Page images
PDF
EPUB

FAUST.

Then be persuaded-come with me.

MARGARET.

To wander with you?

FAUST.

To be free.

MARGARET.

To death: I know it-I prepare—
I come: the grave is yawning there!
The grave, no farther-'tis our journey's end.
You part. Oh! could I but your steps attend

FAUST.

You can! But wish it, and the deed is done.

MARGARET.

I may not with
you : hope for me is none !
How can I fly? They glare upon me still!
It is so sad to beg the wide world through,
And with an evil conscience too!

It is so sad to roam through stranger lands,
And they will seize me with their iron hands!

FAUST.

I will be with you.

MARGARET.

Quick! fly!

Save it, or the child will die!
Through the wild wood,

To the pond!

It lifts its head!

The bubbles rise!

It breathes!

Oh save it, save it!

FAUST.

Reflect, reflect !

One step, and thou art free!

MARGARET.

Had we but pass'd the hillside lone—
My mother there sits on a stone.
Long she has sat there, cold and dead,

Yet nodding with her weary head.

Yet winks not, nor signs, other motion is o'er;
She slept for so long, that she wakes no more.

FAUST.

Since words are vain to rouse thy sleeping sense, I venture, and with force I bear thee hence.

MARGARET.

Unhand me! leave me! I will not consent!
Too much I yielded once! too much repent!

FAUST.

Day! Margaret, day! your hour will soon be past.

MARGARET.

True, 'tis the day; the last-the last!
My bridal day!-'twill soon appear.

Tell it to none thou hast been here.

We shall see one another, and soon shall see
But not at the dance will our meeting be.

We two shall meet

In the crowded street:

The citizens throng-the press is hot,

They talk together I hear them not:

The bell has toll'd-the wand they break-
My arms they pinion till they ache!
They force me down upon the chair!
The neck of each spectator there
Thrills, as though itself would feel
The headsman's stroke-the sweeping steel!
And all are as dumb, with speechless pain,
As if they never would speak again!

Oh, had I never lived!

FAUST.

MEPHISTOPHELES (appears in the door-way).

*Off! or your life will be but short:
My coursers paw the ground, and snort!

The sun will rise, and off they bound.

MARGARET.

Who is it rises from the ground?

"Tis he!-the evil one of hell!

What would he where the holy dwell? 'Tis me he seeks!

FAUST.

To bid thee live.

MARGARET.

Justice of Heaven! to thee my soul I give!

MEPHISTOPHELES (to FAUST).

Come! come! or tarry else with her to die.

MARGARET.

Heaven, I am thine! to thy embrace I fly !

Hover around, ye angel bands

Save me! defy him where he stands,

Henry, I shudder! 'tis for thee.

MEPHISTOPHELES.

She is condemn'd!

VOICES FROM ABOVE.

Is pardon'd!

MEPHISTOPEHLES (to FAUST).

Hence, and flee !

[Vanishes with FAUST.

MARGARET (from within).

Henry! Henry !"

"I admit," said Benedict, wiping his eyes, when the Nymph had finished, "that there is considerable power in some passages, and also that the scene you have just read is truly solemn and affecting; but still the whole drama is a very ill-constructed piece of work, and has faults that would have sunk it in England at the launching, and covered its author with irredeemable ridicule. Cats singing, and a hecat rubbing the devil's legs as if it had been a bachelor's Tom !"

"Hush!" exclaimed the Nymph, laughing, "recollect what you are yourself. Besides, bear in mind that the devil is a bachelor, and the first that was. To be serious, however, it cannot be questioned that, although there are in the productions of German genius, passages of the very highest order, and conceptions too of great originality, yet that, generally speaking, taking this drama as an admired work, absurdity and silliness are probably so superabundant in them, that the same things which please the

Germans, and obtain honours and patronage among them, would be consigned to laughter among us.

CHAP. XXXII.

FALLS OF NIAGARA.

"You were speaking to me lately," said the Bachelor," of the Falls of Niagara, as described by Mr Howison, in his Sketches of Upper Canada. I do not recollect the passage, indeed I may say that I have scarcely looked at the book.”

"Then you have a treat to receive which you are not aware of," replied the Nymph: "it is a pleasing work, written with considerable taste and great purity of feeling, and no one who is not possessed of the same delicate sense of physical grandeur, and of the beauties of nature, should write about America. I never read a book relative to that country but which reminded me of the new-built suburbs of some of our great manufacturing towns. There is a traffic-like something about every description of the inhabitants, by which one is brought to think only of profits and of labour,-good and very necessary things, and highly essential to the prosperity of a state, but not just the sort of topics that delight in books of travels. Mr Howison, however, is an exception to the generality of travellers in America,–he gives us little of . what, in the course of business and of political economy, is called valuable information, but he gives a great deal of very pleasing description ;-now it is

« PreviousContinue »