Part 39 (1/2)

Well! I'll engage to let thee be: Thou darest not tell me so in earnest.

The loss of thee were truly very slight,- comrade crazy, rude, repelling:

One has one's hands full all the day and night; If what one does, or leaves undone, is right, From such a face as thine there is no telling.

FAUST

There is, again, thy proper tone!- That thou hast bored me, I must thankful be!

MEPHISTOPHELES

Poor Son of Earth, how couldst thou thus alone Have led thy life, bereft of me?

I, for a time, at least, have worked thy cure; Thy fancy's rickets plague thee not at all: Had I not been, so hadst thou, sure, Walked thyself off this earthly ball Why here to caverns, rocky hollows slinking, Sit'st thou, as 'twere an owl a-blinking?

Why suck'st, from sodden moss and dripping stone, Toad-like, thy nourishment alone?

A fine way, this, thy time to fill!

The Doctor's in thy body still.

FAUST

What fresh and vital forces, canst thou guess, Spring from my commerce with the wilderness?

But, if thou hadst the power of guessing, Thou wouldst be devil enough to grudge my soul the blessing.

MEPHISTOPHELES

A blessing drawn from supernatural fountains!

In night and dew to lie upon the mountains; All Heaven and Earth in rapture penetrating; Thyself to G.o.dhood haughtily inflating; To grub with yearning force through Earth's dark marrow, Compress the six days' work within thy bosom narrow,- To taste, I know not what, in haughty power, Thine own ecstatic life on all things shower, Thine earthly self behind thee cast, And then the lofty instinct, thus-

(With a gesture:)

at last,-

I daren't say how-to pluck the final flower!

FAUST

Shame on thee!

MEPHISTOPHELES

Yes, thou findest that unpleasant!

Thou hast the moral right to cry me ”shame!” at present.

One dares not that before chaste ears declare, Which chaste hearts, notwithstanding, cannot spare; And, once for all, I grudge thee not the pleasure Of lying to thyself in moderate measure.

But such a course thou wilt not long endure; Already art thou o'er-excited, And, if it last, wilt soon be plighted To madness and to horror, sure.

Enough of that! Thy love sits lonely yonder, By all things saddened and oppressed; Her thoughts and yearnings seek thee, tenderer, fonder,- mighty love is in her breast.

First came thy pa.s.sion's flood and poured around her As when from melted snow a streamlet overflows; Thou hast therewith so filled and drowned her, That now thy stream all shallow shows.

Methinks, instead of in the forests lording, The n.o.ble Sir should find it good, The love of this young silly blood At once to set about rewarding.

Her time is miserably long; She haunts her window, watching clouds that stray O'er the old city-wall, and far away.

”Were I a little bird!” so runs her song, Day long, and half night long.