[INTRODUCTION]
"Then wilt thou, with thy fancies holy—
Wilt thou, faithless, fly from me?
With thy joy, thy melancholy,
Wilt thou thus relentless flee?
O Golden Time, O Human May,
Can nothing, Fleet One, thee restrain?
Must thy sweet river glide away
Into the eternal Ocean-Main?
The suns serene are lost and vanish'd
That wont the path of youth to gild,
And all the fair Ideals banish'd
From that wild heart they whilom fill'd.
ASPIRATION
"The Universe of things seem'd swelling
The panting heart to burst its bound,
And wandering Fancy found a dwelling
In every shape—thought, deed, and sound.
"As a stream slowly fills the urn from the silent springs of the mountain and anon overflows its high banks with regal waves, stones, rocks, and forests fling themselves in its course, but it rushes noisily with proud haste into the ocean.
"Thus happy in his dreaming error,
His own gay valor for his wing,
Of not one care as yet in terror
Did Youth upon his journey spring;
Till floods of balm, through air's dominion,
Bore upward to the faintest star—
For never aught to that bright pinion
Could dwell too high or spread too far.
"How fair was then the flower, the tree!
How silver-sweet the fountains fall!
The soulless had a soul to me!
My life its own life lent to all!
"As once, with tearful passion fired,
The Cyprian sculptor clasp'd the stone,
Till the cold cheeks, delight inspired,
Blush'd—to sweet life the marble grown;
So youth's desire for Nature!—round
The Statue, so my arms I wreathed,
Till warmth and life in mine it found,
And breath that poets breathe—it breathed.
"And aye the waves of life how brightly
The airy Pageant danced before!—
Love showering gifts (life's sweetest) down;
Fortune, with golden garlands gay;
And Fame, with starbeams for a crown;
And Truth, whose dwelling is the day."
DISILLUSION
"Ah! midway soon lost evermore,
After the blithe companions stray;
In vain their faithless steps explore,
As one by one they glide away.
"And ever stiller yet, and ever
The barren path more lonely lay.
"Who, loving, lingered yet to guide me,
When all her boon companions fled,
Who stands consoling yet beside me,
And follows to the House of Dread?
"Thine, Friendship, thine the hand so tender,
Thine the balm dropping on the wound,
Thy task, the load more light to render,
O earliest sought and soonest found!"
ACTIVITY
"And thou, so pleased, with her uniting
To charm the soul-storm, into peace,
Sweet Toil, in toil itself delighting,
That more it labored, less could cease;
Tho' but by grains thou aid'st the pile
The vast Eternity uprears,
At least thou strik'st from Time the while
Life's debt—the minutes, days, and years."[82]
The concluding section (the "Apotheosis") of Liszt's symphonic poem, as it was pointed out above, has no analogue in Schiller's poem, but was contrived by Liszt to round out and complete the poet's conception after what seemed to him a nobler and more eloquent plan.
"A FAUST SYMPHONY" [83]
1. FAUST
(Lento assai. Allegro impetuoso) (Allegro agitato ed appassionato assai)
2. GRETCHEN
(Andante soave)
3. MEPHISTOPHELES