Blows all the bounties of thy love to nought;
And fans within my breast a raging fire
For that fair image, busy to do ill.
Thus reel I from desire on to enjoyment,
And in enjoyment languish for desire.
Enter Mephistopheles.
Mephistopheles.
What! not yet tired of meditation?
Methinks this is a sorry recreation.
To try it once or twice might do;
But then, again to something new.
Faust.
You might employ your time some better way
Than thus to plague me on a happy day.
Mephistopheles.
Well, well! I do not grudge you quiet,
You need my aid, and you cannot deny it.
There is not much to lose, I trow,
With one so harsh, and gruff, and mad as thou.
Toil! moil! from morn to ev’n, so on it goes!
And what one should, and what one should not do,
One cannot always read it on your nose.
Faust.
This is the proper tone for you!
Annoy me first, and then my thanks are due.
Mephistopheles.
Poor son of Earth! without my timed assistance,
How had you ever dragged on your existence?
From freakish fancy’s fevered effervescence,
I have worked long ago your convalescence,
And, but for me, you would have marched away,
In your best youth, from the blest light of day.
What have you here, in caves and clefts, to do,
Like an old owl, screeching to-whit, to-whoo?
Or like a torpid toad, that sits alone
Sipping the oozing moss and dripping stone?
A precious condition to be in!
I see the Doctor sticks yet in your skin.
Faust.
Couldst thou but know what re-born vigor springs
