Faust: a Tragedy [part 1], Translated from the German of Goethe

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Faust. To know them, yes, as weaklings can!
Who dares the child's true name outright to mention?
The few who any thing thereof have learned,
Who out of their heart's fulness needs must gabble,
And show their thoughts and feelings to the rabble,
Have evermore been crucified and burned.
I pray you, friend, 'tis wearing into night,
Let us adjourn here, for the present.

Wagner. I had been glad to stay till morning light, This learned talk with you has been so pleasant, But the first day of Easter comes to-morrow. And then an hour or two I'll borrow. With zeal have I applied myself to learning, True, I know much, yet to know all am burning. [Exit.]

Faust. [Alone.] See how in his head only, hope still lingers,
Who evermore to empty rubbish clings,
With greedy hand grubs after precious things,
And leaps for joy when some poor worm he fingers!
That such a human voice should dare intrude,
Where all was full of ghostly tones and features!
Yet ah! this once, my gratitude
Is due to thee, most wretched of earth's creatures.
Thou snatchedst me from the despairing state
In which my senses, well nigh crazed, were sunken.
The apparition was so giant-great,
That to a very dwarf my soul had shrunken.
I, godlike, who in fancy saw but now
Eternal truth's fair glass in wondrous nearness,
Rejoiced in heavenly radiance and clearness,
Leaving the earthly man below;
I, more than cherub, whose free force
Dreamed, through the veins of nature penetrating,
To taste the life of Gods, like them creating,
Behold me this presumption expiating!
A word of thunder sweeps me from my course.
Myself with thee no longer dare I measure;
Had I the power to draw thee down at pleasure;
To hold thee here I still had not the force.
Oh, in that blest, ecstatic hour,
I felt myself so small, so great;
Thou drovest me with cruel power
Back upon man's uncertain fate
What shall I do? what slum, thus lonely?
That impulse must I, then, obey?
Alas! our very deeds, and not our sufferings only,
How do they hem and choke life's way!
To all the mind conceives of great and glorious
A strange and baser mixture still adheres;
Striving for earthly good are we victorious?
A dream and cheat the better part appears.
The feelings that could once such noble life inspire
Are quenched and trampled out in passion's mire.
Where Fantasy, erewhile, with daring flight
Out to the infinite her wings expanded,
A little space can now suffice her quite,
When hope on hope time's gulf has wrecked and stranded.
Care builds her nest far down the heart's recesses,
There broods o'er dark, untold distresses,
Restless she sits, and scares thy joy and peace away;
She puts on some new mask with each new day,
Herself as house and home, as wife and child presenting,
As fire and water, bane and blade;
What never hits makes thee afraid,
And what is never lost she keeps thee still lamenting.
Not like the Gods am I! Too deep that truth is thrust!
But like the worm, that wriggles through the dust;
Who, as along the dust for food he feels,
Is crushed and buried by the traveller's heels.
Is it not dust that makes this lofty wall
Groan with its hundred shelves and cases;
The rubbish and the thousand trifles all
That crowd these dark, moth-peopled places?
Here shall my craving heart find rest?
Must I perchance a thousand books turn over,
To find that men are everywhere distrest,
And here and there one happy one discover?
Why grin'st thou down upon me, hollow skull?
But that thy brain, like mine, once trembling, hoping,
Sought the light day, yet ever sorrowful,
Burned for the truth in vain, in twilight groping?
Ye, instruments, of course, are mocking me;
Its wheels, cogs, bands, and barrels each one praises.
I waited at the door; you were the key;
Your ward is nicely turned, and yet no bolt it raises.
Unlifted in the broadest day,
Doth Nature's veil from prying eyes defend her,
And what (he chooses not before thee to display,
Not all thy screws and levers can force her to surrender.
Old trumpery! not that I e'er used thee, but
Because my father used thee, hang'st thou o'er me,
Old scroll! thou hast been stained with smoke and smut
Since, on this desk, the lamp first dimly gleamed before me.
Better have squandered, far, I now can clearly see,
My little all, than melt beneath it, in this Tophet!
That which thy fathers have bequeathed to thee,
Earn and become possessor of it!
What profits not a weary load will be;
What it brings forth alone can yield the moment profit.
Why do I gaze as if a spell had bound me
Up yonder? Is that flask a magnet to the eyes?
What lovely light, so sudden, blooms around me?
As when in nightly woods we hail the full-moon-rise.
I greet thee, rarest phial, precious potion!
As now I take thee down with deep devotion,
In thee I venerate man's wit and art.
Quintessence of all soporific flowers,
Extract of all the finest deadly powers,
Thy favor to thy master now impart!
I look on thee, the sight my pain appeases,
I handle thee, the strife of longing ceases,
The flood-tide of the spirit ebbs away.
Far out to sea I'm drawn, sweet voices listening,
The glassy waters at my feet are glistening,
To new shores beckons me a new-born day.
A fiery chariot floats, on airy pinions,
To where I sit! Willing, it beareth me,
On a new path, through ether's blue dominions,
To untried spheres of pure activity.
This lofty life, this bliss elysian,
Worm that thou waft erewhile, deservest thou?
Ay, on this earthly sun, this charming vision,
Turn thy back resolutely now!
Boldly draw near and rend the gates asunder,
By which each cowering mortal gladly steals.
Now is the time to show by deeds of wonder
That manly greatness not to godlike glory yields;
Before that gloomy pit to stand, unfearing,
Where Fantasy self-damned in its own torment lies,
Still onward to that pass-way steering,
Around whose narrow mouth hell-flames forever rise;
Calmly to dare the step, serene, unshrinking,
Though into nothingness the hour should see thee sinking.
Now, then, come down from thy old case, I bid thee,
Where thou, forgotten, many a year hast hid thee,
Into thy master's hand, pure, crystal glass!
The joy-feasts of the fathers thou hast brightened,
The hearts of gravest guests were lightened,
When, pledged, from hand to hand they saw thee pass.
Thy sides, with many a curious type bedight,
Which each, as with one draught he quaffed the liquor
Must read in rhyme from off the wondrous beaker,
Remind me, ah! of many a youthful night.
I shall not hand thee now to any neighbor,
Not now to show my wit upon thy carvings labor;
Here is a juice of quick-intoxicating might.
The rich brown flood adown thy sides is streaming,
With my own choice ingredients teeming;
Be this last draught, as morning now is gleaming,
Drained as a lofty pledge to greet the festal light!
[He puts the goblet to his lips.

