Chei.
Up! then.
As we race,
You may give me the happiness of knowing 9050
What you're about, and which way you are going.
We're on the bank; I'll take you 'cross the river.
Faust. Oh! as for that, I'll go whithersoever
You go.

And I must thank thee evermore,
Noblest of men, whose fame 'tis to have taught
The Heroes of the glorious days of yore,
The Poet's world of Chief and Argonaut.

Chei. Pass over that-Pallas's own success
When she played Mentor could not well be less.
'Tis little matter what is taught, men will, 9060
Taught or untaught, go on the same way still.

Faust. Physician, learned in names of herbs and fruits, Who to the very deepest knowest all roots;

Wounds thou dost mitigate, and sick men cheer,

In spirit and in body art thou here?

Chei. Was a man wounded, I was in a trice

Upon the field with aid and with advice.
What I did, much or little, anyhow

The herb-women and priests inherit now.

Faust. There spoke the genuine great man, who dis

claims

9070

Peculiar merit in his acts or aims;
And though of all in every way the best,
'Gainst any praise still enters his protest.
Chei. You seem to me a flatterer of skill,
A practised hand in winding at your will
People and prince.

Faust.

But, tell me, you have seen
The great men of your time, and you have been
Rival, in everything that wins man's praise
Of the very noblest, didst live out thy days
True hero, demigod-say in thy thoughts 9080
Who of all, that thou now rememberest,

Then figuring on earth 'mong men, seemed best.
Chei. In the high circle of the Argonauts,

Each, as the soul breathed power, distinction held;
Each in his own peculiar path excelled.

The Dioscuri brothers won their way

Where youthful bloom and manly beauty sway;
In the Boreades, for others' weal

Sprang instant action from determined zeal.

A thoughtful man, strong, energetic, clear, 9090
Such was Prince Jason, to the ladies dear.

And tender Orpheus swayed the lyre-calm heart
Was his and his true miracles of art.

Sharp-sighted Lynceus, he by day and dark,
Through rock and strand steered safe the holy bark.
In danger's hour true brotherhood is shown,
Each works, and all praise each. Each works alone.
Faust. Will you say nothing then of Hercules ?

Chei. Oh! call not back that feeling, wake thou not The longing for the old days that have been. 9010 Phoebus or Hermes I had never seen,

Or Ares, or the rest; in Hercules

The godlike stood before these eyes of mine
Impersonated-all that of divine

In dreams of heaven man's fancy hath conceived,
All the mind imaged or the heart believed!
A king by Nature made. What dignity

In youth's first bloom!-How gentle, too, was he
Gave to his elder brother service true,

And loved the ladies with devotion due. 9110
Son such as he will never more be given
By Earth for Hebe to lead up to heaven;
Songs all in vain to make him know,
Would strive, and sculptors torture stone.

Faust. Never did sculptor, labour as he might,
Bring out such perfect image to the sight
Of that imperial look, that godlike mind.
But now that the most beautiful of men

You thus have showed me, try your hand again
With the most beautiful of womankind.

9120

Chei. What? Woman's beauty !-The words, thus combined,

Seem meaningless-the shape of faultless mould

Too often a stiff image, marble-cold.

Only the Being, whose glad life flows free,

And sheds around it the perpetual cheer

Of joyousness, hath interest for me.
The Beautiful in its own placid sphere
Rests all apart. Grace charms resistlessly,
As Helen, when I carried her, and she-
Faust. You-carried-her?

Chei.

Yes-I-upon this back. 9/30

Faust. Was there not hitherto perplexity

Enough? What more ?-here sitting where she sate.
Chei. She grasped into my hair, as you do now.

Faust. My brain whirls round-oh! tell me when and how

It was.

She is my sole desire; say when And whence, and whither, whither ?

9140

Chei. The Dioscuri brothers had just freed
Their little sister from the spoiler's hand;
And now upon their homeward road they speed.
Again the robbers pluck up courage, and
The brothers, with whom Helena then was,
Would clear Eleusis' swamp in rapid flight:
They waded, and I, pawing, swam across.

