📄 testbook.txt
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My father was a worthy man, confused
And darkened with his narrow lucubrations,
Who with a whimsical, though well-meant patience,
On Nature's holy circles mused.
Shut up in his black laboratory,
Experimenting without end,
'Midst his adepts, till he grew hoary,
He sought the opposing powers to blend.
Thus, a red lion,[11] a bold suitor, married
The silver lily, in the lukewarm bath,
And, from one bride-bed to another harried,
The two were seen to fly before the flaming wrath.
If then, with colors gay and splendid,
The glass the youthful queen revealed,
Here was the physic, death the patients' sufferings ended,
And no one asked, who then was healed?
Thus, with electuaries so satanic,
Worse than the plague with all its panic,
We rioted through hill and vale;
Myself, with my own hands, the drug to thousands giving,
They passed away, and I am living
To hear men's thanks the murderers hail!
_Wagner._ Forbear! far other name that service merits!
Can a brave man do more or less
Than with nice conscientiousness
To exercise the calling he inherits?
If thou, as youth, thy father honorest,
To learn from him thou wilt desire;
If thou, as man, men with new light hast blest,
Then may thy son to loftier heights aspire.
_Faust._ O blest! who hopes to find repose,
Up from this mighty sea of error diving!
Man cannot use what he already knows,
To use the unknown ever striving.
But let not such dark thoughts a shadow throw
O'er the bright joy this hour inspires!
See how the setting sun, with ruddy glow,
The green-embosomed hamlet fires!
He sinks and fades, the day is lived and gone,
He hastens forth new scenes of life to waken.
O for a wing to lift and bear me on,
And on, to where his last rays beckon!
Then should I see the world's calm breast
In everlasting sunset glowing,
The summits all on fire, each valley steeped in rest,
The silver brook to golden rivers flowing.
No savage mountain climbing to the skies
Should stay the godlike course with wild abysses;
And now the sea, with sheltering, warm recesses
Spreads out before the astonished eyes.
At last it seems as if the God were sinking;
But a new impulse fires the mind,
Onward I speed, his endless glory drinking,
The day before me and the night behind,
The heavens above my head and under me the ocean.
A lovely dream,--meanwhile he's gone from sight.
Ah! sure, no earthly wing, in swiftest flight,
May with the spirit's wings hold equal motion.
Yet has each soul an inborn feeling
Impelling it to mount and soar away,
When, lost in heaven's blue depths, the lark is pealing
High overhead her airy lay;
When o'er the mountain pine's black shadow,
With outspread wing the eagle sweeps,
And, steering on o'er lake and meadow,
The crane his homeward journey keeps.
_Wagner._ I've had myself full many a wayward hour,
But never yet felt such a passion's power.
One soon grows tired of field and wood and brook,
I envy not the fowl of heaven his pinions.
Far nobler joy to soar through thought's dominions
From page to page, from book to book!
Ah! winter nights, so dear to mind and soul!
Warm, blissful life through all the limbs is thrilling,
And when thy hands unfold a genuine ancient scroll,
It seems as if all heaven the room were filling.
_Faust_. One passion only has thy heart possessed;
The other, friend, O, learn it never!
Two souls, alas! are lodged in my wild breast,
Which evermore opposing ways endeavor,
The one lives only on the joys of time,
Still to the world with clamp-like organs clinging;
The other leaves this earthly dust and slime,
To fields of sainted sires up-springing.
O, are there spirits in the air,
That empire hold 'twixt earth's and heaven's dominions,
Down from your realm of golden haze repair,
Waft me to new, rich life, upon your rosy pinions!
Ay! were a magic mantle only mine,
To soar o'er earth's wide wildernesses,
I would not sell it for the costliest dresses,
Not for a royal robe the gift resign.
_Wagner_. O, call them not, the well known powers of air,
That swarm through all the middle kingdom, weaving
Their fairy webs, with many a fatal snare
The feeble race of men deceiving.
First, the sharp spirit-tooth, from out the North,
And arrowy tongues and fangs come thickly flying;
Then from the East they greedily dart forth,
Sucking thy lungs, thy life-juice drying;
If from the South they come with fever thirst,
Upon thy head noon's fiery splendors heaping;
The Westwind brings a swarm, refreshing first,
Then all thy world with thee in stupor steeping.
They listen gladly, aye on mischief bent,
Gladly draw near, each weak point to espy,
They make believe that they from heaven are sent,
Whispering like angels, while they lie.
But let us go! The earth looks gray, my friend,
The air grows cool, the mists ascend!
At night we learn our homes to prize.--
Why dost thou stop and stare with all thy eyes?
What can so chain thy sight there, in the gloaming?
_Faust_. Seest thou that black dog through stalks and stubble roaming?
_Wagner_. I saw him some time since, he seemed not strange to me.
_Faust_. Look sharply! What dost take the beast to be?
_Wagner_. For some poor poodle who has lost his master,
And, dog-like, scents him o'er the ground.
_Faust_. Markst thou how, ever nearer, ever faster,
Towards us his spiral track wheels round and round?
And if my senses suffer no confusion,
Behind him trails a fiery glare.
_Wagner_. 'Tis probably an optical illusion;
I still see only a black poodle there.
_Faust_. He seems to me as he were tracing slyly
His magic rings our feet at last to snare.
_Wagner_. To me he seems to dart around our steps so shyly,
As if he said: is one of them my master there?
_Faust_. The circle narrows, he is near!
_Wagner_. Thou seest! a dog we have, no spectre, here!
He growls and stops, crawls on his belly, too,
And wags his tail,--as all dogs do.
_Faust_. Come here, sir! come, our comrade be!
_Wagner_. He has a poodle's drollery.
