Part 51

MEPHISTOPHELES

What wouldest thou! She thinks you've taken flight; It seems, she's partly in the right.

FAUST I'm near her still--and should I distant rove, Her I can ne'er forget, ne'er lose her love; And all things touch'd by those sweet lips of hers, Even the very Host, my envy stirs.

MEPHISTOPHELES

'Tis well! I oft have envied you indeed, The twin-pair that among the roses feed.

FAUST

Pander, avaunt!

MEPHISTOPHELES

Go to! I laugh, the while you rail, The power which fashion'd youth and maid, Well understood the noble trade; So neither shall occasion fail. But hence!--A mighty grief I trow! Unto thy lov'd one's chamber thou And not to death shouldst go.

FAUST

What is to me heaven's joy within her arms? What though my life her bosom warms!-- Do I not ever feel her woe? The outcast am I not, unhoused, unblest, Inhuman monster, without aim or rest, Who, like the greedy surge, from rock to rock, Sweeps down the dread abyss with desperate shock? While she, within her lowly cot, which graced The Alpine slope, beside the waters wild, Her homely cares in that small world embraced, Secluded lived, a simple, artless child. Was't not enough, in thy delirious whirl To blast the stedfast rocks; Her, and her peace as well, Must I, God-hated one, to ruin hurl! Dost claim this holocaust, remorseless Hell! Fiend, help me to cut short the hours of dread! Let what must happen, happen speedily! Her direful doom fall crushing on my head, And into ruin let her plunge with me!

MEPHISTOPHELES

Why how again it seethes and glows! Away, thou fool! Her torment ease! When such a head no issue sees, It pictures straight the final close. Long life to him who boldly dares! A devil's pluck thou'rt wont to show; As for a devil who despairs, Nothing I find so mawkish here below.

MARGARET'S ROOM

MARGARET (alone at her spinning wheel)

My peace is gone, My heart is Sore, I find it never, And nevermore!

Where him I have not, Is the grave; and all The world to me Is turned to gall.

My wilder'd brain Is overwrought; My feeble senses Are distraught.

My peace is gone, My heart is sore, I find it never, And nevermore!

For him from the window I gaze, at home; For him and him only Abroad I roam.

His lofty step, His bearing high, The smile of his lip, The power of his eye,

His witching words, Their tones of bliss, His hand's fond pressure, And ah--his kiss!

My peace is gone, My heart is sore, I find it never, And nevermore.

My bosom aches To feel him near; Ah, could I clasp And fold him here!

Kiss him and kiss him Again would I, And on his kisses I fain would die.

MARTHA'S GARDEN

MARGARET and FAUST

MARGARET