Up heaven’s slope the eternal stars?
Looks not mine eye now into thine?
And feel’st thou not an innate force propelling
Thy tide of life to head and heart,
A power that, in eternal mystery dwelling,
Invisible visible moves beside thee?
Go, fill thy heart therewith, in all its greatness,
And when thy heart brims with this feeling,
Then call it what thou wilt,
Heart! Happiness! Love! God!
I have no name for that which passes all revealing!
Feeling is all in all;
Name is but smoke and sound,
Enshrouding heaven’s pure glow.
Margaret.
All that appears most pious and profound;
Much of the same our parson says,
Only he clothes it in a different phrase.
Faust.
All places speak it forth;
All hearts, from farthest South to farthest North,
Proclaim the tale divine,
Each in its proper speech;
Wherefore not I in mine?
Margaret.
When thus you speak it does not seem so bad,
And yet is your condition still most sad:
Unless you are a Christian, all is vain.
Faust.
Sweet love!
Margaret.
Henry, it gives me pain,
More than my lips can speak, to see
Thee joined to such strange company.
Faust.
How so?
Margaret.
The man whom thou hast made thy mate,
Deep in my inmost soul I hate;
Nothing in all my life hath made me smart
So much as his disgusting leer.
His face stabs like a dagger through my heart!
Faust.
Sweet doll! thou hast no cause to fear.
Margaret.
It makes my blood to freeze when he comes near.
To other men I have no lack
Of kindly thoughts; but as I long
To see thy face, I shudder back
From him. That he’s a knave I make no doubt;
