What is to me heaven's joy within her arms?
What though my life her bosom warms!—
Do I not ever feel her woe?
The outcast am I not, unhoused, unblest,
Inhuman monster, without aim or rest,
Who, like the greedy surge, from rock to rock,
Sweeps down the dread abyss with desperate shock?
While she, within her lowly cot, which graced
The Alpine slope, beside the waters wild,
Her homely cares in that small world embraced,
Secluded lived, a simple, artless child.
Was't not enough, in thy delirious whirl
To blast the stedfast rocks;
Her, and her peace as well,
Must I, God-hated one, to ruin hurl!
Dost claim this holocaust, remorseless Hell!
Fiend, help me to cut short the hours of dread!
Let what must happen, happen speedily!
Her direful doom fall crushing on my head,
And into ruin let her plunge with me!
MEPHISTOPHELES
Why how again it seethes and glows!
Away, thou fool! Her torment ease!
When such a head no issue sees,
It pictures straight the final close.
Long life to him who boldly dares!
A devil's pluck thou'rt wont to show;
As for a devil who despairs,
Nothing I find so mawkish here below.
MARGARET'S ROOM
MARGARET (alone at her spinning wheel)
My peace is gone,
My heart is Sore,
I find it never,
And nevermore!
Where him I have not,
Is the grave; and all
The world to me
Is turned to gall.
My wilder'd brain
Is overwrought;
My feeble senses
Are distraught.
My peace is gone,
My heart is sore,
I find it never,
And nevermore!
For him from the window
I gaze, at home;
For him and him only
Abroad I roam.