Chor. [dirge]. Not alone! Where'er thy dwelling,
If, indeed, on earth we knew thee,
Though thy home be far from daylight,
All hearts still with love pursue thee!
Lost-yet how can we lament thee!
Gone we weep and envy thee!

Bright thy day; but bright or clouded
Song and heart were proud and free.

Born to all that makes earth happy!
Lofty lineage, sense of power!

Lost, alas

too soon. Youth's promise
Torn by tempest, leaf and flower!

Eye not to be baffled. Human
Indignation at all wrong.

Best of women loved thee. Magic
All its own was in thy song.

How the whirl of passion bore thee 180

Self-devoted to the snare !

With what rage all laws and usage
Didst thou rend, proud captive there!
Yet, at last, in generous feeling,
True stay thy pure spirit gained;
All that noblest is and brightest
Sought by thee-but unattained.

Unattained-oh! who attains it?
Ask-will Destiny reply

This day when a bleeding people, 1181
Dumb with sorrow, sees him die?
-Yet fresh bursts of song awaken!
Droop in helpless grief no more,
For the earth again will blossom,
And bear fruit as heretofore !

[Perfect pause.

7

179

The music ceases

Hel. [to FAUST]. An old saying, alas! proves itself

true in me

Beauty and Happiness remain not long united;
The ties of life and love both are asunder torn.
Sadly, for love of both, I say to each farewell,

And once again, yet once again. into thine arms I throw

me!

Take, Persephone, oh! take the boy and me!

[She embraces FAUST. The corporeal part vanishes. Her dress and veil remain in his arms

Phor. [to FAUST]. Hold tight what still survives to you of all

That was hers. Don't let the cloak go; demons are
Tugging and tearing at its skirts, and fain

Would pluck it down from you to their underworld.
Hold fast! 'Tis not the goddess you have lost,
But it is godlike; make the best use of the lady's
Invaluable favours. Up! off with you!
'Twill lift you quickly,-that it will-high up
Above the vulgar, up into the air 1183

As long as you can keep there. We two meet
Again-far off, far, very far away!

[HELENA'S clothes dissolve into clouds,

surround

FAUST, raise him into the air, and bear him away

Phor. [takes EUPHORION's dress, mantle, and lyre from the ground, steps into the proscenium, lifts up these

remains and speaks]

All the fire but never fear,

Well! Finding this is some luck.
Is gone-gone, not a doubt of it;
The world will get on very well. We have
Enough-aye, quite enough to consecrate
A poet or two-aye, quite enough to madden
Your master-masons and apprentices

In the gay art of building rhymes, with envoy.
I cannot give them talents, but no matter, 1/4
The singing-robes are no bad things in themselves,
And I'll lend them the dress.

[Sits down, leaning against a pillar, in the proscenium Panth. Swift speed we, maidens, now that we are at freedom,

Disenthralled from the dreary spell of the old Thessalian hag,

And from the giddy crash of the tangled sounds that jingle

Confusedly on the ear and cloud the inner sense!
Descend we now to Hades! swiftly thither

Already hath the Queen with solemn step down glided.
Where she hath trod, her faithful maids should follow.
We find her at the throne of the Inscrutable. 85

Chor. With queens, where'er they be, it still goes right; In Hades even will they stand up erect

In unsubmitting pride, rank as of old maintaining—

Queens still

fast friends of Queen Persephone.

But we to pine away in lone recesses,

Deep meadows of asphodel,

Our sole companions being,

For ever and for ever,

The lengthy poplars and the barren willows!—
What life were this !-Like flitter-mice to twitter, 1/86
Whining, and whispering, unenjoying, spectral !

Leader of Chorus. Who has not earned a name, nor wills the noble,

Belongs to the elements, Away with you!

My one abiding passionate desire

Is to be with my Queen.

Not high desert alone; fidelity,

Too, hath its meed: it too preserves to us Person.

CHORUS-ALL

We to the daylight are given back,

The cheery day. Not persons now, indeed,

As once we were. That feel we, that we know. 1/3/
But we to Hades never more return.

Spirits are we, and ever-living Nature
Makes on us, we on her,

Claims irresistible.

A PART OF THE CHORUS

Ever in the murmured whispers of the thousand boughs here trembling,

We with gentle play lure upward from the root the living currents

To the branches; soon with leaflets, soon with buds to deck, and blossoms,

As with glimmering gems, the tresses floating lavishly in air.

Autumn comes, with ripe fruit falling;-joyous concourse men and cattle

Crowding, crushing, grasping, cranching, rushing eagerly, down pressing,

1188

All regardless each of other. See them bowing, bending

round us,

As they, in old days undated, bent before the earliest gods!

ANOTHER PART

Where these walls of rock far gleaming shine in pure and glassy mirror,

We in peaceful waves are winding evermore our gentle

way;

Lurk for every sound, and listen song of birds or wild reed's music.

Is it Pan's own voice affrighting ?-We with voice, like his, reply.

Whisper is it ?-We, too, whisper. Thunder ?-We reply in thunders.

Earthquake shocks of repercussion, threefold, tenfold, roll we back.

A THIRD PART

Sisters, you would call us truant. With the streams we hasten onward,

Where the richly-cultured hill-slope, smiling, far away allures us, 1689

Ever downward, ever deeper, lead the life-diffusing waters To the meadow-land, the trim lawn, and the garden round the house.

Cypresses with spiry summits, rising yonder into ether, Tell where they have found a mirror, tell the banks through which we glide.

A FOURTH PART

Wander ye at will where lists you! We will linger, we

will rustle

Round the richly-planted hill-slope, where, upon its staff supported,

Leans the vine; and the green berry, day by day, is deepening, darkening.

Hour by hour, and through the whole day long, the vintager's emotion

Shows to us the doubtful issue of the labours he so loves.

Now with spade and now with mattock, and now earthing, pruning, binding, 1190

To all gods he prays, at all times; above all, prays to the Sun-god.

Little of his faithful servant's toil thinks Bacchus, the enervate ;

Rests in bowers, reclines in grottoes, fondling there the youthful Faun.

Dissolute sits he, and dreaming, half with wine inebriated

Round him heaped in skins, jars, vases, right and left of the cool cavern,

That might serve for endless ages. But when all the gods, when Helios,

More than all, has, blowing, moistening, warming, glowing, drying, ripening,

Swelled the wine-bestowing berries, heaped the clusterhorn of Plenty,

Where the vintager in silence worked, see! sudden life and bustle.

Stir there is in every arbour; rattling round from stake to stake;

1191

Baskets, buckets, crackle, clatter; vine-troughs groan beneath their burthen;

All to the great vat move onward, to the strong dance of

the wine-press.

Now the holy, heaven-sent fulness of the pure-born dewy berries

Daringly is crushed and broken; trampled down what was their beauty

To a mass none love to look on-squeezed together, foaming, splashing.

Now the sharp clash of the cymbal, with the timbrel's brazen discord,

Tears the ear, and Dionysos is from mysteries unveiled. Here he comes with goat-foot Satyrs, goat-foot Mænads

thyrsus-swinging.

Evermore, amid the discord, brays the ass of old Silenus. Nothing's spared; the cloven feet are trampling down all laws and manners. 2.

Reel the senses all; the ear is by the din distracted, deafened.