The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Faust a Tragedy
• Faust First Part
• Dramatis PersonÆ.
• Dedication.
• Prologue For the Theatre.
• Prologue In Heaven.
• Walpurgis-night.
• Walpurgis-night’s Dream; Or, Oberon and Titania’s Golden Wedding Feast. Intermezzo.
• Faust. Second Part
• Dramatis PersonÆ.
• Act I.
• Act II.
• Act III.
• Act IV.
• Act V.
• Egmont
• Dramatis PersonÆ.
• Act I.
• Scene I.—: Soldiers and Citizens, With Cross-bows.
• Scene II.—: Palace of the Regent.
• Scene III.—: Citizen’s House.
• Act II.
• Scene I.—: Square In Brussels.
• Scene II.—: Egmont’s Residence.
• Act III.
• Scene I.—: Palace of the Regent.
• Scene II.—: Clara’s Dwelling.
• Act IV.
• Scene I.—: A Street.
• Scene II.—: The Palace of Eulenberg, Residence of the Duke of Alva.
• Act V.
• Scene I.—: A Street. Twilight.
• Scene II.: A Prison.
• Scene III.—: Clara’s House.
• Scene IV.—: A Prison.
• The Natural Daughter a Tragedy
• Dramatis PersonÆ.
• Act I.
• Scene I.—: Thick Wood.
• Scene II.—: The Same.
• Scene III.
• Scene IV.—: The Same.
• Scene V.
• Scene VI.
• Act II.
• Scene I.—: Eugenie’s Apartment In Gothic Style.
• Scene II.
• Scene III.
• Scene IV.
• Scene V.
• Act III.
• Scene I.—: The Antechamber of the Duke, Furnished In Magnificent Modern Style.
• Scene II.
• Scene III.
• Scene IV.
• Act IV.
• Scene I.—: Park At the Port. On One Side a Palace, On the Other a Church; In the Background a Row of Trees Through Which the Port Is Seen Below. Eugenie, Enveloped In a Veil, Seated On a Bench In the Background, With Face Turned to the Sea.
• Scene II.
• Scene III.
• Scene IV.
• Act V.
• Scene I.—: Plaza At the Port.
• Scene II.—: The Same.
• Scene III.
• Scene IV.—: The Same.
• Scene V.
• Scene VI.
• Scene VII.
• Scene VIII.
• Scene IX.
• The Sorrows of Young Werther
• Book I.
• Book II.
• The Editor to the Reader.
• Colma.
• Rhyno.
• Alpin.

ACT III.

SCENE I.—

The Antechamber of the Duke,furnished in magnificent modern style.

Secretary. Secular Priest.

Secretary.

Tread silently into this deathly silence!

The palace is as quiet as the tomb.

The Duke is sleeping, and the servants all,

Touch’d by his grief, are bent in sympathy.

He sleeps! I bless’d him as I saw him lie

Wrapp’d in unconsciousness upon his pillow

Peacefully breathing. The excess of woe

Has yielded to the healing balm of Nature.

The moment that shall wake him, that I fear—

A man of grief before you will appear!

Secular Priest.

I am prepar’d to see him, doubt it not.

Secretary.

An hour or two ago the tidings came

That fair Eugenie had been thrown and kill’d.

You must confirm it: say that she was brought

Unto your chapel as the nearest place

That they could take her from the treacherous ground,

Where, boldly courting death, she forc’d her steed.

Secular Priest.

And in the meantime she is far away?

Secretary.

With breathless haste the speeding coursers fly.

Secular Priest.

To whom entrust you such a weighty task?

Secretary.

The prudent goodwife who is wholly ours.

Secular Priest.

To what far region have you sent the maid?

Secretary.

The port that lies most distant in this realm.

Secular Priest.

And will a foreign shore receive her next?

Secretary.

The favoring wind will bear her quickly hence.

Secular Priest.

And will they here forever think her dead?

Secretary.

