Part 17

Below the hills a marshy plain Infects what I so long have been retrieving; This stagnant pool likewise to drain Were now my latest and my best achieving. To many millions let me furnish soil, Though not secure, yet free to active toil; Green, fertile fields, where men and herds go forth At once, with comfort, on the newest earth, And swiftly settled on the hill's firm base, Created by the bold, industrious race. A land like Paradise here, round about; Up to the brink the tide may roar without, And though it gnaw, to burst with force the limit, By common impulse all unite to hem it. Yes! to this thought I hold with firm persistence; The last result of wisdom stamps it true: He only earns his freedom and existence Who daily conquers them anew. Thus here, by dangers girt, shall glide away Of childhood, manhood, age, the vigorous day: And such a throng I fain would see,-- Stand on free soil among a people free! Then dared I hail the Moment fleeing: "_Ah, still delay--thou art so fair!_" The traces cannot, of mine earthly being, In aeons perish,--they are there! In proud fore-feeling of such lofty bliss, I now enjoy the highest Moment,--this! [_Faust sinks back: the Lemures take him and lay him upon the ground._]

MEPHISTOPHELES

No joy could sate him, and suffice no bliss! To catch but shifting shapes was his endeavor: The latest, poorest, emptiest Moment--this,-- He wished to hold it fast forever. Me he resisted in such vigorous wise, But Time is lord, on earth the old man lies. The clock stands still--

CHORUS

Stands still! silent as midnight, now! The index falls.

MEPHISTOPHELES

It falls; and it is finished, here!

CHORUS

'Tis past!

MEPHISTOPHELES

Past! a stupid word. If past, then why? Past and pure Naught, complete monotony! What good for us, this endlessly creating?-- What is created then annihilating? "And now it's past!" Why read a page so twisted? 'Tis just the same as if it ne'er existed, Yet goes in circles round as if it had, however: I'd rather choose, instead, the Void forever.

THE SALVATION OF FAUST

ANGELS [_Soaring in the higher atmosphere, bearing the immortal part of Faust_]

The noble spirit now is free, And saved from evil scheming: Whoe'er aspires unweariedly Is not beyond redeeming. And if he feels the grace of love That from on high is given, The blessed hosts, that wait above, Shall welcome him to heaven!

THE YOUNGER ANGELS

They, the roses, freely spended By the penitent, the glorious, Helped to make the fight victorious, And the lofty work is ended. We this precious soul have won us; Evil ones we forced to shun us; Devils fled us when we hit them: 'Stead of pangs of hell, that bit them, Love pangs felt they, sharper, vaster: Even he, old Satan Master, Pierced with keenest pain retreated. Now rejoice! The work's completed!

THE MORE PERFECT ANGELS

Earth's residue to bear Hath sorely pressed us; It were not pure and fair, Though 'twere asbestus. When every element The mind's high forces Have seized, subdued, and blent, No angel divorces Twin natures single grown, That inly mate them: Eternal love alone Can separate them.

THE YOUNGER ANGELS

Mist-like on heights above, We now are seeing Nearer and nearer move Spiritual Being. The clouds are growing clear; And moving throngs appear Of blessed boys, Free from the earthly gloom, In circling poise, Who taste the cheer Of the new springtime bloom Of the upper sphere. Let them inaugurate Him to the perfect state, Now, as their peer!

THE BLESSED BOYS

Gladly receive we now Him, as a chrysalis: Therefore achieve we now Pledge of our bliss. The earth-flakes dissipate That cling around him! See, he is fair and great! Divine Life hath crowned him.

DOCTOR MARIANUS [_In the highest, purest cell_]

Free is the view at last, The spirit lifted: There women, floating past, Are upward drifted: The Glorious One therein, With star-crown tender,-- The pure, the Heavenly Queen, I know her splendor.

