SCENE III.

The DEMON tempts JUSTINA, who is a Christian.

DEMON.

Abyss of Hell! I call on thee,

Thou wild misrule of thine own anarchy!

From thy prison-house set free

The spirits of voluptuous death,
That with their mighty breath

They may destroy a world of virgin thoughts;

Let her chaste mind with fancies thick as motes Be peopled from thy shadowy deep,

Till her guiltless phantasy

Full to overflowing be!

And with sweetest harmony,

To his mate, who rapt and fond
Listening sits, a bough beyond.
Be silent, Nightingale-no more
Make me think, in hearing thee
Thus tenderly thy love deplore,
If a bird can feel his so,

What a man would feel for me.

And, voluptuous vine, O thou

Who seekest most when least pursuing,-
To the trunk thou interlacest
Art the verdure which embracest,
And the weight which is its ruin,-

No more, with green embraces, vine,
Make me think on what thou lovest,-
For whilst thou thus thy boughs entwine,
I fear lest thou shouldst teach me, sophist,
How arms might be entangled too.

move

To love, only to love.

Let nothing meet her eyes

But signs of Love's soft victories;

Let nothing meet her ear

But sounds of Love's sweet sorrow,

So that from faith no succor she may borrow,

But, guided by my spirit blind
And in a magic snare entwined,
She may now seek Cyprian.
Begin, while I in silence bind

My voice, when thy sweet song thou hast begun.

A VOICE WITHIN.

What is the glory far above
All else in human life?

ALL.

Love! love!

[While these words are sung, the DEMON goes out at one door, and JUSTINA enters at another.

THE FIRST VOICE.

There is no form in which the fire
Of love its traces has impress'd not.
Man lives far more in love's desire
Than by life's breath, soon possess'd not.
If all that lives must love or die,
All shapes on earth, or sea, or sky,
With one consent to Heaven cry
That the glory far above

All else in life is

ALL.

Love! O love!

JUSTINA.

Thou melancholy thought which art
So fluttering and so sweet, to thee
When did I give the liberty
Thus to afflict my heart?

What is the cause of this new power
Which doth my fever'd being move,
Momently raging more and more?
What subtle pain is kindled now
Which from my heart doth overflow
Into my senses ?—

ALL.

Love, O love!

JUSTINA.

"Tis that enamor'd nightingale Who gives me the reply;

He ever tells the same soft tale Of passion and of constancy

Who gazest ever true and tender
On the sun's revolving splendor!
Follow not his faithless glance
With thy faded countenance,
Nor teach my beating heart to fear,
If leaves can mourn without a tear,
How eyes must weep! O Nightingale,
Cease from thy enamor'd tale,—
Leafy vine, unwreathe thy bower,
Restless sunflower, cease to move,-
Or tell me all, what poisonous power
Ye use against me-

ALL

Love! love! love!

JUSTINA.

It cannot be!-Whom have I ever loved?
Trophies of my oblivion and disdain,
Floro and Lelio did I not reject?
And Cyprian?-

[She becomes troubled at the name of Cyprian
Did I not requite him

With such severity, that he has fled
Where none has ever heard of him again?—
Alas! I now begin to fear that this

May be the occasion whence desire. grows bold,
As if there were no danger. From the moment
That I pronounced to my own listening heart,
Cyprian is absent, O me miserable!

JUSTINA (putting on her cloak).

In this, as in a shroud of snow, may I

Quench the consuming fire in which I burn, Wasting away!

LISANDER.

And I will go with thee.

LIVIA.

When I once see them safe out of the house,

I shall breathe freely.

JUSTINA.

So do I confide

In thy just favor, Heaven!

LISANDER.

Let us go.

JUSTINA.

Thine is the cause, great God! turn for my sake, And for thine own, mercifully to me!

TRANSLATION FROM MOSCHUS.

PAN loved his neighbor Echo-but that child
Of Earth and Air pined for the Satyr leaping;
The Satyr loved with wasting madness wild

The bright nymph Lyda,-and so three went weeping.

As Pan loved Echo, Echo loved the Satyr;

The Satyr, Lyda-and thus love consumed them.And thus to each-which was a woful matterTo bear what they inflicted, justice doom'd them; For inasmuch as each might hate the lover,

Each loving, so was hated.-Ye that love not Be warn'd-in thought turn this example over, That when ye love, the like return ye prove not.

SCENES

FROM THE FAUST OF GOËTHE.

PROLOGUE IN HEAVEN.

THE LORD and the Host of Heaven. Enter three Archangels.

RAPHAEL.

THE sun makes music as of old
Amid the rival spheres of Heaven,

On its predestined circle roll'd

With thunder speed: the Angels even Draw strength from gazing on its glance, Though none its meaning fathom may :The world's unwither'd countenance Is bright as at creation's day.

GABRIEL.

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.

MICHAEL.

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 unwither'd countenance
Is bright as on creation's day.*

Enter MEPHISTOPHELES.

MEPHISTOPHELES.

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 tookest 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 would certainly 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 beastlily than any beast.
With reverence to your Lordship be it spoken,
He's like one of those long-legg'd grasshoppers,
Who flits and jumps about, and sings for ever

RAPHAEL.

The sun sounds, according to ancient custom, In the song of emulation of his brother-spheres. And its forewritten 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.

GABRIEL.

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.

MICHAEL.

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.

CHORUS.

Thy countenance gives the Angels strengt
Though none can comprehend thee:

And all thy lofty works

Are excellent as at the first day.

Such is a literal translation of this astonishing Chorus: it is impossible to represent in another language the melody of the versification; even the volatile strength and deli cacy of the ideas escape in the crucible of translation, and the reader is surprised to find a caput mortuum.-Author's Note.

And, among all the Spirits who rebell'd,
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;—
Not that which ever operates and lives
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

MEPHISTOPHELES.

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.

MAY-DAY NIGHT.

SCENE-The Hartz Mountain, a desolate Country FAUST, MEPHISTOPHELES.

MEPHISTOPHELES.

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 the appointed place.

FAUST.

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,

Is the true sport that seasons such a path.
Already Spring kindles the birchen spray,
And the hoar pines already feel her breath:
Shall she not work also within our limbs ?

MEPHISTOPHELES.

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 see, 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 permission
I'll call an Ignis-fatuus to our aid;

I see one yonder burning jollily.
Halloo, my friend! may I request that you
Would favor us with your bright company?
Why should you blaze away there to no purpose?
Pray be so good as light us up this way.