sea, from sea to land; And, raging, weave a chain of power Which girds the earth as with a band. A flashing desolation there
Flames before the thunder's way; But thy servants, Lord, revere The gentle changes of thy day.
CHORUS OF THE THREE.
The Angels draw strength from thy glance, Though no one comprehend thee may :- Thy world's unwithered countenance Is bright as on creation's day.*
The sun sounds, according to ancient custom, In the song of emulation of his brother-spheres, And its fore-written circle
Fulfils with a step of thunder.
Its countenance gives the Angels strength, Though no one can fathom it.
The incredible high works
Are excellent as at the first day.
As thou, O Lord, once more art kind enough To interest thyself in our affairs-
And ask, "How goes it with you there below?" And as indulgently at other times
Thou tookedst not my visits in ill part,
Thou seest me here once more among thy household. Though I should scandalize this company, You will excuse me if I do not talk
In the high style which they think fashionable; My pathos certainly would make you laugh too, Had you not long since given over laughing. Nothing know I to say of suns and worlds; I observe only how men plague themselves;— The little god o' the world keeps the same stamp. As wonderful as on creation's day :- A little better would he live, hadst thou Not given him a glimpse of Heaven's light Which he calls reason, and employs it only To live more beastily than any beast.
And swift, and inconceivably swift
The adornment of earth winds itself round,
And exchanges Paradise-clearness
With deep dreadful night.
The sea foams in broad waves
From its deep bottom up to the rocks,
And rocks and sea are torn on together
In the eternal swift course of the spheres.
And storms roar in emulation From sea to land, from land to sea, And make, raging, a chain Of deepest operation round about. There flames a flashing destruction Before the path of the thunderbolt. But thy servants, Lord, revere The gentle alternations of thy day.
Thy countenance gives the Angels strength, Though none can comprehend thee: And all thy lofty works
Are excellent as at the first day.
Such is the literal translation of this astonishing Chorus ;
it is impossible to represent in another language the melody of the versification; even the volatile strength and delicacy of the ideas escape in the crucible of translation, and the reader is surprised to find a caput mortuum.-Author's Note.
With reverence to your Lordship be it spoken, He's like one of those long-legged grasshoppers Who flits and jumps about, and sings for ever The same old song i' the grass. There let him lie, Burying his nose in every heap of dung.
Have you no more to say? Do you come here Always to scold, and cavil, and complain? Seems nothing ever right to you on earth?
No, Lord; I find all there, as ever, bad at best. Even I am sorry for man's days of sorrow; I could myself almost give up the pleasure Of plaguing the poor things.
And, if I lose, then 'tis your turn to crow; Enjoy your triumph then with a full breast. Ay; dust shall he devour, and that with pleasure, Like my old paramour, the famous Snake.
Pray come here when it suits you; for I never Had much dislike for people of your sort. And, among all the Spirits who rebelled, The knave was ever the least tedious to me. The active spirit of man soon sleeps, and soon He seeks unbroken quiet; therefore I Have given him the Devil for a companion, Who may provoke him to some sort of work, And must create for ever.-But ye, pure Children of God, enjoy eternal beauty;- Let that which ever operates and lives
Knowest thou Faust? Clasp you within the limits of its love; And seize with sweet and melancholy thoughts The floating phantoms of its loveliness.
[Heaven closes; the Archangels exeunt.
From time to time I visit the old fellow, And I take care to keep on good terms with him. Civil enough is this same God Almighty,
To talk so freely with the Devil himself.
The Hartz Mountain, a desolate Country.
Would you not like a broomstick? As for me I wish I had a good stout ram to ride; For we are still far from th' appointed place.
This knotted staff is help enough for me, Whilst I feel fresh upon my legs. What good Is there in making short a pleasant way? To creep along the labyrinths of the vales, And climb those rocks, where ever-babbling springs Precipitate themselves in waterfalls,
In the true sport that seasons such a path. Already Spring kin lles the birchen spray, And the hoar pines already feel her breath: Shall she not work also within our limbs?
Nothing of such an influence do I feel. My body is all wintry, and I wish
The flowers upon our path were frost and snow. But how melancholy rises now,
Dimly uplifting her belated beam,
The blank unwelcome round of the red moon, And gives so bad a light, that every step
One stumbles'gainst some crag. With your permis- I'll call an Ignis-fatuus to our aid:
I see one yonder burning jollily.
Halloo, my friend! may I request that you Would favour us with your bright company? Why should you blaze away there to no purpose? Pray be so good as light us up this way.
FAUST, MEPHISTOPHELES, and IGNIS-FATUUS in alternate Chorus.
The limits of the sphere of dream,
The bounds of true and false, are past. Lead us on, thou wandering Gleam, Lead us onward, far and fast,
To the wide, the desert waste. But
see, how swift advance and shift Trees behind trees, row by row,— How, clift by clift, rocks bend and lift Their frowning foreheads as we go. The giant-snouted crags, ho! ho! How they snort, and how they blow!
