Like Spiritual Beauty mounts the gracious Form,
Dissolving not, but lifts itself through ether far,
And from my inner being bears the best away.[220]
This state of mind resembles Goethe’s condition after the rupture with Ulrique.
Love and poetry alike were over for him. None the less his craving for the higher life was not yet weakened. The desire to live was still very strong in the old Faust. But now he no longer as in the days of his youth dreamed of an ideal which could not be attained. When Mephistopheles asked him ironically:—
Then might one guess whereunto thou hast striven?
Boldly-sublime it was, I’m sure.
Since nearer to the moon thy flight was driven,
Would now thy mania that realm secure?
Faust: Not so! This sphere of earthly soil