The purport of thy fiction shall decide.

Secular Priest.

And so this error from the very first

Will sway the fortune of all coming time.

Her very grave is feign’d, and for her body

A mask shall cheat the eye. Her lovely image

Shall shatter in a thousand pieces. Horror

Shall sear my wretched hearer’s loving heart,

As though with fire, because of this misfortune.

All think her dead, she disappears forever

Within the ashes, gray, of nothingness.

Then each of us will quickly turn to life,

And in the tumult of the busy world

Forget that she too, though so far away,

Still breathes the air of life among the living.

Secretary.

Dost thou with utter boldness face the deed?

Will not remorse remain with bitter sting?

Secular Priest.

Thou askest such a question? We are firm.

Secretary.

An inward dissatisfaction oftentimes

Against our will accompanies an action.

Secular Priest.

What do I hear? art thou become repentant,

Or wilt thou only test me if I be

A worthy pupil in the arts thou teachest?

Secretary.

Never sufficiently do men reflect!

Secular Priest.

They should reflect before the deed’s begun.

Secretary.

’Tis not too late before the deed is done.

Secular Priest.

For me the door of forethought is shut fast.

The time for that was when I still delay’d

Within the Paradise of simple joys:

When, bounded by the garden’s cosy hedge,

I grafted trees that I myself had planted,

And fed my table from the narrow beds,

When still contentment in the little house

Supplied a sense of having wealth unbounded,

And when, according to my light, I spoke

Unto the congregation from my heart,

A friend with friends, a father with his children,

And gave my hand to aid the worthy man,

And stopp’d the bad man and the sin he did.

Oh, would that some beneficent spirit had then

Turn’d from my door thy hesitating steps,

Whereto thou, weary, thirsty from the chase,

Didst come to knock and with thy flattering ways,

Thy wily words, didst lay a spell upon me!

That beauteous day on which our friendship hung

Peace spread her wings and fled forever from me!

Secretary.

We brought thee many pleasures, did we not?

Secular Priest.

And many anxious wants which weight me down.

I felt my poverty to see the rich.

Anxiety oppress’d me, for I lack’d;

And in my need I ask’d for help from others.

You brought me aid: dearly I pay for it.

You took me as the comrade of your fortune.

You took me as the complice of your deeds—

Nay, rather should I say the slave, for such

You made the once free now abandon’d man.

You gave him pay forsooth, but yet denied

The sole reward which he had dared to ask.

Secretary.

Have faith that we shall load thee down ere long

With honors, benefices and estates.

Secular Priest.

But those are not the things that I expect.

Secretary.

And now what new demand hast thou conceiv’d?

Secular Priest.

You use me as a tool devoid of feelings

Thus once again. This noble child ye thrust

Forth from the living circle of her friends.

’Tis I must palliate, must hide the deed,

Yet you determine and I have no voice.

Henceforth I ask to join your secret conclave

Where frightful deeds are plann’d, where every man

Proud of his strength and genius bends the course

Of monstrous actions unavoidable.

Secretary.

That thou so closely art with us allied

Gives thee a new and potent claim upon us.

With weighty secrets shalt thou soon be trusted.

And so be patient and control thyself.

Secular Priest.

I am, and far more patient than you think.

Long since I saw the purport of your plans.

He only merits secret consecration

Who through presentiment anticipates.

Secretary.

What dost thou guess? What dost thou know?

Secular Priest.

Let that

Be spared until we meet at midnight’s hour.

Alas! this maiden’s melancholy fate

Has vanish’d like a brook in ocean’s tide,

When I consider how ye lift yourselves

In secret in a mighty party schism,

And hope, by treacherous wiles, to oust the King,

And foist yourselves as rulers on the land.

Not you alone, for others also strive

In rivalry with you to reach your goal.

And so ye undermine the throne and State.

Who shall be rescued from the impending fate?

Secretary.

Hush! Some one comes! Hide in this secret closet.