[_Enraptured_]

Highest Mistress of the World! Let me in the azure Tent of Heaven, in light unfurled, Here thy Mystery measure! Justify sweet thoughts that move Breast of man to meet thee, And with holy bliss of love Bear him up to greet thee! With unconquered courage we Do thy bidding highest; But at once shall gentle be, When thou pacifiest. Virgin, pure in brightest sheen, Mother sweet, supernal,-- Unto us Elected Queen, Peer of Gods Eternal! Light clouds are circling Around her splendor,-- Penitent women Of natures tender, Her knees embracing, Ether respiring, Mercy requiring! Thou, in immaculate ray, Mercy not leavest, And the lightly led astray, Who trust thee, receivest! In their weakness fallen at length, Hard it is to save them: Who can crush, by native strength, Vices that enslave them? Whose the foot that may not slip On the surface slanting? Whom befool not eye and lip, Breath and voice enchanting?

_The_ Mater Gloriosa _soars into the space_

CHORUS OF WOMEN PENITENTS

To heights thou'rt speeding Of endless Eden: Receive our pleading, Transcendent Maiden, With mercy laden!

MAGNA PECCATRIX [_St. Luke_, vii. 36]

By the love before him kneeling,-- Him, thy Son, a Godlike vision; By the tears like balsam stealing, Spite of Pharisees' derision; By the box, whose ointment precious Shed its spice and odors cheery; By the locks, whose softest meshes Dried the holy feet and weary!--

MULIER SAMARITANA [_St. John_, iv.]

By that well, the ancient station Whither Abram's flocks were driven; By the jar, whose restoration To the Savior's lips was given; By the fountain pure and vernal, Thence its present bounty spending,-- Overflowing, bright, eternal, Watering the worlds unending!--

MARIA AEGYPTIACA [_Acta Sanctorum_]

By the place where the immortal Body of the Lord hath lain; By the arm which, from the portal, Warning, thrust me back again; By the forty years' repentance In the lonely desert land; By the blissful farewell sentence Which I wrote upon the sand!--

THE THREE

Thou thy presence not deniest Unto sinful women ever,-- Liftest them to win the highest Gain of penitent endeavor,-- So, from this good soul withdraw not-- Who but once forgot, transgressing, Who her loving error saw not-- Pardon adequate, and blessing!

UNA POENITENTIUM [_Formerly named Margaret, stealing closer_]

Incline, O Maiden, With mercy laden, In light unfading, Thy gracious countenance upon my bliss! My loved, my lover, His trials over In yonder world, returns to me in this!

BLESSED BOYS [_Approaching in hovering circles_]

With mighty limbs he towers Already above us; He, for this love of ours, Will richlier love us. Early were we removed, Ere Life could reach us; Yet he hath learned and proved, And he will teach us.

THE PENITENT [_Formerly named Margaret_]

The spirit choir around him seeing, New to himself, he scarce divines His heritage of new-born Being, When like the Holy Host he shines. Behold, how he each band hath cloven The earthly life had round him thrown, And through his garb, of ether woven, The early force of youth is shown! Vouchsafe to me that I instruct him! Still dazzles him the Day's new glare.

MATER GLORIOSA

Rise thou to higher spheres! Conduct him, Who, feeling thee, shall follow there!

DOCTOR MARIANUS [_Prostrate, adoring_]

Penitents, look up, elate. Where she beams salvation; Gratefully to blessed fate Grow, in re-creation! Be our souls, as they have been, Dedicate to thee! Virgin Holy, Mother, Queen, Goddess, gracious be!

CHORUS MYSTICUS

All things transitory But as symbols are sent: Earth's insufficiency Here grows to Event: The Indescribable, Here it is done: The Woman Soul leadeth us Upward and on!

MIGNON'S LOVE AND LONGING

From 'Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship.' Carlyle's Translation

Nothing is more touching than the first disclosure of a love which has been nursed in silence; of a faith grown strong in secret, and which at last comes forth in the hour of need and reveals itself to him who formerly has reckoned it of small account. The bud which had been closed so long and firmly was now ripe to burst its swathings, and Wilhelm's heart could never have been readier to welcome the impressions of affection.

