What is the cause of this new power
Which doth my fevered being move,
Momently raging more and more?
What subtle pain is kindled now
Which from my heart doth overflow
Into my senses?—

ALL.

Love! O love!

JUSTINA.

'Tis that enamoured nightingale
Who gives me the reply;

He ever tells the same soft tale
Of passion and of constancy
To his mate, who rapt and fond
Listening sits, a bough beyond.

Be silent, Nightingale-no more
Make me think, in hearing thee
Thus tenderly thy love deplore,
If a bird can feel his so,

What a man would feel for me.
And, voluptuous vine, O thou

Who seekest most when least pursuing,-
To the trunk thou interlacest
Art the verdure which embracest,
And the weight which is its ruin,—
No more, with green embraces, vine,
Make me think on what thou lovest,-
For whilst thou thus thy boughs entwine,
I fear lest thou shouldst teach me, sophist,
How arins might be entangled too.

Light-enchanted sunflower, thou
Who gazest ever true and tender
On the sun's revolving splendour!
Follow not his faithless glance
With thy faded countenance,
Nor teach my beating heart to fear,
If leaves can mourn without a tear,

How eyes must weep! O Nightingale,
Cease from thy enamoured tale,--
Leafy vine, unwreathe thy bower,
Restless sunflower, cease to move,-

Or tell me all, what poisonous power
Ye use against me-

ALL.

Love! love! love!

Jus. It cannot be !-Whom have I ever loved?

Trophies of my oblivion and disdain,

Floro and Lelio did I not reject ?

And Cyprian ?— [She becomes troubled at the name of CYPRIAN. Did I not requite him

With such severity, that he has fled

Where none has ever heard of him again?

Alas! I now begin to fear that this

May be the occasion whence desire grows bold,
As if there were no danger. From the moment
That I pronounced to my own listening heart,
Cyprian is absent, O me miserable!

I know not what I feel!

[More calmly.

It must be pity
To think that such a man, whom all the world
Admired, should be forgot by all the world,

And I the cause.

[She again becomes troubled. And yet if it were pity, Floro and Lelio might have equal share, For they are both imprisoned for my sake. Alas! what reasonings are these? it is Enough I pity him, and that, in vain, Without this ceremonious subtlety.

{Calmly.

And woe is me! I know not where to find him now,
Even should I seek him through this wide world.

Enter DEMON.

Demon. Follow, and I will lead thee where he is.

Jus. And who art thou, who hast found entrance hither, Into my chamber through the doors and locks?

Art thou a monstrous shadow which my madness
Has formed in the idle air?

Demon.
No. I am one
Called by the thought which tyrannizes thee
From his eternal dwelling; who this day

Is pledged to bear thee unto Cyprian.

Jus. So shall thy promise fail. This agony Of passion which afflicts my heart and soul May sweep imagination in its storm,

The will is firm.

Demon.

Already half is done
In the imagination of an act.

The sin incurred, the pleasure then remains,
Let not the will stop half way on the road.

Jus. I will not be discouraged, nor despair,
Although I thought it, and although 'tis true,
That thought is but a prelude to the deed:
Thought is not in my power, but action is:
I will not move my foot to follow thee.

Demon. But far a mightier wisdom than thine own
Exerts itself within thee, with such power

Compelling thee to that which it inclines

That it shall force thy step; how wilt thou then
Resist, Justina?

Fus.
Demon.

By my free-will.

Must force thy will.

Jus.

I

It is invincible;

It were not free if thou hadst power upon it.

[He draws, but cannot move her.

It were bought

Demon. Come, where a pleasure waits thee.
Jus.

Too dear.

Demon. Twill soothe thy heart to softest peace.
Jus. "Tis dread captivity.

Demon.

"Tis joy, 'tis glory.

Jus. 'Tis shame, 'tis torment, 'tis despair.
Demon.

Canst thou defend thyself from that or me,

If my power drags thee onward?
Jus.

Consists in God.

My defence

But how

[He vainly endeavours to force her, and at last
releases her.

Demon. Woman, thou hast subdued me
Only by not owning thyself subdued.
But since thou thus findest defence in God,
I will assume a feigned form, and thus
Make thee a victim of my baffled rage.
For I will mask a spirit in thy form
Who will betray thy name to infamy,
And doubly shall I triumph in thy loss,
First by dishonouring thee, and then by turning
False pleasure to true ignominy.

Jus.

I

Appeal to Heaven against thee; so that Heaven
May scatter thy delusions, and the blot
Upon my fame vanish in idle thought,
Even as flame dies in the envious air,

And as the flowret wanes at morning frost,
And thou shouldst never-But, alas! to whom
Do I still speak?-Did not a man but now
Stand here before me?-No, I am alone,
And yet I saw him. Is he gone so quickly?
Or can the heated mind engender shapes
From its own fear? Some terrible and strange
Peril is near.
Lisander! father! lord !

