Off! will-o'-the-wisps! However bright your gleam,
Caught in the hand you're but a filthy cream.
Why flutter thus about me? Off with you!

-They sting like brimstone, stick like pitch or glue.
Angels' Choir. What of your nature is no part

Shrink from ! Love is pure. 1385

That, which shocks or wounds the heart,

Oh think not to endure.

If violently in 'twould move,

We then must active be.

Love only leads the loving. Love

Loves on eternally.

Meph. I'm all on fire; my head, heart, liver burn. *Here's love-heat with a vengeance-fire too fine

For the devil to breathe-flame sharper than hell-flame.
And this is Love; and this makes whine and pine
Poor love-lorn earthlings, and their wry necks turn
x2 To court the eye of some contemptuous dame.
Me, too! What is't makes my head twirl and twist,
And thither, where I have been at sworn war?
-Am I in love with what I did abhor ?

Has a strange something that I know not of
Coursed through and through me?

love

How is it that I

To look on these dear young things? that some force Makes it impossible for me to curse?

1387

If I'm fooled now, who, for all time hereafter,
Shall be Fool of Fools, the butt of never-ending laughter?
The shapely creatures hovering through the air,
-They with their lightnings dangerously fair-
The brilliant darlings, though I cannot cease
To hate them, are too lovely for my peace.

Fair children! ye, too, if I do not err,
Like me, are of the race of Lucifer.

Love for one's own does seem so natural-
Dear children! let me kiss you one and all.
We must have met a thousand times before,
Been playing with each other o'er and o'er.
You have found me in a soft mood. I am smitten;
Will you not come to me, dear coz! sweet kitten!
They grow more beautiful at every glance.

× Come, one fond look! Let me not sigh in vain!

F

Angel. We come.

Why shrink you back as we advance ? We still move nearer. If you can, remain.

[The ANGELS hover round and fill up the whole space

Meph. [pressed into the proscenium].

And us ye call Damned Spirits, us you call evil-
Ye, common tempters of man, woman, devil.
Was ever known the like? And this is, then, /369

The element of what's called Love by men!

My whole frame's fire; the scorched spot on my neck

Is nothing here or there-a surface speck.

Ye hover up and down, and to and fro,
Float through the air, but still away ye flow.
Fairest float downward hither on soft wing.
No doubt the stately-solemn is your style!
Something more like the world were more the thing.
What joy 'twould give me could I see you smile!

A lady's smile, who lets a favoured lover 1390
In the fond hour her secret heart discover-
That were a something my whole nature casting
By one glance into rapture everlasting.
And 'tis so easily done. Just draw the lip
A little to one side, the slightest dip.

That long fellow is handsome, or at least
Good-looking-rather too much of the priest.
The folds of the broad stole are in excess;
"Twere not less moral if it covered less.

Angels! smile down upon me! Charmers, stay!/39)
They float into their heaven-are passed away.

× Choir of Angels. Loving flames, that, long unseen,
In the heart have burning been,

Shine ye now in light serene!

Let the Hope-abandoned feel

That the Truth hath power to heal;

That from Evil they may be

Disunited, and thus free,

And a blissful life live on

Ever in the All-in-one ! 7

Meph. [collecting himself]. How is't! Like Job, the

whole man, boil on boil!

Ence

At which himself must shudder and recoil;

—Aye, and feel triumph when he looks within,
Knows what he is-true devil's blood kith and kin.
All's right again; untouched the better members;

The scurvy love-rash was but on the skin,
Burned out already its last fading embers.

The devil's clean devil again-the love-itch gone-1393
And my curse on you all and every one!

Choir of Angels. Holy heart-glowings!

Heavenly birth!
Love's overflowings!

Heaven on earth!
Whom ye float around

Even on earth hath found,
(Living with the good,
Full Beatitude.

Arise, singing triumph, / 374

Rise all from beneath,

The air is made pure

For the spirit to breathe.

[They rise, carrying with them the immortal part of FAUST

Meph [alone]. But how ?-all vanished; they are gone -and whither ?

The young things

they have cheated the old knave, -Fled heavenwards, and have ta'en their booty thither. For this for this been nibbling at the grave.

A treasure, all unique, they have cribbed. I'm juggled!
The high soul pledged and promised me-no less-
They have, in hugger-mugger, slily smuggled.
Where shall I lodge my summons for redress?
All my hard earnings-work and labour given-
Is there no sense of right and wrong in heaven?
Cheated in my old days! outwitted quite !

66

And then hear for my comfort, I served him right."
And my expenses-getting up this case

And with return of nothing but disgrace.

And I've deserved it-everything mis-spent

All my own scandalous mismanagement :

-A random love-gust, an absurd love-drivel,

To have seized the seasoned cask of a stale old devil!

Mad childish freak, for one the world that knows,
To have lost time about, or to propose;

Fool, first, last, midst—and, worst fool at the close.

Lions love the holy place,

Wake no terror, feel no fear.

Round and round, with friendly pace,
Move our dumb protectors here.

PATER ECSTATICUS [floating up and down].

Brand of eternal joy!
Love-bondage glowing!

Seething heart-agony !

▷ Rapture o'erflowing! 1398

Foaming up, seething up,

Fervour benign

From the depths breathing up!
Rapture Divine !

K. Axes, down-hew me!

Lances, pierce through me!
Clubs, come and shatter me!

Lightning-darts, scatter me!

Thus, that, Self, cast away,
Perished, and passed away, 1399
-Phantom-cloud fleeing

This nothing of mine-
The Star of true Being

Transcendent may shine.

PATER PROFUNDUS [in the lower part of the mountain]

Calm, at my feet, its lonely crown

Of rocks o'erbrows the precipice.

A thousand streams foam flashing down
An thunder to the black abyss.

And instincts from within still move
To upper air the pine-trees tall. 1400
And Love it is, almighty Love,
That moulds, sustains, and lives in all.

Here around me evermore

The billowy forest rolls, above;
Below, the falling torrents roar;
Yet are they ministers of Love.
The valleys that refresh and cheer,
And when the lightning-darts flash forth,
Their mission is belike to clear

The air from clouds, that over earth 141
Hang low with poison in their womb.
Yes! ministers of love are they,
And tell of the great Being, whom,
Creator still from day to day,

We feel around us.

Oh! illume

My breast too, where distracted, vain,
Sinks the cold spirit: break the chain
Of this world's life, dispel the gloom,
And bid the dead heart live again!

PATER SERAPHICUS [middle region]

Through the pine-trees' waving tresses/2
Floats a morning cloudlet fair,