She stood before him, and noticed his disquietude. "Master!" she cried, "if thou art unhappy, what will become of Mignon?" "Dear little creature," said he, taking her hands, "thou too art part of my anxieties. I must go hence." She looked at his eyes, glistening with restrained tears, and knelt down with vehemence before him. He kept her hands; she laid her head upon his knees, and remained quite still. He played with her hair, patted her, and spoke kindly to her. She continued motionless for a considerable time. At last he felt a sort of palpitating movement in her, which began very softly, and then by degrees, with increasing violence, diffused itself over all her frame. "What ails thee, Mignon?" cried he; "what ails thee?" She raised her little head, looked at him, and all at once laid her hand upon her heart, with the countenance of one repressing the utterance of pain. He raised her up, and she fell upon his breast; he pressed her towards him, and kissed her. She replied not by any pressure of the hand, by any motion whatever. She held firmly against her heart; and all at once gave a cry, which was accompanied by spasmodic movements of the body. She started up, and immediately fell down before him, as if broken in every joint. It was an excruciating moment! "My child!" cried he, raising her up and clasping her fast,--"my child, what ails thee?" The palpitations continued, spreading from the heart over all the lax and powerless limbs; she was merely hanging in his arms. All at once she again became quite stiff, like one enduring the sharpest corporeal agony; and soon with a new vehemence all her frame once more became alive, and she threw herself about his neck, like a bent spring that is closing; while in her soul, as it were, a strong rent took place, and at the same moment a stream of tears flowed from her shut eyes into his bosom. He held her fast. She wept, and no tongue can express the force of these tears. Her long hair had loosened, and was hanging down before her; it seemed as if her whole being was melting incessantly into a brook of tears. Her rigid limbs were again become relaxed; her inmost soul was pouring itself forth; in the wild confusion of the moment, Wilhelm was afraid she would dissolve in his arms, and leave nothing there for him to grasp. He held her faster and faster. "My child!" cried he, "my child! thou art indeed mine, if that word can comfort thee. Thou art mine! I will keep thee, I will never forsake thee!" Her tears continued flowing. At last she raised herself; a faint gladness shone upon her face. "My father!" cried she, "thou wilt not forsake me? Wilt be my father? I am thy child!"

Softly, at this moment, the harp began to sound before the door; the old man brought his most affecting songs as an evening offering to our friend, who, holding his child ever faster in his arms, enjoyed the most pure and undescribable felicity.

* * * * *

Know'st thou the land where citron-apples bloom, And oranges like gold in leafy gloom, A gentle wind from deep-blue heaven blows, The myrtle thick, and high the laurel grows? Know'st thou it then? 'Tis there! Tis there, O my true loved one, thou with me must go!

Know'st thou the house, its porch with pillars tall? The rooms do glitter, glitters bright the hall, And marble statues stand, and look each one: What's this, poor child, to thee they've done? Know'st thou it then? 'Tis there! 'Tis there, O my protector, thou with me must go!

"Know'st thou the hill, the bridge that hangs on cloud? The mules in mist grope o'er the torrent loud, In caves lie coiled the dragon's ancient brood, The crag leaps down, and over it the flood: Know'st thou it then? 'Tis there! 'Tis there Our way runs: O my father, wilt thou go?"

Next morning, on looking for Mignon about the house, Wilhelm did not find her, but was informed that she had gone out early with Melina, who had risen betimes to receive the wardrobe and other apparatus of his theatre.

After the space of some hours, Wilhelm heard the sound of music before his door. At first he thought it was the harper come again to visit him; but he soon distinguished the tones of a cithern, and the voice which began to sing was Mignon's. Wilhelm opened the door; the child came in, and sang him the song we have just given above.

The music and general expression of it pleased our friend extremely, though he could not understand all the words. He made her once more repeat the stanzas, and explain them; he wrote them down, and translated them into his native language. But the originality of its turns he could imitate only from afar: its childlike innocence of expression vanished from it in the process of reducing its broken phraseology to uniformity, and combining its disjointed parts. The charm of the tune, moreover, was entirely incomparable.