Stand still, and he, too, waits to see;
Speak to him, and he jumps on thee;
Lose something, drop thy cane or sling it
Into the stream, he'll run and bring it.
_Faust_. I think you're right; I trace no spirit here,
'Tis all the fruit of training, that is clear.
_Wagner_. A well-trained dog is a great treasure,
Wise men in such will oft take pleasure.
And he deserves your favor and a collar,
He, of the students the accomplished scholar.
[_They go in through the town gate._]
STUDY-CHAMBER.
_Enter_ FAUST _with the_ POODLE.
I leave behind me field and meadow
Veiled in the dusk of holy night,
Whose ominous and awful shadow
Awakes the better soul to light.
To sleep are lulled the wild desires,
The hand of passion lies at rest;
The love of man the bosom fires,
The love of God stirs up the breast.
Be quiet, poodle! what worrisome fiend hath possest thee,
Nosing and snuffling so round the door?
Go behind the stove there and rest thee,
There's my best pillow--what wouldst thou more?
As, out on the mountain-paths, frisking and leaping,
Thou, to amuse us, hast done thy best,
So now in return lie still in my keeping,
A quiet, contented, and welcome guest.
When, in our narrow chamber, nightly,
The friendly lamp begins to burn,
Then in the bosom thought beams brightly,
Homeward the heart will then return.
Reason once more bids passion ponder,
Hope blooms again and smiles on man;
Back to life's rills he yearns to wander,
Ah! to the source where life began.
Stop growling, poodle! In the music Elysian
That laps my soul at this holy hour,
These bestial noises have jarring power.
We know that men will treat with derision
Whatever they cannot understand,
At goodness and truth and beauty's vision
Will shut their eyes and murmur and howl at it;
And must the dog, too, snarl and growl at it?
But ah, with the best will, I feel already,
No peace will well up in me, clear and steady.
But why must hope so soon deceive us,
And the dried-up stream in fever leave us?
For in this I have had a full probation.
And yet for this want a supply is provided,
To a higher than earth the soul is guided,
We are ready and yearn for revelation:
And where are its light and warmth so blent
As here in the New Testament?
I feel, this moment, a mighty yearning
To expound for once the ground text of all,
The venerable original
Into my own loved German honestly turning.
[_He opens the volume, and applies himself to the task_.]
"In the beginning was the _Word_." I read.
But here I stick! Who helps me to proceed?
The _Word_--so high I cannot--dare not, rate it,
I must, then, otherwise translate it,
If by the spirit I am rightly taught.
It reads: "In the beginning was the _thought_."
But study well this first line's lesson,
Nor let thy pen to error overhasten!
Is it the _thought_ does all from time's first hour?
"In the beginning," read then, "was the _power_."
Yet even while I write it down, my finger
Is checked, a voice forbids me there to linger.
The spirit helps! At once I dare to read
And write: "In the beginning was the _deed_."
If I with thee must share my chamber,
Poodle, now, remember,
No more howling,
No more growling!
I had as lief a bull should bellow,
As have for a chum such a noisy fellow.
Stop that yell, now,
One of us must quit this cell now!
'Tis hard to retract hospitality,
But the door is open, thy way is free.
But what ails the creature?
Is this in the course of nature?
Is it real? or one of Fancy's shows?
How long and broad my poodle grows!
He rises from the ground;
That is no longer the form of a hound!
Heaven avert the curse from us!
He looks like a hippopotamus,
With his fiery eyes and the terrible white
Of his grinning teeth! oh what a fright
Have I brought with me into the house! Ah now,
No mystery art thou!
Methinks for such half hellish brood
The key of Solomon were good.
_Spirits_ [_in the passage_]. Softly! a fellow is caught there!
Keep back, all of you, follow him not there!
Like the fox in the trap,
Mourns the old hell-lynx his mishap.
But give ye good heed!
This way hover, that way hover,
Over and over,
And he shall right soon be freed.
Help can you give him,
O do not leave him!
Many good turns he's done us,
Many a fortune won us.
_Faust_. First, to encounter the creature
By the spell of the Four, says the teacher:
Salamander shall glisten,[12]
Undina lapse lightly,
Sylph vanish brightly,
Kobold quick listen.
He to whom Nature
Shows not, as teacher,
Every force
And secret source,
Over the spirits
No power inherits.
Vanish in glowing
Flame, Salamander!
Inward, spirally flowing,
Gurgle, Undine!
Gleam in meteoric splendor,
Airy Queen!
Thy homely help render,
Incubus! Incubus!
Forth and end the charm for us!
No kingdom of Nature
Resides in the creature.
He lies there grinning--'tis clear, my charm
Has done the monster no mite of harm.
I'll try, for thy curing,
Stronger adjuring.
Art thou a jail-bird,
A runaway hell-bird?
This sign,[13] then--adore it!
They tremble before it
All through the dark dwelling.
His hair is bristling--his body swelling.
Reprobate creature!
Canst read his nature?
The Uncreated,
Ineffably Holy,
With Deity mated,
Sin's victim lowly?
Driven behind the stove by my spells,
Like an elephant he swells;
He fills the whole room, so huge he's grown,
He waxes shadowy faster and faster.
Rise not up to the ceiling--down!
Lay thyself at the feet of thy master!
Thou seest, there's reason to dread my ire.
I'll scorch thee with the holy fire!
Wait not for the sight
Of the thrice-glowing light!
Wait not to feel the might
Of the potentest spell in all my treasure!
MEPHISTOPHELES.
[_As the mist sinks, steps forth from behind the stove,
dressed as a travelling scholasticus_.]
Why all this noise? What is your worship's pleasure?
_Faust_. This was the poodle's essence then!
A travelling cla
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