When it is time I’ll summon thee to enter.

SCENE II.

Duke. Secretary.

Duke.

O baleful light! thou call’st me back to life,

Thou bringest me to knowledge of the world

And of myself again. How barren, bare and hollow

Lies all before me now, and burn’d to ashes!

A heap of ruins is my happiness!

Secretary.

If each and every of thy faithful friends

Who suffer with thee at this hour could bear

A portion of thy sorrows, how would’st thou

Not feel thyself renew’d in strength and courage!

Duke.

The wound to love like love itself remains

Incurable, unending! Now I know

The terrible disaster which befalls

The man who misses his accustom’d weal.

Oh, why did you allow these well-known walls

To shine upon me with their bravery

Of gold and color, calling back the days—

The yesterdays—of my complete delight

With chilling sense of loss? Why did you not

Envelop halls and chambers with black crape,

So that the everlasting shades of night,

Without me as within, might cast their gloom?

Secretary.

Oh, would that still thy many blessings might

In spite of loss seem something in thy sight!

Duke.

A dream embodied, free from spirit bonds!

She was the living soul that fill’d this house.

Whene’er I wak’d how sweet before mine eyes

Hover’d the image of the lovely maiden!

Here oft I found a leaflet from her hand,

A soulful, heartfelt word for morning greeting!

Secretary.

How oft the wish to give her father joy

Express’d itself in fresh melodious verse!

Duke.

The hope of seeing her alone reliev’d

The weary hours of slow laborious days!

Secretary.

And when delay and hindrance clogg’d the wheels,

With what impatience hast thou yearn’d for her,

As the rash lover yearns to see his mistress.

Duke.

Make no compare between the fire of youth

Devouring selfishly the thing it clutches

And that ecstatic glow a father feels

Who, fill’d with contemplation rapt, rejoices

At all development of wondrous powers,

At all the giant strides in culture’s path.

The present is the pledge that love demands.

The future is the parent’s treasur’d boon.

There lie the spreading acres of his hopes,

And there the ripening harvest of his joys!

Secretary.

Alas! these boundless pleasures thou hast lost;

This ever blossoming hope is now destroy’d.

Duke.

And have I lost it? But a moment since

Its perfect glory fill’d my joyful soul.

Alas! ’tis gone! Let your laments arise.

Let grief destroy this solid edifice

Which age too generous has preserv’d till now!

Accurs’d be all that’s left to me! accurs’d!

And all that shakes and totters now be welcome!

Boil up, ye floods, break o’er the dykes and change

The land to sea! Ye raging gulfs, o’erwhelm

In dire destruction ship and crew and treasure!

Spread out, ye war-compelling ranks, and drown

The fields with gore and every form of death!

Flash forth, ye lightning bolts, across the waste

And blast the haughty heads of solid towers,

Cast stone from stone, let flames arise and scourge

With horrid fury all the haunts of men,

That I, ring’d round by universal sorrow,

May bend before the Fate that hounds me!

Secretary.

This unexpected tragedy so monstrous

Weighs fearfully upon thee, noble Duke!

Duke.

Most suddenly it came, not unforewarn’d!

A happy Fate brought her from realms of death,

And in my arms she came to life again.

I saw with hasty passing glance the horror

Which now confronts me with its frozen stare.

I should have punish’d then her recklessness,

Have set my face with sternest opposition

Against her daring, and have check’d the madness

Which blindly deem’d itself invulnerable,

Immortal, and which sent her from the cliff,

Through wood and stream and thicket like a bird.

Secretary.

How should such deeds made certain by success

Have given presentiment of coming woe?

Duke.

The presage of these woes full well I felt

When I the last—when I the last time saw—

Yea! speak it out—the devastating word

That builds a hedge of darkness round thy way!

Oh, would that I had seen her once again!

Perchance, I might have warded off this blow!

