Done!
Faust.
And done, and done!
When to the moment I shall say,
Stay, thou art so lovely, stay!
Then with thy fetters bind me round,
Then perish I with cheerful glee!
Then may the knell of death resound,
Then from thy service art thou free!
The clock may stand,
And the falling hand
Mark the time no more for me!
Mephistopheles.
Consider well: in things like these
The devil’s memory is not apt to slip.
Faust.
That I know well; may’st keep thy heart at ease,
No random word hath wandered o’er my lip.
Slave I remain, or here, or there,
Thine, or another’s, I little care.
Mephistopheles.
My duty I’ll commence without delay,
When with the graduates you dine to-day.
One thing remains!—black upon white
A line or two, to make the bargain tight.
Faust.
A writing, pedant!—hast thou never found
A man whose word was better than his bond?
Is’t not enough that by my spoken word,
Of all I am and shall be thou art lord?
The world drives on, wild wave engulfing wave,
And shall a line bind me, if I would be a knave?
Yet ’tis a whim deep-graven in the heart,
And from such fancies who would gladly part?
Happy within whose honest breast concealed
There lives a faith, nor time nor chance can shake;
Yet still a parchment, written, stamped, and sealed,
A spectre is before which all must quake.
Commit but once thy word to the goose-feather,
Then must thou yield the sway to wax and leather.
Say, devil—paper, parchment, stone, or brass?
With me this coin or that will pass;
Style, or chisel, or pen shall it be?
Thou hast thy choice of all the three.
Mephistopheles.
What need of such a hasty flare
Of words about so paltry an affair?
Paper or parchment, any scrap will do,
Then write in blood your signature thereto.
Faust.