She began every verse in a stately and solemn manner, as if she wished to draw attention towards something wonderful, as if she had something weighty to communicate. In the third line, her tones became deeper and gloomier; the "Know'st thou it then?" was uttered with a show of mystery and eager circumspectness; in the "'Tis there! 'Tis there!" lay a boundless longing; and her "With me must go!" she modified at each repetition, so that now it appeared to entreat and implore, now to impel and persuade.

On finishing her song for the second time, she stood silent for a moment, looked keenly at Wilhelm, and asked him, "_Know'st_ thou the land?" "It must mean Italy," said Wilhelm: "where didst thou get the little song?" "Italy!" said Mignon, with an earnest air. "If thou go to Italy, take me along with thee; for I am too cold here." "Hast thou been there already, little dear?" said Wilhelm. But the child was silent, and nothing more could be got out of her.

WILHELM MEISTER'S INTRODUCTION TO SHAKESPEARE

From 'Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship.' Carlyle's Translation

"Have you never," said Jarno, taking him aside, "read one of Shakespeare's plays?"

"No," replied Wilhelm: "since the time when they became more known in Germany, I have myself grown unacquainted with the theatre; and I know not whether I should now rejoice that an old taste and occupation of my youth, has been by chance renewed. In the mean time, all that I have heard of these plays has excited little wish to become acquainted with such extraordinary monsters, which appear to set probability and dignity alike at defiance."

"I would advise you," said the other, "to make a trial, notwithstanding: it can do one no harm to look at what is extraordinary with one's own eyes. I will lend you a volume or two; and you cannot better spend your time than by casting everything aside, and retiring to the solitude of your old habitation, to look into the magic lantern of that unknown world. It is sinful of you to waste your hours in dressing out these apes to look more human, and teaching dogs to dance. One thing only I require,--you must not cavil at the form; the rest I can leave to your own good sense and feeling."

The horses were standing at the door; and Jarno mounted with some other cavaliers, to go and hunt. Wilhelm looked after him with sadness. He would fain have spoken much with this man who though in a harsh, unfriendly way, gave him new ideas,--ideas that he had need of.

Oftentimes a man, when approaching some development of his powers, capacities, and conceptions, gets into a perplexity from which a prudent friend might easily deliver him. He resembles a traveler, who, at but a short distance from the inn he is to rest at, falls into the water: were any one to catch him then and pull him to the bank, with one good wetting it were over; whereas, though he struggles out himself, it is often at the side where he tumbled in, and he has to make a wide and weary circuit before reaching his appointed object.

Wilhelm now began to have an inkling that things went forward in the world differently from what he had supposed. He now viewed close at hand the solemn and imposing life of the great and distinguished, and wondered at the easy dignity which they contrived to give it. An army on its march, a princely hero at the head of it, such a multitude of co-operating warriors, such a multitude of crowding worshipers, exalted his imagination. In this mood he received the promised books; and ere long, as may be easily supposed, the stream of that mighty genius laid hold of him and led him down to a shoreless ocean, where he soon completely forgot and lost himself....

Wilhelm had scarcely read one or two of Shakespeare's plays, till their effect on him became so strong that he could go no further. His whole soul was in commotion. He sought an opportunity to speak with Jarno; to whom, on meeting with him, he expressed his boundless gratitude for such delicious entertainment.

"I clearly enough foresaw," said Jarno, "that you would not remain insensible to the charms of the most extraordinary and most admirable of all writers."

"Yes!" exclaimed our friend: "I cannot recollect that any book, any man, any incident of my life, has produced such important effects on me, as the precious works to which by your kindness I have been directed. They seem as if they were performances of some celestial genius descending among men, to make them by the mildest instructions acquainted with themselves. They are no fictions! You would think, while reading them, you stood before the inclosed awful Books of Fate, while the whirlwind of most impassioned life was howling through the leaves, and tossing them fiercely to and fro. The strength and tenderness, the power and peacefulness of this man, have so astonished and transported me, that I long vehemently for the time when I shall have it in my power to read further."

