From this lone wandering in the wilderness,
Couldst thou conceive what heavenly joy it brings,
Then wert thou fiend enough to envy me my bliss.
Mephistopheles.
A supermundane bliss!
In night and dew to lie upon the height,
And clasp the heaven and earth in wild delight,
To swell up to the godhead’s stature,
And pierce with clear miraculous sight
The inmost pith of central Nature,
To carry in your breast with strange elation,
The ferment of the whole six days’ creation,
With proud anticipation of—I know
Not what—to glow in rapturous overflow,
And melt into the universal mind,
Casting the paltry son of earth behind;
And then, the heaven-sprung intuition
[With a gesture.] To end—I shall not say in what—fruition.
Faust.
Shame on thee!
Mephistopheles.
Yes! that’s not quite to your mind.
You have a privilege to cry out shame,
When things are mentioned by their proper name.
Before chaste ears one may not dare to spout
What chastest hearts yet cannot do without.
I do not envy you the pleasure
Of palming lies upon yourself at leisure;
But long it cannot last, I warrant thee.
You are returned to your old whims, I see,
And, at this rate, you soon will wear
Your strength away, in madness and despair.
Of this enough! thy love sits waiting thee,
In doubt and darkness, cabined and confined.
By day, by night, she has thee in her mind;
I trow she loves thee in no common kind.
Thy raging passion ’gan to flow,
Like a torrent in spring from melted snow;
Into her heart thy tide gushed high,
Now is thy shallow streamlet dry.
