DÆMON.

The terror of the thrilling cry
Was a fatal prophecy

CYPRIAN.
Of coming death, who hovers now

Now, since the fury Upon that shattered prow,

Of this earthquaking hurricane is still, That they who die not may be dying still.

And the crystalline heaven has reassumed And not alone the insane elements

Its windless calm so quickly, that it seems Are populous with wild portents,

As if its heavy wrath had been awakened But that sad ship is as a miracle

Only to overwhelm that vessel,--speak,
Of sudden ruin, for it drives so fast

Who art thou, and whence comest thou ?
It seems as if it had arrayed its form
With the headlong storm.

DÆMON.

Far more It strikes—I almost feel the shock, It stumbles on a jagged rock,

My coming hither cost than thou hast seen, Sparkles of blood on the white foam are cast.

Or I can tell. Among my misadventures

This shipwreck is the least. Wilt thou hear? A tempest-All exclaim within We are all lost !

CYPRIAN.

Speak.
DEMON (within).
Now from this plank will I

Since thou desirest, I will then unveil
Pass to the land, and thus fulfil my scheme.

Myself to thee;—for in myself I-am

A world of happiness and misery ;
CYPRIAN.
As in contempt of the elemental rage

This I have lost, and that I must lament
A man comes forth in safety, while the ship's

For ever. In my attributes I stood Great form is in a watery eclipse

So high and so heroically great, Obliterated from the Ocean's page,

In lineage so supreme, and with a genius And round its wreck the huge sea-monsters sit,

Which penetrated with a glance the world A horrid conclave, and the whistling wave

Beneath my feet, that won by my high merit Are heaped over its carcase, like a grave.

A king—whom I may call the King of kings,

Because all others tremble in their pride
The DÆMON enters as escaped from the sea.

Before the terrors of his countenance,

In his high palace roofed with brightest gems DÆMON (aside). It was essential to my purposes

Of living light-call them the stars of HeavenTo wake a tumult on the sapphire ocean,

Named me his counsellor. But the high praise That in this unknown form I might at length

Stung me with pride and envy, and I rose Wipe out the blot of the discomfiture

In mighty competition, to ascend Sustained upon the mountain, and assail

His seat, and place my foot triumphantly With a new war the soul of Cyprian,

Upon his subject thrones. Chastised, I know Forging the instruments of his destruction

The depth to which ambition falls; too mad Even from his love and from his wisdom.-0

Was the attempt, and yet more mad were now Beloved earth, dear mother, in thy bosom

Repentance of the irrevocable deed :

Therefore I chose this ruin with the glory
I seek a refuge from the monster who
Precipitates itself upon me.

Of not to be subdued, before the shame

Of reconciling me with him who reigns
CYPRIAN.

By coward cession.-Nor was I alone,
Friend,

Nor am I now, nor shall I be alone;
Collect thyself; and be the memory

And there was hope, and there may still be hope, Of thy late suffering, and thy greatest sorrow

For many suffrages among his vassals But as a shadow of the past,—for nothing

Hailed me their lord and king, and many still Beneath the circle of the moon but flows

Are mine, and many more perchance shall be. And changes, and can never know repose.

Thus vanquished, though in fact victorious,

I left his seat of empire, from mine eye
DÆMON.

Shooting forth poisonous lightning, while my words
And who art thou, before whose feet my fate With inauspicious thunderings shook Heaven,
Has prostrated me?

Proclaiming vengeance, public as my wrong,

And imprecating on his prostrate slaves
One who, moved with pity, Over the mighty fabric of the world,

Rapine and death, and outrage. Then I sailed Would soothe its stings.

A pirate ambushed in its pathless sands,

A lynx crouched watchfully among its caves
Oh! that can never be! And craggy shores; and I have wandered over
No solace can my lasting sorrows find.

The expanse of these wide wildernesses
In this great ship, whose bulk is now dissolved

In the light breathings of the invisible wind, Wherefore?

And which the sea has made a dustless ruin,

Seeking ever a mountain, through whose forests Because my happiness is lost. I seek a man, whom I must now compel Yet I lament what has long ceased to be

To keep his word with me. I came arrayed The object of desire or memory,

In tempest, and, although my power could well And my life is not life.

