She approaches, breathes in Faust's face, and he is struck blind.
He stands there dazed and astounded. Thick darkness has fallen upon him. At last he speaks:
Still deeper seems the night to surge around me,
But in my inmost spirit all is light.
I'll rest not till the finished work has crown'd me.
God's promise—that alone doth give me might.
He hastens forth, groping his way in blindness, to call up his workmen. His life is ending and he must end his work. It is midnight, but the light within him makes him think the day has dawned. In the courtyard there are awaiting him Mephistopheles and a band of Lemurs—horrible skeleton-figures with shovels and torches. They are digging his grave. Faust mistakes the sound for that of his workmen, and incites them to labour. He orders the overseer, Mephistopheles, to press on with the work ... to finish the last great moat—or 'Graben.'
'Man spricht,' answers Mephistopheles sotto voce,
'Man spricht, wie man mir Nachricht gab,
Von keinem Graben—doch vom Grab.'
It is no moat, no Graben, that is now being dug, but a grave—a Grab.
Standing on the very verge of his grave, Faust, reviewing the memories of his long life, feels that at last, though old and blind, with no more hopes in earthly existence, he has won peace and happiness in having worked for others and in having given other human beings a measure of independence and of that true liberty and happiness which are gained only by honest toil. He alone truly possesses and can enjoy who has made a thing his own by earning it.
Yes, to this thought I hold with firm persistence;
The last result of wisdom stamps it true;
He only earns his freedom and existence
Who daily conquers them anew.
And such a throng I fain would see—
Would stand on a free soil, with people free.
Standing there, on the very edge of his new-dug grave he blesses the present moment and bids it stay. The fatal words are spoken and according to the compact his life must end.