Ringing of bells and choral song.

Chorus of Angels. Christ hath arisen!
Joy to humanity!
No more shall vanity,
Death and inanity
Hold thee in prison!

Faust. What hum of music, what a radiant tone,
Thrills through me, from my lips the goblet stealing!
Ye murmuring bells, already make ye known
The Easter morn's first hour, with solemn pealing?
Sing you, ye choirs, e'en now, the glad, consoling song,
That once, from angel-lips, through gloom sepulchral rung,
A new immortal covenant sealing?

Chorus of Women. Spices we carried,
Laid them upon his breast;
Tenderly buried
Him whom we loved the best;

Cleanly to bind him
Took we the fondest care,
Ah! and we find him
Now no more there.

Chorus of Angels. Christ hath ascended!
Reign in benignity!
Pain and indignity,
Scorn and malignity,
Their work have ended.

Faust. Why seek ye me in dust, forlorn,
Ye heavenly tones, with soft enchanting?
Go, greet pure-hearted men this holy morn!
Your message well I hear, but faith to me is wanting;
Wonder, its dearest child, of Faith is born.
To yonder spheres I dare no more aspire,
Whence the sweet tidings downward float;
And yet, from childhood heard, the old, familiar note
Calls back e'en now to life my warm desire.
Ah! once how sweetly fell on me the kiss
Of heavenly love in the still Sabbath stealing!
Prophetically rang the bells with solemn pealing;
A prayer was then the ecstasy of bliss;
A blessed and mysterious yearning
Drew me to roam through meadows, woods, and skies;
And, midst a thousand tear-drops burning,
I felt a world within me rise
That strain, oh, how it speaks youth's gleesome plays and feelings,
Joys of spring-festivals long past;
Remembrance holds me now, with childhood's fond appealings,
Back from the fatal step, the last.
Sound on, ye heavenly strains, that bliss restore me!
Tears gush, once more the spell of earth is o'er me