As if a weight of lead were at my heart,
And palsy on my brains.
How high to climb up learning’s lofty stair,
How hard to find the helps that guide us there;
And when scarce half the way behind him lies,
His glass is run, and the poor devil dies!
Faust.
The parchment-roll is that the holy river,
From which one draught shall slake the thirst forever?
The quickening power of science only he
Can know, from whose own soul it gushes free.
Wagner.
And yet the spirit of a bygone age,
To re-create may well the wise engage;
To know the choicest thoughts of every ancient sage,
And think how far above their best we’ve mounted high!
Faust.
O yes, I trow, even to the stars, so high!
My friend, the ages that are past
Are as a book with seven seals made fast;
And what men call the spirit of the age,
Is but the spirit of the gentlemen
Who glass their own thoughts in the pliant page,
And image back themselves. O, then,
What precious stuff they dish, and call’t a book,
Your stomach turns at the first look;
A heap of rubbish, and a lumber room,
At best some great state farce with proclamations,
Pragmatic maxims, protocols, orations,
Such as from puppet-mouths do fitly come!
Wagner.
But then the world!—the human heart and mind!
Somewhat of this to know are all inclined.
Faust.
Yes! as such knowledge goes! but what man dares
To call the child by the true name it bears?
The noble few that something better knew,
And to the gross reach of the general view,
Their finer feelings bared, and insight true,
From oldest times were burnt and crucified.