I would have knelt before her, would have pray’d,

Have warn’d her, with a father’s faithful warning,

To spare herself and me, and for the sake Of future fortune to attempt no risk,

Of future fortune to attempt no risk,

Though tempted by the madness of the chase.

Alas! this hour was not vouchsaf’d to me!

And now I’ve lost my precious child forever.

She is no more! Her boldness only grew

From having easily escap’d that fall.

And no one there to warn her, none to guide!

The discipline of childhood was forgotten!

Whose hands did I entrust with such a treasure?

The hands compliant, pampering, of a woman!

No stringent word to bend my daughter’s will

In ways of temperate reasonableness!

With freedom uncontroll’d she let her roam

O’er every field that offer’d reckless daring.

I felt it oft and often half confess’d

That she was ill watch’d by her governess.

Secretary.

Oh, cast not blame upon that hapless creature!

In company with deathless grief she wanders,

God knows in what far land, now, unconsol’d!

She fled! for who could look thee in the face

If conscious that the least reproach were due?

Duke.

Oh, let me wreak my wrath on blameless others

Lest in despair I tear myself in pieces!

For I myself must bear the blame, though heavy.

Did I not with my foolish fond beginnings

Tempt death and danger on my darling’s head?

It was my pride to see the maiden win

The mastery of every undertaking.

And now I pay the fearful price in full.

In carriage, in the saddle should she shine,

A heroine for guiding foaming steeds!

Or diving through the water did she seem

A goddess to command the elements.

And so she thought to conquer every danger.

Ah me! instead of giving preservation

The wont of danger now has brought her death!

Secretary.

The wont of duty’s grand behests has brought

Death to the ne’er-to-be-forgotten maiden!

Duke.

Explain thyself!

Secretary.

And shall I wake thy pain

By telling of the childlike noble action?

Her aged, first and highly-honored friend

And teacher, from this city dwells remote,

In melancholy, pain, misanthropy.

’Twas she alone was able to console him.

Compassion put this on her as a duty;

But often when she wish’d to visit him

Her governess denied her. But she plann’d

To compass it. She boldly used the hours

Devoted to her morning ride to dash

With splendid wild impetuosity

And visit the aged, well-beloved man.

A single groom alone was in the secret.

This time he must have put the saddle on

As we suspect; for he cannot be found.

The wretched man and that unhappy woman

Both vanish’d from the world from fear of thee.

Duke.

Fortunate both! who nothing have to fear,

Whose sorrow for their master’s vanish joy

Has lightly chang’d to mere anxiety.

I too have naught to fear, have naught to hope,

So let me hear the whole and spare me not

The least detail! My soul is iron wrought.

SCENE III.

Duke. Secretary. Secular Priest.

Secretary.

Until this very moment, honor’d Prince,

Have I refrain’d from calling in a man

Who, also sad, appears before thee now.

He is the priest who from the hand of death

Receiv’d thy daughter, and when hope was none

Of saving her, with all a father’s care

Provided everything that love could do.

SCENE IV.

Duke. Secular Priest.

Secular Priest.

How earnestly, exalted Prince, have I

Cherish’d the wish to come before thy presence!

Now it is gratified, but at a moment

When thou and I with thee art bent with grief!

Duke.

Unwelcome messenger, e’en so, be welcome!

Thou hast beheld her last, thy heart has felt

The pathos of her last long yearning look,

Her last word hast thou reverently heard.

Her last sigh hast thou met with kind response.

Oh, tell me, did she speak? What were her words?

Remember’d she her father? Dost thou bring me

A heartfelt “farewell” from her dying lips?

Secular Priest.

We bid the unwelcome messenger be welcome

So long as he is silent and our hearts

Hold room for hope, for doubting still hold room.

Bad tidings spoken are detestable.

Duke.

Why dost thou hesitate? What deeper grief

Can I experience? She is no more.

And peace and silence at this moment hover

Above her tomb. Whate’er she may have suffer’d

Is past for her: for me begins. But speak.

