University of Virginia Library

SCENE II.

Enter Faust and Wagner.
FAUST.
The ice is now melted from stream and brook
By the Spring's genial life-giving look,
And Hope forth smiles in the verdant vale;
The ancient Winter, weak and frail,
Hath drawn him back to the mountains grey;
And thence he sends, as he hastens away,
Powerless showers of icy hail,
Sweeping over the green-clad plain;
But the Sun may brook no white,
The power of new life may nothing restrain,
Bright paints he all with his life-giving light;
And since few flowers yet deck the mead
He takes him gay-dressed folks in their stead.
Now from these heights let me turn me back
To view the city's busy track.
From the hollow gloomy gate
In motley crowds they are pressing their way.
All sun themselves so blithe to-day.
Our Lord's resurrection they celebrate,
Because themselves to life are arisen.
From lowly dwellings' murky prison,
From labour and business' fetters so tight,
From the press of gables and roofs, and from
The squeezing of narrow streets, do they come;
From the churches' solemn night
Have they all been brought to the light.
Lo! how nimbly the multitude
Through the fields and the gardens hurry,
How, in its breadth and length, the flood
Wafts onward many a gleesome wherry,
And this last skiff moves from the brink
So laden that it seems to sink.
Ev'n from the distant hills is seen
Their gaudy raiment's glittering sheen.
I hear the hamlet's noisy rout,
Here have the poor a heaven of their own,
And great and small contented shout.
Here must I be, here may I be a man.

WAGNER.
To walk, most learned sir, with you,
Both honours me and profits too;
And yet, alone I should not think it good
To mingle with the thoughtless multitude,
Being a foe to every thing that's rude.
I cannot brook their senseless howling,
Their fiddling, screaming, nine-pin-bowling.
Like men possess'd, they rave along,
And call it joy, and call it song.