Two souls, alas! within my bosom dwell!
This strives from that with adverse strain to part.
The one, bound fast by stubborn might of love,
To this low earth with grappling organs clings;
The other spurns the clod, and soars on wings
To join a nobler ancestry above.
Oh! be there spirits in the air,
’Twixt earth and heaven that float with potent sway,
Drop from your sphere of golden-glowing day,
And waft me hence new varied life to share!
Might I but own a mantle’s fold enchanted,
To climes remote to bear me on its wing,
More than the costliest raiment I should vaunt it,
More than the purple robe that clothes a king.
Wagner.
Invoke not rash the well-known spirit-throng,
That stream unseen the atmosphere along,
And dangers thousandfold prepare,
Weak men from every quarter to ensnare.
From the keen north in troops they float,
With sharpest teeth and arrow-pointed tongues;
From the harsh east they bring a blasting drought,
And feed with wasting greed upon thy lungs.
When from the arid south their sultry powers
They send, hot fires upheaping on thy crown,
The West brings forth his swarms with cooling showers,
To end in floods that sweep thy harvests down.
Quick-ear’d are they, on wanton mischief bent,
And work our will with surer bait to ply us;
They show as fair as heaven’s own couriers sent,
And lisp like angels when they most belie us.
But let us hence! the air is chill,
The cold gray mists are creeping down the hill,
Now is the time to seek the bright fireside.
Why standest thou with strange eyes opened wide?
What twilight-spectre may thy fancy trouble?
Faust.
See’st thou that swarthy dog sweeping through corn and stubble?
Wagner.
I saw him long ago—not strange he seemed to me.
Faust.
Look at him well—what should the creature be?
Wagner.
He seems a poodle who employs his snout
Now here, now there, to snuff his master out.
Faust.
Dost thou not see how nigher still and nigher
His spiral circles round us wind?
And, err I not, he leaves behind
His track a train of sparkling fire.