"Bravo!" said Jarno, holding out his hand, and squeezing our friend's. "This is as it should be! And the consequences which I hope for will likewise surely follow."

"I wish," said Wilhelm, "I could but disclose to you all that is going on within me even now. All the anticipations I have ever had regarding man and his destiny, which have accompanied me from youth upwards often unobserved by myself, I find developed and fulfilled in Shakespeare's writings. It seems as if he cleared up every one of our enigmas to us, though we cannot say, Here or there is the word of solution. His men appear like natural men, and yet they are not. These, the most mysterious and complex productions of creation, here act before us as if they were watches, whose dial-plates and cases were of crystal, which pointed out according to their use the course of the hours and minutes; while at the same time you could discern the combination of wheels and springs that turn them. The few glances I have cast over Shakespeare's world incite me, more than anything beside, to quicken my footsteps forward into the actual world, to mingle in the flood of destinies that is suspended over it; and at length, if I shall prosper, to draw a few cups from the great ocean of true nature, and to distribute them from off the stage among the thirsting people of my native land."

WILHELM MEISTER'S ANALYSIS OF HAMLET

From 'Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship'

Seeing the company so favorably disposed, Wilhelm now hoped he might further have it in his power to converse with them on the poetic merit of the pieces which might come before them. "It is not enough," said he next day, when they were all again assembled, "for the actor merely to glance over a dramatic work, to judge of it by his first impression, and thus without investigation to declare his satisfaction or dissatisfaction with it. Such things may be allowed in a spectator, whose purpose it is rather to be entertained and moved than formally to criticize. But the actor, on the other hand, should be prepared to give a reason for his praise or censure: and how shall he do this if he have not taught himself to penetrate the sense, the views, and feelings of his author? A common error is, to form a judgment of a drama from a single part in it; and to look upon this part itself in an isolated point of view, not in its connection with the whole. I have noticed this within a few days so clearly in my own conduct, that I will give you the account as an example, if you please to hear me patiently.

"You all know Shakespeare's incomparable 'Hamlet': our public reading of it at the Castle yielded every one of us the greatest satisfaction. On that occasion we proposed to act the piece; and I, not knowing what I undertook, engaged to play the Prince's part. This I conceived that I was studying, while I began to get by heart the strongest passages, the soliloquies, and those scenes in which force of soul, vehemence, and elevation of feeling have the freest scope; where the agitated heart is allowed to display itself with touching expressiveness.

"I further conceived that I was penetrating quite into the spirit of the character, while I endeavored as it were to take upon myself the load of deep melancholy under which my prototype was laboring, and in this humor to pursue him through the strange labyrinths of his caprices and his singularities. Thus learning, thus practicing, I doubted not but I should by-and-by become one person with my hero.

"But the farther I advanced, the more difficult did it become for me to form any image of the whole, in its general bearings; till at last it seemed as if impossible. I next went through the entire piece, without interruption; but here too I found much that I could not away with. At one time the characters, at another time the manner of displaying them, seemed inconsistent; and I almost despaired of finding any general tint, in which I might present my whole part with all its shadings and variations. In such devious paths I toiled, and wandered long in vain; till at length a hope arose that I might reach my aim in quite a new way.

"I set about investigating every trace of Hamlet's character, as it had shown itself before his father's death: I endeavored to distinguish what in it was independent of this mournful event; independent of the terrible events that followed; and what most probably the young man would have been, had no such thing occurred.

"Soft, and from a noble stem, this royal flower had sprung up under the immediate influences of majesty; the idea of moral rectitude with that of princely elevation, the feeling of the good and dignified with the consciousness of high birth, had in him been unfolded simultaneously. He was a prince, by birth a prince; and he wished to reign, only that good men might be good without obstruction. Pleasing in form, polished by nature, courteous from the heart, he was meant to be the pattern of youth and the joy of the world.