Before the Gate from Faust - conclusion.

In the rest of Before the Gate Faust and Wagner discuss their very different views and a strange black poodle appears.

HE GOES ON WITH WAGNER

WAGNER

What lofty feelings you, great man, must gather

From this throng's reverence! Yes, he has much

True happiness who can draw such

Advantage from his gifts. The father

Points you out to his boy. Folk touch

And ask and press and rush around;

The dancers pause, no fiddles sound.

They stand in rows when you go near,

They throw their caps up toward the sky;

A little more and they would bow down here

As if the sacred host went by.

FAUST

Now it is but a few more steps up to that stone,

We'll rest here from our rambling. This is where,

Quite filled with thought, I'd often sit alone

And rack myself with fasting and with prayer.

Here rich in hope, in faith firm-set,

By wringing hands, by tears and sighing.

I thought I'd force the Lord, and get

An end to all that plague, that dying.

The crowd's applause just sounds like mockery.

Oh, would you read within my inmost part

How little father and son should be

So given glory for their art.

My father was- was a dark man of honour,

That over nature and her sacred circles mused,

In honesty, yet after his own views,

In an eccentric, labouring manner.

In other adept's company,

And after endless formulae,

Within the locked black kitchen, he

Would mix the opposites together.

Within a tepid bath, a daring wooer there,

A "Red Lion" wed the "Lily"; and with care

The two were pained upon an open flame

And passed from one "Bride Chamber" to another.

In bright hues there appeared inside

The glass, the "Young Queen". Truth to tell,

Here was the medicine, the patients died,

And no-one asked, "Now who got well?"

So with this hellish and concocted brew,

Throughout these hills and valleys too,

Far worse than plague itself we raged.

And I myself to thousands gave this poisoned cure;

They withered away, but I must endure

To hear the shameless killers praised.

WAGNER

How could that cause you such distress!

For is it not enough for honest men

That arts we pass on down to them

They practice with strict conscientiousness?

You honour your own father, as a youth,

So you absorb his teachings whole.

When grown you add to knowledge- then, in truth,

Your son may climb up to a higher goal.

FAUST

Oh, happy's he who still can hope

To leave this sea of error round us all.

For what's not known, that's what you need to cope,

And what is known, your need for that is small,

Still let's not let this hour of beauty grow

Quite stunted by such troubled talking, but

Just see now how the dusk-burnt sun's last glow

Is glimmering upon each green-edged hut.

The day's outlived, the yielding sunbeams shift,

They fly to further new life far away.

Oh, that from out my body wings could lift;

I'd flee, forever following the day!

I'd see, within eternal evening's beam,

All at my feet, the quiet world below,

Each valley hushed, each height a fire gleam,

Where silver streams to golden rivers flow.

Wild mountains with their gorges, none denies

My godlike race, already now the sea,

With its warmed bays, is opening under me,

Spread out before astonished eyes.

Yet off at last the goddess seems to sink;

But new, new impulse wakes, I'd find

I'd hurry forward, eternal light my drink,

The day before me and the night behind,

The heavens over me and under me the waves.

A glorious dream now, even as it flees us quite.

Ah! for the spirit's wings have grown so light,

That we've no bodied wing that so behaves.

For still in each one born there's traces

Of feelings lifting upward, up and on.

When he hears, vanishing in far, blue spaces,

The trilling tremble of a skylark's song,

When over steep, spruce-covered height,

Outspread, the eagles hover round.

When over flats and seas, in flight,

The crane strives onward, homeward bound.

WAGNER

I've often found such hours of fancy's touch,

Yet I have never felt an urge like you as such.

You see your fill of forest, field and brook;

I've never envied wings that birds employ.

Quite otherwise we're borne by spirit joy

From page to page, from book to book.

Then winter nights grow gracious, charmed and fair,

A blissful life warms every limb right through,

And oh! if you unroll a precious parchment there,

Then all of heaven will come down to you.

FAUST

You do yourself but know one urge's quest;

Oh, never learn to know the other!

Alas, two souls are dwelling in my breast,

Each wants to part itself from its own brother.

The one, with clinging organs, coarse love lust,

Holds to the world, the other's sovereignty

Uplifts it powerfully from dust

Towards regions of high ancestry.

If there be spirits of the air,

Between the earth and heaven ruling, weaving,

Descend from golden haze of atmosphere,

And lead me off to new and varied living!

If only I'd a magic cloak whose wing

Would carry me to new and varied lands.

For richest robes it would not leave my hands,

I wouldn't trade it for the mantle of a king.

WAGNER

Don't call the well-know swarms that stream and flee,

In misty circles spreading overhead,

From every quarter for humanity

Preparing peril, thousand-faceted.

From out the north they bare sharp spirit teeth,

Attacking us with arrow-pointed tongues.

Then from the east they parch the world beneath

And eat into your unprotected lungs.

If on the south wind, from the desert sent,

They heap on glow on glow upon your brain;

The west brings hosts, at first refreshing, bent

On drowning you and every field and plain.

They like eavesdropping, for they joy in harm,

They like obeying, for they like deceiving;

They act as if just sent from heaven’s calm,

And lisp their lies like angels’ breathing.

The world’s already wrapped in grey. Let’s go!

The air grows cool, the mist sinks low.

Now home’s most treasured when dusk’s about-

Why stand so, so astonished, gazing out?

What in this dusk makes you so troubled?

FAUST

You see the black dog brushing through the crops and stubble?

WAGNER

Long since. It didn’t seem important in the least.

FAUST

Observe it well. What would you call that beast?

WAGNER

A poodle; judging from its path I’d say

It’s searching for its master’s track.

FAUST

Note how it hunts, how its wide, spiral way

Is ever closing in on us. Its back,

If I see truly, leaves a swirl of flames

Behind it as it goes along.

WAGNER

I see a black-haired poodle, nothing strange.

Perhaps a trick of sight makes it seem wrong.

FAUST

It draws soft magic coils, it seems to me,

Around our feet to form a future fetter.

WAGNER

I see it prance around us, with uncertainty,

Because it sees two strangers rather than its master.

FAUST

The circles narrow, it’s already near.

WAGNER
You see, a dog and not a ghost comes here.

It pauses, growls, lies on its belly too,

And wags its tail: all things dogs do.

FAUST

Now be our friend! Come here to us.

WAGNER

It’s just a poodle-foolish beast.

If you stand still, it waits by too.

You speak to it, it tries to climb on you.

It brings back things you drop. It’s quick

To leap into stream to fetch your stick.

FAUST

You are quite right. I cannot find a trace

Of any spirit, training takes its place.

WAGNER

And when a dog is truly trained,

Even a wise man’s heart is gained.

Indeed, this one deserves your favour, he

Is the students’ excellent scholar, you see.

THEY EXIT BY THE GATE