MEPHISTOPHELES
Expect ye now
No further pay;
For ye your share
Have ta’en away.
THE THREE MIGHTY COMRADES
To pass the time,
As was but fair;
We all expect
An equal share.
MEPHISTOPHELES
First range in order,
Hall on hall,
These wares so costly,
One and all!
And when he steps
The prize to view,
And reckons all
With judgment true,
He’ll be no niggard;
As is meet,
Feast after feast
He’ll give the fleet,
The gay birds come with morning tide;
Myself for them can best provide.
[The
cargo is removed.]
MEPHISTOPHELES (to FAUST)
With gloomy look, with earnest brow
Thy fortune high receivest thou.
Thy lofty wisdom has been crowned;
Their limits shore and sea have bound;
Forth from the shore, in swift career,
O’er the glad waves, thy vessels steer;
Speak only from thy pride of place,
Thine arm the whole world doth embrace.
Here it began; on this spot stood
The first rude cabin formed of wood;
A little ditch was sunk of yore
Where plashes now the busy oar.
Thy lofty thought, thy people’s hand,
Have won the prize from sea and land.
From here too—
FAUST
That accursed here!
It weighs upon me! Lend thine ear;—
To thine experience I must tell,
With thrust on thrust, what wounds my heart;
To bear it is impossible—
Nor can I, without shame, impart:
The old folk there above must yield;
Would that my seat those lindens were;
Those few trees not mine own, that field,
Possession of the world impair.
There I, wide view o’er all to take,
From bough to bough would scaffolds raise;
Would, for the prospect, vistas make
On all that I have done to gaze;
To see at once before me brought
The master-work of human thought,
Where wisdom hath achieved the plan,
And won broad dwelling-place for man.—
Thus are we tortured;—in our weal,
That which we lack, we sorely feel!
The chime, the scent of linden-bloom,
Surround me like a vaulted tomb.
The will that nothing could withstand,
Is broken here upon the sand:
How from the vexing thought be safe?
The bell is pealing, and I chafe!
MEPHISTOPHELES
Such spiteful chance, ’tis natural,
Must thy existence fill with gall.
Who doubts it! To each noble ear,
This clanging odious must appear;
This cursed ding-dong, booming loud,
The cheerful evening-sky doth shroud,
With each event of life it blends,
From birth to burial it attends,
Until this mortal life doth seem,
Twixt ding and dong, a vanished dream!