FAUSTUS.

Why yes! they call it knowledge. Who may

dare

To name things by their real names? The few
Who did know something, and were weak enough
To expose their hearts unguarded
Their views and feelings to the

to expose

eyes of

men,

They have been nailed to crosses thrown to

flames.

Pardon me; but 'tis very late, my friend;
Too late to hold this conversation longer.

WAGNER.

How willingly would I sit up for ever,
Gathering instruction from your learned words!
To-morrow, as a boon on Easter-day,

You must permit me a few questions more :

I have been diligent in all my studies;

Given my whole heart and time to the pursuit ;
And I know much, but would learn every thing.

FAUSTUS (alone).

[Exit.

How hope abandons not the meanest mind!
Poor lad he clings to learning's poorest forms,
Delves eagerly for fancied gold to find

Worms dust; is happy among dust and worms!

And did human accents dare

To disturb the midnight air

With their mean and worthless sound,
Here, where Spirits breathed around?
Yet, dull intruder as thou art,

When

I thank thee from my very heart.
my senses sank beneath
Despair, and sought relief in death;
When life within me dying shivered,
Thy presence from the trance delivered.
Oh, while I stood before that giant stature,
How dwarfed I felt beneath its nobler nature!

Image of God! I thought that I had been Sublimed from earth, no more a child of clay, That, shining gloriously with Heaven's own day, I had beheld Truth's countenance serene.

High above cherubs

above all that serve,

Raised up immeasurably every nerve

Of Nature's life seemed animate with mine;

Her

very veins with blood from my veins filledHer spirit moving as my spirit willed;

Then did I in creations of my own

(Oh, is not man in every thing divine!)

Build worlds — or bidding them no longer be

Exert, enjoy

a sense of deity –

Doomed for such dreams presumptuous to atone; All by one word of thunder overthrown!

Spirit, I may not mete myself with thee! True, I compelled thee to appear,

But had no power to hold thee here.

Oh! at that glorious moment how I felt
How little and how great!

Thy presence flung me shuddering back
Into man's abject state;

That inexplicable trance

Of utter, hopeless ignorance!

Who now shall teach me? what shall I avoid?

Shall I resist this impulse, or obey?

What is this life of ours? alike destroyed

By what we do or suffer!

- will the day

Come never, when it is to be enjoyed?

Whate'er of noblest and of best
Man's soul can reach, is clogged and prest
By low considerations that adhere

Inseparably. Oh! when we obtain

The goods of this world, soon do we restrain
Our loftier aspirations; and we call
Man's better riches a delusion vain,
The mockery of an empty vision all!
The lordly feelings given us at our birth
Are numbed

our true life dies-'mong the low cares of earth.

How boldly, in the days of youthful Hope,
Imagination spreads her wing unchecked!
Deeming all things within her ample scope;
And oh, how small a space suffices her,
When Fortune flees away, vain flatterer,

And all we loved in life's strange whirl is wrecked!

Deep in the breast Care builds her nest,

And ever-torturing scares all rest:
Each day assumes some new disguise,
With some new art the temper tries,
Fretting the mind with house affairs,
Suggesting doubts of wife or heirs,
Hinting dark fancies to the soul,

Of fire and flood- of dirk and bowl.

Man trembles thus each hour at fancied crosses,

Am not I like the gods?

Alas! I tremble,

Feeling imprest upon my soul the thought

Of the mean worm, whose nature I resemble.

'Tis dust, and lives in dust, and the chance tread Crushes the wretched reptile into nought.

Is this not dust in which I live? This prison-place, what can it give Of life or comfort? wheresoe'er The sick eye turns, it sees one tier

Along the blank high wall of shelves
And gloomy volumes, which themselves
Are dust and lumber; and the scrolls
That crowd the hundred pigeon-holes
And crevices of that old case

That darkens and confines the space
Already but too small-'mong these
What can life be but a disease?

Here housed in dust, with grub and moth,
I sicken - mind and body both.

Shall I find here the cure I ask,

Resume the edifying task

Of reading, in a thousand pages,

That care-worn man has, in all ages,
Sowed Vanity to reap Despair?

That one, mayhap, has here and there
Been less unhappy?

Hollow Skull,

I almost fancy I divine.

A meaning in thy spectral smile.

Saith it not that thy brain, like mine,

Still loved, and sought the Beautiful;

Loved Truth for Truth's own sake; and sought,

Regardless of aught else the while,

Like mine, the light of cloudless day –

And, in unsatisfying thought

By twilight glimmers led astray,

Like mine at length sank over-wrought?