Bridle the forest winds in their career,

CYPRIAN.

DEMON.

CYPRIAN.

DÆMON.

JUSTINA.

*

For other causes I forbore to soothe

A VOICE WITHIN. Their fury to Favonian gentleness;

•What is the glory far above I could and would not: (thus I wake in him (Aside

All else in human life?
A love of magic art.) Let not this tempest,
Nor the succeeding calm excite thy wonder;

ALL.
For by my art the sun would turn as pale

Love! love! As his weak sister with unwonted fear;

[While these words are sung, the DÆMON goes out at And in my wisdom are the orbs of Heaven

one door, and Justina enters at another. Written as in a record. I have pierced The flaming circles of their wondrous spheres,

THE FIRST VOICE. And know them as thou knowest every corner There is no form in which the fire Of this dim spot. Let it not seem to thee

Of love its traces has impressed not.
That I boast vainly; wouldst thou that I work

Man lives far more in love's desire
A charm over this waste and savage wood, Than by life's breath soon possessed not.
This Babylon of crags and aged trees,

If all that lives must love or die,
Filling its leafy coverts with a horror

All shapes on earth, or sea, or sky, Thrilling and strange? I am the friendless guest With one consent to Heaven cry Of these wild oaks and pines—and as from thee

That the glory far above I have received the hospitality

All else in life is
Of this rude place, I offer thee the fruit

ALL.
Of years of toil in recompense ; whate'er
Thy wildest dream presented to thy thought

Love! O love!
As object of desire, that shall be thine.

Thou melancholy thought, which art And thenceforth shall so firm an amity

So fluttering and so sweet, to thee "Twixt thou and me be, that neither fortune,

When did I give the liberty The monstrous phantom which pursues success,

Thus to afflict my heart? That careful miser, that free prodigal,

What is the cause of this new power Who ever alternates with changeful hand

Which doth my fevered being move, Evil and good, reproach and fame; nor Time,

Momently raging more and more? That loadstar of the ages, to whose beam

What subtle pain is kindled now The winged years speed o'er the intervals

Which from my heart doth overflow
Of their unequal revolutions ; nor

Into my senses -
Heaven itself, whose beautiful bright stars
Rule and adorn the world, can ever make

Love, O love!
The least division between thee and me,
Since now I find a refuge in thy favour.

JUSTINA.
'Tis that enamoured nightingale
Who gives me the reply:
He ever tells the same soft tale
Of passion and of constancy

To his mate, who rapt, and fond,
SCENE III,

Listening sits, a bough beyond.
The Deson tempts JUSTINA, who is a Christian.

Be silent, Nightingale !—No more
DÆMON.

Make me think, in hearing thee
Abyss of Hell! I call on thee,

Thus tenderly thy love deplore, Thou wild misrule of thine own anarchy !

If a bird can feel his so, From thy prison-house set free

What a man would feel for me. The spirits of voluptuous death,

And, voluptuous vine, O thou
That with their mighty breath

Who seekest most when least pursuing,-
They may destroy a world of virgin thoughts; To the trunk thou interlacest
Let her chaste mind with fancies thick as motes Art the verdure which embracest,
Be peopled from thy shadowy deep,

And the weight which is its ruin,-
Till her guiltless phantasy

No more, with green embraces, vine, Full to overflowing be!

Make me think on what thou lovest,And, with sweetest harmony,

For whilst thou thus thy boughs entwine,
Let birds, and flowers, and leaves, and all things move I fear lest thou shouldst teach me, sophist,
To love, only to love.

How arms might be entangled too.
Let nothing meet her eyes
But signs of Love's soft victories;

Light-enchanted sunflower, thou
Let nothing meet her ear

Who gazest ever true and tender But sounds of Love's sweet sorrow;

On the sun's revolving splendour, So that from faith no succour may she borrow, Follow not his faithless glance But, guided by my spirit blind

With thy faded countenance, And in a magic snare entwined,

Nor teach my beating heart to fear, She may now seek Cyprian.

If leaves can mourn without a tear, Begin, while I in silence bind

How eyes must weep! 0 Nightingale, My voice, when thy sweet song thou hast begun. Cease from thy enamoured tale,

ALL.

SCENES

FROM THE FAUST OF GOETHE.