Faust. I take the quickening draught and call For heaven's best blessing on one and all.
[The people form a circle round him.]
Old Peasant. Your presence with us, this glad day,
We take it very kind, indeed!
In truth we've found you long ere this
In evil days a friend in need!
Full many a one stands living here,
Whom, at death's door already laid,
Your father snatched from fever's rage,
When, by his skill, the plague he stayed.
You, a young man, we daily saw
Go with him to the pest-house then,
And many a corpse was carried forth,
But you came out alive again.
With a charmed life you passed before us,
Helped by the Helper watching o'er us.
All. The well-tried man, and may he live, Long years a helping hand to give!
Faust. Bow down to Him on high who sends His heavenly help and helping friends! [He goes on with WAGNER.]
Wagner. What feelings, O great man, thy heart must swell
Thus to receive a people's veneration!
O worthy all congratulation,
Whose gifts to such advantage tell.
The father to his son shows thee with exultation,
All run and crowd and ask, the circle closer draws,
The fiddle stops, the dancers pause,
Thou goest—the lines fall back for thee.
They fling their gay-decked caps on high;
A little more and they would bow the knee
As if the blessed Host came by.
Faust. A few steps further on, until we reach that stone;
There will we rest us from our wandering.
How oft in prayer and penance there alone,
Fasting, I sate, on holy mysteries pondering.
There, rich in hope, in faith still firm,
I've wept, sighed, wrung my hands and striven
This plague's removal to extort (poor worm!)
From the almighty Lord of Heaven.
The crowd's applause has now a scornful tone;
O couldst thou hear my conscience tell its story,
How little either sire or son
Has done to merit such a glory!
My father was a worthy man, confused
And darkened with his narrow lucubrations,
Who with a whimsical, though well-meant patience,
On Nature's holy circles mused.
Shut up in his black laboratory,
Experimenting without end,
'Midst his adepts, till he grew hoary,
He sought the opposing powers to blend.
Thus, a red lion,[11] a bold suitor, married
The silver lily, in the lukewarm bath,
And, from one bride-bed to another harried,
The two were seen to fly before the flaming wrath.
If then, with colors gay and splendid,
The glass the youthful queen revealed,
Here was the physic, death the patients' sufferings ended,
And no one asked, who then was healed?
Thus, with electuaries so satanic,
Worse than the plague with all its panic,
We rioted through hill and vale;
Myself, with my own hands, the drug to thousands giving,
They passed away, and I am living
To hear men's thanks the murderers hail!
Wagner. Forbear! far other name that service merits!
Can a brave man do more or less
Than with nice conscientiousness
To exercise the calling he inherits?
If thou, as youth, thy father honorest,
To learn from him thou wilt desire;
If thou, as man, men with new light hast blest,
Then may thy son to loftier heights aspire.
Faust. O blest! who hopes to find repose,
Up from this mighty sea of error diving!
Man cannot use what he already knows,
To use the unknown ever striving.
But let not such dark thoughts a shadow throw
O'er the bright joy this hour inspires!
See how the setting sun, with ruddy glow,
The green-embosomed hamlet fires!
He sinks and fades, the day is lived and gone,
He hastens forth new scenes of life to waken.
O for a wing to lift and bear me on,
And on, to where his last rays beckon!
Then should I see the world's calm breast
In everlasting sunset glowing,
The summits all on fire, each valley steeped in rest,
The silver brook to golden rivers flowing.
No savage mountain climbing to the skies
Should stay the godlike course with wild abysses;
And now the sea, with sheltering, warm recesses
Spreads out before the astonished eyes.
At last it seems as if the God were sinking;
But a new impulse fires the mind,
Onward I speed, his endless glory drinking,
The day before me and the night behind,
The heavens above my head and under me the ocean.
A lovely dream,—meanwhile he's gone from sight.
Ah! sure, no earthly wing, in swiftest flight,
May with the spirit's wings hold equal motion.
Yet has each soul an inborn feeling
Impelling it to mount and soar away,
When, lost in heaven's blue depths, the lark is pealing
High overhead her airy lay;
When o'er the mountain pine's black shadow,
With outspread wing the eagle sweeps,
And, steering on o'er lake and meadow,
The crane his homeward journey keeps.
Wagner. I've had myself full many a wayward hour,
But never yet felt such a passion's power.
One soon grows tired of field and wood and brook,
I envy not the fowl of heaven his pinions.
Far nobler joy to soar through thought's dominions
From page to page, from book to book!
Ah! winter nights, so dear to mind and soul!
Warm, blissful life through all the limbs is thrilling,
And when thy hands unfold a genuine ancient scroll,
It seems as if all heaven the room were filling.