BRANDER
Pity her, and the hosts that with her stand
Shelterless from the blasts of your wild hate.
FAUST
Who loves must hate, who hates must burn with love....
I hate the world; but like the breath of life,
Sustaining me even yet a little while,
Is my surpassing love for its great hopes.
Aye, in the hour when I knew myself alone,
My hate cried: Smite!—because of thy great love
For one irradiant form that is to be.
Now is my hate a lamp of tenderness—
Now I destroy because I love beyond—
I build, I triumph with bright domes that rise
In laughing loveliness into the morning!
BRANDER
I love you and I pity you—and I go.
FAUST
We shall not meet again.
[Brander goes out.
FAUST
He will go down
Not singing, no, not singing!...
(He once more takes up the manuscript, and turns
to the last pages)
And now, when from my shoulders like a load
Begins to slip the weariness of life,
And a new vigor fills me—now it seems
That death is hovering close. O Grisly One,
Whom once I thought a not unwelcome guest
To my cold troubled house, I am not glad
To hear thy steps without. For in my halls
Lights kindle, and the music sobs and sings
In ecstasy of other guests than thee....
(He takes up his pen and turns to the end of the
manuscript, as if to write)
Can this poor strength suffice me to complete
These final words? Nay, better to leave unsaid
The few last lines my vanity desires
To tell and justify my end and fall
Like flourish of bright trumpets. Let them sleep
Unuttered; for the burden of my song
Is voiced already in these labored leaves;
And it is well, unfinished and unclosed
Should stop this record, whose concluding words
Of fairer hope, of sheerer miracle,
Some greater hand than mine shall some day write
And seal the chronicle—nay, never seal it!
[The butler enters.