The Death of Foust
LEMURES
[Digging with mocking gestures]
In youth when I did love, did love,
Methought it was very sweet;
When 'twas jolly and merry every way,
And I blithely moved my feet.
But now old Age, with his stealing steps,
Hath clawed me with his crutch:
I stumbled over the door of a grave;
Why leave they open such?
FAUST
[Comes forth from the palace, groping his way along the door-posts]
How I rejoice to hear the clattering spade!
It is the crowd, for me in service moiling,
Till Earth be reconciled to toiling,
Till the proud waves be stayed,
And the sea girded with a rigid zone.
MEPHISTOPHELES [aside]
And yet thou'rt laboring for us alone,
With all thy dikes and bulwarks daring;
Since thou for Neptune art preparing—
The Ocean Devil—carousal great.
In every way shall ye be stranded;
The elements with us are banded,
And ruin is the certain fate.
FAUST
Overseer!
MEPHISTOPHELES
Here!
FAUST
However possible,
Collect a crowd of men with vigor,
Spur by indulgence, praise, or rigor,—
Reward, allure, conscript, compel!
Each day report me, and correctly note
How grows in length the undertaken moat.
MEPHISTOPHELES [half aloud]
When they to me the information gave,
They spake not of a moat, but of—a grave.
FAUST
Below the hills a marshy plain
Infects what I so long have been retrieving;
This stagnant pool likewise to drain
Were now my latest and my best achieving.
To many millions let me furnish soil,
Though not secure, yet free to active toil;
Green, fertile fields, where men and herds go forth
At once, with comfort, on the newest earth,
And swiftly settled on the hill's firm base,
Created by the bold, industrious race.
A land like Paradise here, round about;
Up to the brink the tide may roar without,
And though it gnaw, to burst with force the limit,
By common impulse all unite to hem it.
Yes! to this thought I hold with firm persistence;
The last result of wisdom stamps it true:
He only earns his freedom and existence
Who daily conquers them anew.
Thus here, by dangers girt, shall glide away
Of childhood, manhood, age, the vigorous day:
And such a throng I fain would see,—
Stand on free soil among a people free!
Then dared I hail the Moment fleeing:
"Ah, still delay—thou art so fair!"
The traces cannot, of mine earthly being,
In æons perish,—they are there!
In proud fore-feeling of such lofty bliss,
I now enjoy the highest Moment,—this!
[Faust sinks back: the Lemures take him and lay him upon the ground.]
MEPHISTOPHELES
No joy could sate him, and suffice no bliss!
To catch but shifting shapes was his endeavor:
The latest, poorest, emptiest Moment—this,—
He wished to hold it fast forever.
Me he resisted in such vigorous wise,
But Time is lord, on earth the old man lies.
The clock stands still—
CHORUS
Stands still! silent as midnight, now!
The index falls.
MEPHISTOPHELES
It falls; and it is finished, here!
CHORUS
'Tis past!
MEPHISTOPHELES
Past! a stupid word.
If past, then why?
Past and pure Naught, complete monotony!
What good for us, this endlessly creating?—
What is created then annihilating?
"And now it's past!" Why read a page so twisted?
'Tis just the same as if it ne'er existed,
Yet goes in circles round as if it had, however:
I'd rather choose, instead, the Void forever.