Faust, I feel,
Transfused with light and glory, that deep peace
Awaiting. There shall perish like a flame
The passions which have seared my tortured soul
All my life long. They die; and nothingness
Like a cool flood sweeps over me. Ah, come
Where never storm shall smite!
FAUST
I see the gates;
I see the cool breast of the silvery flood
Of refuge and oblivion.... Fare you well,
Oldham, and light go with you! For I go,
Alas, not with you....
OLDHAM
Faust, Faust, turn not back!
I, who am casting all desires in dust,
To one desire still cling: I long that joy
Of such deliverance fill you as fills me
On this first step of the sublime ascent.
FAUST
I see the light that waits you on the peak;
And my heart follows you. But my stern soul
Plucks me yet back with cold insistency
I cannot master.... Go! If I could pray,
My prayers should follow you. My visions shall;
My love shall fold you. But I cannot come
Where you shall go; I cannot cast aside
All that I surely know—this pitiful
And shattered mortal life, with its strange gleams
And shadows—and embrace the icy void
Where Being trembles on the final verge.
To bid life cease—but linger as the moon
Lingers in heaven—ah, that is horrible
Beyond life's proper horrors!... Were my pain
A single atom greater—were my soul
A single breath more weary—I would come.
But now I must confront the winds of heaven
Still master of my destinies.... To the last,
Not in such tomb-world can my spirit rest.
No golden clouds that throng Nirvana's gates
Shall tempt me there to enter and resign
My right to strain beyond all gates that be....
But you I cannot counsel....
OLDHAM
Me the peace
Already laps with wavelets of the flood.
FAUST