FAUST
The cup again! The Holy One is faint.
OLDHAM
He speaks a miracle!...
THE HOLY ONE
And then I knew
That pilgrim as a saint, whose lips revealed
The glory of the Buddha. I beheld
My life one poisoned network of desire
And fleshly longing and pain-sowing hope—
The evil self seeking its happiness
And shaping horror. And I cast away
Myself, and cried: What am I but a dream,
A wave within the sea, a passing cloud
Upon the radiance of eternity?
All yearning will I slay, and slay therewith
The sorrow that succeeds it!...
So the lust
Of life passed from me; so the narrow I
Merged in the infinite, from hope set free—
Heritor of Nirvana's holy calm,
Wherein the voices of the heart's unrest
Are stifled, and the soul expands to clasp
Joy, nothingness, eternity and peace.
FAUST
Peace.... Peace.... Like bells from upland monasteries
You speak the word that summons us. But where
In peace is room for all once-towering hopes—
Nay, even for the wrecked and prostrate monoliths
That mark those fallen pylons?
THE HOLY ONE