And all they dreamed and all they sought,
Crumbled and ashen grown, departs;
And is as if they had not wrought
These works with blood from out their hearts.
The nations fall, the faiths decay,
The great philosophies go by—
And life lies bare, some bitter day,
A charnel that affronts the sky.
The wise, the noble, and the brave—
They saw and solved—as we must see
And solve—the universal grave,
The ultimate futility.
Look—where beside the garden-pool
A Venus rises in the grove,
More suave, more debonair, more cool
Than ever burned with Paphian love.
'Twas here the delicate ribboned rout
Of gallants and the fair ones went
Among the shadows in and out
With infinite artful merriment.
Then let me take your lily hand,
And let us tread, where star-beams shine,
A dance; and be, and understand
Pierrot and Columbine.
FAUST
Splendid! Delightful!
SATAN