Through the mossy sods and stones, Stream and streamlet hurry down, A rushing throng! A sound of song Beneath the vault of Heaven is blown! Sweet notes of love, the speaking tones Of this bright day, sent down to say That Paradise on Earth is known, Resound around, beneath, above, All we hope and all we love Finds a voice in this blithe strain, Which wakens hill and wood and rill, And vibrates far o'er field and vale, And which Echo, like the tale Of old times, repeats again.
To-whoo! to-whoo! near, nearer now The sound of song, the rushing throng! Are the screech, the lapwing and the jay, All awake as if 'twere day?
See, with long legs and belly wide, A salamander in the brake!
Every root is like a snake, And along the loose hill side,
With strange contortions through the night, Curls, to seize or to affright; And animated, strong, and many, They dart forth polypus-antennæ, To blister with their poison spume
The wanderer. Through the dazzling gloom The many-coloured mice that thread The dewy turf beneath our tread, In troops each other's motions cross, Through the heath and through the moss; And in legions intertangled,
The fire-flies flit, and swarm, and throng, Till all the mountain depths are spangled.
Tell me, shall we go or stay? Shall we onward? Come along! Everything around is swept Forward, onward, far away! Trees and masses intercept The sight, and wisps on every side Are puffed up and multiplied.
Now vigorously seize my skirt, and gain This pinnacle of isolated crag.
One may observe with wonder from this point How Mammon glows among the mountains.
And strangely through the solid depth below A melancholy light, like the red dawn, Shoots from the lowest gorge of the abyss Of mountains, lighting hitherward; there, rise Pillars of smoke; here, clouds float gently by ; Here the light burns soft as the enkindled air, Or the illumined dust of golden flowers; And now it glides like tender colours spreading; And now bursts forth in fountains from the earth;
And now it winds one torrent of broad light, Through the far valley with a hundred veins ; And now once more within that narrow corner Masses itself into intensest splendour. And near us see sparks spring out of the ground, Like golden sand scattered upon the darkness; The pinnacles of that black wall of mountains That hems us in are kindled.
Rare, in faith! Does not Sir Mammon gloriously illuminate His palace for this festival-it is A pleasure which you had not known before. I spy the boisterous guests already.
The children of the wind rage in the air! With what fierce strokes they fall upon my neck!
Cling tightly to the old ribs of the crag. Beware! for if with them thou warrest
In their fierce flight towards the wilderness, Their breath will sweep thee into dust, and drag Thy body to a grave in the abyss.
A cloud thickens the night.
Hark! how the tempest crashes through the forest! The owls fly out in strange affright; The columns of the evergreen palaces Are split and shattered;
The roots creak, and stretch, and groan; And ruinously overthrown,
The trunks are crushed and shattered By the fierce blast's unconquerable stress. Over each other crack and crash they all In terrible and intertangled fall;
And through the ruins of the shaken mountain The airs hiss and howl-
It is not the voice of the fountain, Nor the wolf in his midnight prowl.
See yonder, round a many-coloured flame A merry-club is huddled all together: Even with such little people as sit there One would not be alone.
Would that I were Up yonder in the glow and whirling smoke Where the blind million rush impetuously To meet the evil ones; there might I solve Many a riddle that torments me!
Many a riddle there is tied anew Inextricably. Let the great world rage! We will stay here safe in the quiet dwellings. "Tis an old custom. Men have ever built Their own small world in the great world of all. I see young witches naked there, and old ones Wisely attired with greater decency.
Be guided now by me, and you shall buy A pound of pleasure with a dram of trouble. I hear them tune their instruments-one must Get used to this damned scraping. Come, I'll
People assert their rights; they go too far; But, as for me, the good old times I praise. Then we were all in all; 'twas something worth One's while to be in place and wear a star; That was indeed the golden age on earth.
We too are active, and we did and do What we ought not perhaps ; and yet we now Will seize, whilst all things are whirled round and round,
A spoke of Fortune's wheel, and keep our ground.
Who now can taste a treatise of deep sense And ponderous volume? "Tis impertinence To write what none will read, therefore will I To please the young and thoughtless people try.
MEPHISTOPHELES. (Who at once appears to have grown very old.)
I find the people ripe for the last day, Since I last came up to the wizard mountain ; And as my little cask runs turbid now, So is the world drained to the dregs.
Gentlemen; do not hurry on so fast, And lose the chance of a good pennyworth. I have a pack full of the choicest wares Of every sort, and yet in all my bundle Is nothing like what may be found on earth; Nothing that in a moment will make rich Men and the world with fine malicious mischief.— There is no dagger drunk with blood; no bowl From which consuming poison may be drained By innocent and healthy lips; no jewel, The price of an abandoned maiden's shame; No sword which cuts the bond it cannot loose, Or stabs the wearer's enemy in the back; No-
Gossip, you know little of these times.
What has been, has been; what is done, is past. They shape themselves into the innovations They breed, and innovation drags us with it. The torrent of the crowd sweeps over us; You think to impel, and are yourself impelled.
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