Secular Priest.

A universal calamity is death.

Consider thus the evil which has come,

And let the path by which she pass’d away

Be hid in darkness like the shades of night.

Not every one can tread the flowery path

That leads unto the silent realm of shadows.

With forceful pain destruction often comes

And brings through pangs of hell eternal peace.

Duke.

She suffer’d much?

Secular Priest.

She suffer’d much, not long.

Duke.

There was a moment while my darling suffer’d,

A moment that she cried in vain for aid!

And I, where was I then? What enterprise,

What scene of pleasure chain’d me at the time?

Did nothing presage what a woful thing

Was come to rend in fragments all my life?

Her cry I heard not, and I felt no sign

Of that misfortune struck so surely home.

Far-working holy sympathy’s foreboding

Is but a fable. Sensitive and firm,

Shut in by his environment, man feels

The present good or else the present evil;

And love itself is deaf to distant sounds.

Secular Priest.

The very utmost comfort speech can give

I feel how little can avail thee now.

Duke.

A word can wound more readily than heal;

And grief, renew’d, forever strives in vain

To bring again the days of vanish’d joy.

And was there then no skill, no art availing

To call the fleeting spirit back to life?

What was thy first expedient? Oh, tell me,

What didst thou do to save her? Thou didst not

Leave any means untried!

Secular Priest.

Alas! Too late

When I had found her was it to devise.

Duke.

Then if forever I must mourn the loss

Of her young life’s delightful power

Let me deceive my grief with deeper grief,

Let me immortalize her dear remains!

Come, let us visit her! Where does she lie?

Secular Priest.

A worthy chapel holds the maiden’s tomb,

Kept consecrate and silent! From the altar

Across the iron bars I see the spot;

And while I live my prayers for her shall rise.

Duke.

Oh, come and lead me thither! With us twain

Shall go the wisest of all wise physicians.

Her beauteous body we will snatch perforce

Before corruption work. With choicest drugs

We will preserve the treasure of her body;

And of the atoms which erewhile were join’d

In that incomparable, priceless form,

None shall return unto the dust again.

Secular Priest.

What can I say? Must I confess the whole?

Thou canst not go! Alas! the form distorted,

No stranger could behold it without horror!

And in a father’s eyes—it could not be!

No, God forbid! thou must not look upon her.

Duke.

What new device of torment threatens me?

Secular Priest.

Oh, let me hold my peace, that words of mine

May not abuse remembrance of the lost!

Let me conceal the appalling sight of her

Dragg’d through the thicket, through the mangling rocks,

Disabled and disfigur’d and distorted,

Bleeding and crush’d, unrecognizable,

And lifeless, hanging from my arm. And I

With flooding tears—I bless’d the solemn hour

When I renounc’d a father’s holy hope.

Duke.

Thou hast not been a father. Thou art one

Of those self-seeking, hard, self-centred men

Who let their narrow lives unfruitful run,

To end in gloom. So get thee gone! I hate

The very sight of thee!

Secular Priest.

I knew ’twas so.

Who could forgive the bringer of such tidings?

[Turns to go.

Duke.

Forgive me and remain! Hast ever seen

A picture limn’d by art’s consummate skill

That once and once again thy recollection

Has striven to catch in all its wondrous beauty?

Oh, if thou hadst, then hadst thou surely never

So ruthlessly destroy’d the image which, for me,

Built with its thousand lines of loveliness,

Was all the world of fortune and of joy,—

And pleasure in remembrance so dispell’d!

Secular Priest.

What should I do? Conduct thee to the tomb

Bedew’d with countless tears from strangers’ eyes

Before I laid the rotting corpse away

To fall in mouldering peaceful dissolution!

Duke.

Silence! unfeeling man! thou only add’st

New torments to the pain thou think’st to soothe.

Ah, woe! the elements, no longer rul’d

By that fair spirit of order, now destroy

In noiseless conflict what was godlike once.

