Cold, insolent, malicious, he contrives To make me to myself contemptible; And with a breath will scatter into nothing All these high gifts; with what officious zeal He fans my breast into a raging flame Of passion, to possess that perfect form Of loveliness! Thus, from desire I pass On to enjoyment, and, uneasy still, Even in enjoyment languish for desire!
[MEPHISTOPHELES enters.
MEPHISTOPHELES
Have you not had enough of this before? A pretty kind of life to live for ever! Well enough for a trial. Come, come, let us Seek something new.
I wish you had something else To do than thus torment me when I'm quiet.
Well! well! and if you wish I'll leave you here To your delights-never say it again.
Great loss to me, indeed, 'twould be to lose
A petulent, unsocial, crazy creature
Of a companion-kept the whole day long
Busy, and never can make any guess
From my lord's countenance, whether your worship
Is pleased or is displeased by what I do.
Ay, there's the tone ;-that is so very like him:
Tires me to death-expects me then to thank him!
Poor child of earth! and couldst thou, then, have borne Thy life till now without my aid? 'Twas I
That saved thee from imagination's idle !
I guarded thee with long and anxious care;
And, but for me, even now thou wouldst have been
Idling in other worlds! Why sittest thou there,
Lingering in hollow cave, or rifted rock,
Dull as the moping owl? Why, like the toad, Dost thou support a useless life, deriving Subsistence from damp moss and dripping stone? Sweet pastime this! most charming occupation! I fear you've not forgotten your old trade.
"Fie, fie!"-it does not suit your taste, forsooth- Fie, fie! this mannerly word sounds very well In your mouth now. The modest ears are closed, And will not hear of what the modest heart Yet cannot go without. Good, good!—a word, However, upon what you said—I grudge not To you or any man such pleasure, as
He now and then may feel, in playing tricks Of self-deception; pity 'twill not last. You are already blown out of your course- Are almost what you were when first we met; And, if you don't take care, will fret yourself Soon into actual madness-frenzy-fever,
Or melancholy horror. For your own sake Have done with this: your love, poor creature! sits Within there, you should soothe her! All with her Is sad and gloomy-out of her poor mind You never are: she loves devotedly,
Poor thing! On thee she thinks-thinks ever more. First came the flood of thy o'erflowing passion, As swells, when the snows melt, a mountain brook Above its banks-and thou into her heart Hast poured the sudden gush; and now the brook Is dry with thee again: methinks 'twere well, Instead of reigning here among the woods On an imaginary throne, that you Would comfort the young monkey, and requite The poor thing for her love,-to her the time Seems miserably long-she lingers at The window, gazes on the clouds that pass
Slow o'er the old town-walls. "Oh that I were A little bird!" she cries. This is her song All the day long, and half the heavy night!
One moment is she mirthful-mostly is
Sad, then she weeps till she can weep no more; Then, as 'twould seem, she is at rest again. But mirth or grief, whatever the mood be, This all is love-deep, tender passionate love.
MEPHISTOPHELES (aside).
Ay, and one that stings.
Infamous wretch, begone! name not her name
Pollute it not-stir not into desire
My half-distracted senses.
She deemed herself abandoned and is right.
You are raving-I am laughing: What a hard task it is, forsooth-just think, And let it cure your spirits,—you are going Not-as to look at you one might believe- Not to the gibbet-but to a fond mistress!
What were the joys of Heaven, if with them blest In her embrace?-could my disquiet be Stilled on her bosom? could it hush to rest This drear presentiment of her undoing? And am I not the outcast-the accurst-
The homeless one, whose wanderings never cease- The monster of his kind?
No aim-no object; like the stream, that, nurst With swelling rains, foaming from rock to rock, Along its course of ruin,
On to the inevitable precipice
Plunges impatient down the blind abyss, And violently seeks the desperate shock. And-by the side of such mad stream-was she -A child with a child's feelings; her low cot In the green field upon the mountain-slope, And all that she could wish, or love, or hope, Her little world, all-all in that poor spot ;- And I the heaven-detested! was it not Enough, that the mad torrent grasped and tore The rocks, and shivered them to dust, and bore All, that opposed me, in my downward course On with me?-Her, too, her-her peace-her joy— These must I undermine ?-these too destroy? Hell! Hell!-this victim also!-Thy support, Devil! and the dreadful interval make short! What must be, be it soon! Let the crush fall Down on me of her ruin-perish all-- She-I-and these wild thoughts together!
What! in the fever-fit again?
How seethes and burns the muddy brain! -Idiot, go in, and comfort her.
Thus is it ever with the crazy pate,
When difficulties thwart,
Or unforeseen calamities occur :
Fools, when they cannot see their way,
At once grow desperate,
Have no resource-have nothing to propose―
But fix a dull eye of dismay
Upon the final close.
Success to the stout heart, say I,
That sees its fate, and can defy!
-Yet art thou, though of such soft stuff, In most things pretty devil enough;- Of all insipid things, I least can bear That sickening dose-a devil in despair!
We will not attempt to intrude our own feelings on those with which the reader must have perused this mag
nificent scene, and shall pass to another of equal excellence in another way—it is that between the unhappy Margaret
and her lover, which terminates in her ther's murder and her own undoing. becoming the instrument of her mo
Misunderstand me not, thou best beloved:
Who can name him, and, knowing what he says, Say, "I believe in Him?" And who can feel, And, with self-violence, to conscious wrong Hardening his heart, say, "I believe him not !" The all-embracing, All-sustaining One, Say, doth he not embrace, sustain, include Thee? Me? Himself?
Bends not the sky above? And earth, on which we are, is it not firm? And over us with constant kindly smile,
The sleepless stars keep everlasting watch!
Am I not here gazing into thine eyes?
And does not All, that is,
Seen and unseen, mysterious all- Around thee, and within,
Untiring agency,
Press on thy heart and mind?
I would not could not live together with him. If for a moment he comes to the door,
He will look in with such an air of mockery, And a half scowl, and a face dark with anger Kept down-you see he has no interest In any thing-'tis written on his brow He feels no love for any living soul- And when I am so happy in thy arms, In the sweet confidence of love forgetting-
Forgetting every thing but thee, then then
He's sure to come, and my heart shrinks and withers!
Foreboding angel, these are weak misgivings!
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