Then sprang she off, and my moist mane she smoothed,
Patted me with her fondling hand, and soothed.
And then she thanked me, and with such address,
Such self-possession, such calm consciousness !

She was-how charming!-young and the delight
Of the aged.

Faust.

Seven.

Then just seven years old, not quite

Chei. What the philologues have been with you, Puzzling your brains, themselves deceiving too; Your mythologic lady has no age,

Is from her very birth-time all the rage.

Like nothing but herself: in childhood carried

By spoilers off-recovered-wooed-won-married.
Years but increase her charms, bring lovers plenty;
She's never old-nay, never comes to twenty.
Lovely, and to be loved! The Poet seizes

The fair form and does with her what he pleases.

The Poet is not bound by time or distance.

40

Faust. Time for her! time then can have no existence.

And so Achilles found her-Time the while

Ceasing to be-on Leuke's lonely isle

Strange hap was theirs of blissful ecstasy-
Love wrung from unrelenting Destiny!
And would my powerful longings, all in vain,
Charm into life that deathless form again—
Eternal as the gods? Yes! gentleness
And winning grace are hers, and not the less

Hers the calm sway of dignity serene.

9170 You saw long since whom I to-day have seen. And she is beautiful. 'Tis not the spell, 'Tis not the spell of gracefulness alone'Tis beauty, beauty irresistible !

We see, we love, we long to make our own.

With her enraptured soul, sense, being twine

I have no life if Helen be not mine.

Chei. Stranger! this rapture men would call the flame Of love with spirits madness is its name.

'Tis lucky that the fit has seized you here, 9180
And on this night, of all nights of the year;
It is my wont each year, upon this night,
For one short moment in my circling flight,
To visit Manto, Esculapius' child,
Who in her father's temple, priestess there,
Still lifts her supplicating hands in prayer,
That he illumine the physician's mind,
And from their rash destroyers save mankind—
The best loved of the sibyls' guild; no wild
Mad raving there, but ever good and mild. 9190
Health will come soon from simples of the field
Applied by her.

Faust.

But I would not be healed;
Dispossessed

My mind is now all-powerful.

I sink to man, no better than the rest.

Chei. In the noble fount is healing-scorn it not. Now, down! Down quickly! we are at the spot. Faust. Whither hast brought me in the grey of night, Landing me in the plash and pebbles here?

Chei. See on the left Olympus. On the right

Peneios. Here strove Rome and Greece in fight; 250 A mighty kingdom melts in sand away

The monarch's flight-the burgher's triumph-day.

The eternal temple resting in the clear

Light of the moon stands out-how very near!

Manto [dreaming, from within].

This a something doth import.

Threshold rings, and temple-court,
Horses' footfalls echoing.

Demigods are entering.

Chei. All's right! Open your eyes, and see all's

right.

Welcome! I see you have not missed

9210

Manto [awaking]. the night. Chei. Unfallen still stands your ancient temple-home. Manto. Unwearable you still range and roam! Chei. You rest in changeless bower of quiet deep, And I in everlasting circuit sweep.

Manto. I tarry-round me still wheels rolling Time. But-this man

Chei. The mad night hath seized him in Its whirls, up flung him in its sludge and slime; And Helen-madman-Helen he would win, And knows not how or where he should begin. With Esculapian aid he may do well. 9220 Manto. I love him who desires th' impossible.

Manto [to FAUST]. proceed!

Enter in boldly!

[CHEIRON is already far off Onward! Adventurous! with joy

Down the dark path speed

Whose windings to Persephoneia lead

Beneath Olympus, where with longing eyes
She seeks the smile of interdicted skies.
There did I smuggle Orpheus in of old.

Fare better thou! Be fortunate! Be bold !

[They descend

THE UPPER PENEIOS, as before

SIRENS, SEISMOS, SPHINXES, GRIFFINS, ANTS, PIGMIES, DACTYLS, CRANES OF IBYCUS, &C.

Sirens. Dash we into the Peneios,

Swim we with him down in glee, 9230

With the charm of song inviting

All to seek the spreading sea.

There be those who will not listen

Hapless! yet with song we call,

To the festival of Ocean,

To the healing waters, all.

Were we there, oh! with what rapture