If o’er her growth and swift development

Paternal fancy hover’d, full of care,

So now before the insistence of despair

The joy of life is turn’d to dust and ashes.

Secular Priest.

What light and air have made in fleeting form

Is kept for long within the sealed tomb.

Duke.

The custom of the ancients was a wise one:

That when the active spirit pass’d away

The agency of purifying fire

Should solve the long and earnest work of nature,

Completed in the noble human form.

And when the flames their ruddy billows toss’d

Rolling to heaven and ’mid the clouds was seen

The eagle’s mighty wing significant,

Then tears were dried and friends forsaken gaz’d

With vision clarified up to the realms

Where sat the new-crown’d god upon Olympos.

Oh, gather for me in a costly urn

The sad remains of flesh consum’d to ashes,

So that the yearning arms outstretch’d in vain

May clasp reality, that I may press

Against my breast so full of emptiness

The painfulest possession of my life!

Secular Priest.

Ever more bitter grief becomes by grieving.

Duke.

By grieving grief at last becomes enjoyment.

Oh, would that wandering ever on and on

I, laden with my melancholy burden

Of shrunken ashes, might with feeble footsteps

In expiation come where last I saw her.

There lay she dead within my arms, and there

Deceiv’d I saw her come to life again.

I thought I clasp’d her, thought I held her fast,

But now she is forever torn from me.

But there will I immortalize my sorrow.

A tribute to her rescue did I vow,

Enraptur’d by the marvel of my dream.

E’en now the gardener’s skilful hand is making

Through wood and fell a labyrinth of paths,

Enclosing round about the sacred spot

Where to his heart my royal master press’d

My daughter, and her princely birth confess’d.

Where henceforth symmetry and just proportion

Would grace the spot which brought me happiness.

There not a hand shall labor! Half completed

This plan shall be an emblem of my fate.

But the memorial—that I still shall found.

Heap’d up of unhewn bowlders, orderless,

There will I wander, there in silence dwell

Till Death at last shall bring desir’d relief.

Oh, let me there, like stone, dream life away,

Until the slender trace of former care

Shall vanish from this melancholy desert.

In freedom shall the meadow green with grass

And bough with bough in wildness intertwine,

The bending birch’s head shall sweep the ground,

The tender saplings wax to mighty trees,

And moss shall clothe around the slippery stems.

Time passes without note: for she is gone

By whose development I mark’d the years.

Secular Priest.

And will that man whose pleasure oft has been

To mingle in the beneficent whirl of life

Allow himself to shun the busy world

And choose the monotony of loneliness,

Because a burden unendurable

Has roll’d upon him with its threatening doom?

Go forth! with eagle swiftness through the land,

Through foreign kingdoms, that before thy mind

The world and all its glories may arise.

Duke.

What have I in the world to look for now,

When she no longer meets my eye who was

The only object that I cared to see?

Shall stream and mountain, vale and wood and fell,

In varied panorama pass before me,

And only wake the bitter need I feel

To hold once more the form so dearly lov’d?

From mountain-top down to the ocean wide

What would the wealth of nature be to me—

Recalling me to poverty and loss?

Secular Priest.

But novel wealth lies close before thy hand!

Duke.

’Tis through the eye undimm’d of youth alone

That things familiar vivified can stir us;

When the enthusiasm long despis’d

Comes to us pleasantly from childish lips.

And so I plann’d to show her all the realm,

The peopled plains, the forest depths, the rivers,

And all the boundless majesty of ocean,

So that the intoxication of her gaze

When turn’d upon the infinite of space

Should fill my soul with infinite of love!

Secular Priest.

If thou, exalted Prince, didst not aspire

To spend the glorious days of fullest life

In contemplation, if activity

In doing for unnumber’d multitudes

Gave thee the precedent unto the throne

For noble service in the common good,

Instead of accident of kingly birth,

Thus in the name of all I summon thee:

Take courage! Let the melancholy hours

Which darken thy horizon be, for others,

Through consolation, counsel, aid, no less

Than for thyself, bright hours of happiness.