Livia!

Enter LISANDER and LIVIA.
O, my daughter! What?

Lis.

Liv. What?

Jus.

Saw you

A man go forth from my apartment now ?—
I scarce sustain myself!

A man here!

No, Lady.

'Tis impossible; the doors

Which led to this apartment were all locked.

[Exit.

Liv. [aside]. I daresay it was Moscon whom she saw, For he was locked up in my room.

It must

Lis.
Have been some image of thy fantasy.
Such melancholy as thou feedest, is
Skilful in forming such in the vain air
Out of the motes and atoms of the day.
Liv. My master's in the right.
Jus.
Delusion; but I fear some greater ill.
I feel as if out of my bleeding bosom
My heart were torn in fragments; ay,

O, would it were

Some mortal spell is wrought against my frame;

So potent was the charm, that had not God
Shielded my humble innocence from wrong,
I should have sought my sorrow and my shame
With willing steps.-Livia, quick bring my cloak,
For I must seek refuge from these extremes
Even in the temple of the highest God

Which secretly the faithful worship.

Liv. Here.

Fus. [putting on her cloak]. In this, as in a shroud of snow, may I Quench the consuming fire in which I burn,

Wasting away!

Lis.

And I will go with thee.

Liv. When I once see them safe out of the house

Let us go.

In thy just favour, Heaven!

Lis.

Jus. Thine is the cause, great God! turn for my sake,
And for thine own, mercifully to me!

SCENES FROM THE FAUST OF GOETHE.

PROLOGUE IN HEAVEN.

The Lord and the Host of Heaven. Enter three Archangels.

RAPHAEL.

THE sun makes music as of old
Amid the rival spheres of Heaven,
On its predestined circle rolled

With thunder speed: the Angels even
Draw strength from gazing on its glance,
Though none its meaning fathom may:
The world's unwithered countenance
Is bright as at creation's day.

GABRIEL.

And swift and swift, with rapid lightness,
The adorned Earth spins silently,
Alternating Elysian brightness

With deep and dreadful night; the sea
Foams in broad billows from the deep

Up to the rocks; and rocks and ocean,
Onward, with spheres which never sleep,
Are hurried in eternal motion.

MICHAEL.

And tempests in contention roar
From land to sea, from sea to land;
And, raging, weave a chain of power,
Which girds the earth, as with a band.

A flashing desolation there,

Flames before the thunder's way;

But thy servants, Lord, revere

The gentle changes of thy day.

CHORUS OF THE THREE.

The Angels draw strength from thy glance,
Though no one comprehend thee may;
Thy world's unwithered countenance
Is bright as on creation's day.*

Enter MEPHISTOPHELES.

Mep. As thou, O Lord, once more art kind enough
To interest thyself in our affairs-

And ask, "How goes it with you there below?"
And as indulgently at other times

Thou tookedst not my visits in ill part,

Thou seest me here once more among thy household.
Though I should scandalize this company,

You will excuse me if I do not talk

In the high style which they think fashionable;
My pathos would certainly make you laugh too,
Had you not long since given over laughing.
Nothing know I to say of suns and worlds;
I observe only how men plague themselves;
The little god o' the world keeps the same stamp,
As wonderful as on creation's day:

A little better would he live, hadst thou
Not given him a glimpse of heaven's light
Which he calls reason, and employs it only

To live more beastlily than any beast.

With reverence to your Lordship be it spoken,

* Raphael. The sun sounds, according to ancient custom, In the song of emulation of his brother-spheres.

And its fore-written circle

Fulfils with a step of thunder.

Its countenance gives the Angels strength
Though no one can fathom it.

The incredible high works

Are excellent as at the first day.

Gabriel. And swift, and inconceivably swift

The adornment of earth winds itself round,
And exchanges Paradise-clearness

With deep dreadful night.

The sea foams in broad waves

From its deep bottom, up to the rocks,
And rocks and sea are torn on together
In the eternal swift course of the spheres.
Michael. And storms roar in emulation
From sea to land, from land to sea,
And make, raging, a chain
Of deepest operation round about.
There flames a flashing destruction
Before the path of the thunderbolt.
But thy servants, Lord, revere

The gentle alternations of thy day.

Chorus. Thy countenance gives the Angels strength,
Though none can comprehend thee:

And all thy lofty works

Are excellent as at the first day.

Such is a literal translation of this astonishing Chorus; it is impossible to represent in another language the melody of the versification; even the volatile strength and delicacy of the ideas escape in the crucible of translation, and the reader is surprised to find a caput mortuum.-Author's Note.