Duke.

How shallow and disgusting such a life,

Where every motion, every impulse brings

Ever new need of motion, need of impulse,

And no desir’d result at last rewards.

That did I see in her alone: for her

I strove and won with pleasure keen

That I might build a realm of pleasing fortune.

So I was genial, was a friend to all,

Obliging, quick, in deed and counsel lavish.

“It is the father in me that they love,”

I said; “they thank the father, and, in time,

The daughter will they welcome as their friend.”

Secular Priest.

No time is left for sentimental musings!

Exalted Prince, quite different thoughts demand thee.

Shall I the secret hazard? I the humblest

Among thy servitors? The eager glances

Of all are turn’d to thee, these dubious days,

Thy solid worth, thy strength undeviating.

Duke.

The happy man alone feels worth and strength!

Secular Priest.

The pain intense of woes intolerable

Are bail unto the moment for vast meaning.

Let me have pardon if I boldly wage

To speak the confidential tidings out!

How from below fermenting passions seethe!

How ineffectual the force above!

Not every one has sight to see but thou

More than the multitude in which I move.

Oh, do not falter now the storm draws nigh,

But seize the helm and guide the weltering ship

For the advantage of thy fatherland.

Forget thy grief: else will a thousand fathers

Like thee their children mourn, a thousand children

Call vainly for their fathers, and the cries

Of mourning mothers echo horribly

Against the pitiless hollow prison walls.

Oh, bring an offering of thy grief and pain

Unto the altar of the common weal.

And all whom thou wilt rescue from this doom

Thou shalt in compensation win as children.

Duke.

From gloomy corners do not raise again

The swarm opaque of spectres to oppress me,

Which through my daughter’s wonder-working power

Were often bann’d and readily put to flight.

That all-compelling might of love is vanish’d

Which sang unto my soul in pleasant dreams.

Now heavy on me weighs with solid pressure

The actual present, threatening to crush me.

Away! away! Take me from out the world!

And if the robe in which thou movest lie not,

Then lead me to the place where patience dwells,—

Unto the monastery, and leave me there

In universal silence, silent, bowed,

To sink, a weary mortal, to the vault.

Secular Priest.

Me scarcely it becomes to recommend

The world to thee: yet boldly will I speak!

Not in the grave nor yet upon the grave

The noble man will waste his wealth of longing.

He turns unto himself, and full of wonder

He finds the lost again within his heart.

Duke.

The fact that such a treasure still remains

When far and farther flies the treasure lost,

That is the torment which the parted member

Forever torn away must still renew

Upon the pang-wrench’d, palpitating body.

Dismember’d life who can unite again?

Annihilated! who rebuild?

Secular Priest.

The spirit!

The spirit of man for whom is nothing lost

Which once was priz’d and held in firm possession.

So lives Eugenie still, within thy mind,

Which she erewhile sustain’d, in which she stirr’d

Perception of the wondrous works of Nature.

Still as a lofty pattern doth she work,

Protecting thee from common things and bad

Which, every hour, may meet thee. And the glory

Reflected from her noble truth will banish

The empty falsehood that would sting thee.

So through her power feel that thy strength is doubled,

And give her back a life invulnerable

Which can be shatter’d by no earthly force.

Duke.

Nay, let some intricate net of death encoil me

With gloomy glowering web of woven dreams.

And, O thou image, perfect in thy beauty,

Remain for me forever young and changeless!

Around me let the pure light of thine eyes

Forever shine! Where’er my steps may wander

Do thou go with me, pointing out the way

Amid the thorny labyrinth of earth!

Thou art no figment of a dream! I see thee!

Just as thou wast, art thou. Almighty God

Conceiv’d thee perfect, perfect wast thou made.

Thou art a portion of the Infinite,

The Endless, and thou art forever mine.