The Poems of Goethe Part 135

Should stop his breath, And 'neath his kisses

I'd sink in death!

VI.

SCENE--A GARDEN,

Margaret. Faust.

MARGARET.

DOST thou believe in G.o.d?

FAUST.

Doth mortal live

Who dares to say that he believes in G.o.d?

Go, bid the priest a truthful answer give,

Go, ask the wisest who on earth e'er trod,-- Their answer will appear to be Given alone in mockery.

MARGARET.

Then thou dost not believe? This sayest thou?

FAUST.

Sweet love, mistake not what I utter now!

Who knows His name?

Who dares proclaim:-- Him I believe?

Who so can feel His heart to steel To sari believe Him not?

The All-Embracer, The All-Sustained, Holds and sustains He not Thee, me, Himself?

Hang not the heavens their arch overhead?

Lies not the earth beneath us, firm?

Gleam not with kindly glances Eternal stars on high?

Looks not mine eye deep into thine?

And do not all things Crowd on thy head and heart, And round thee twine, in mystery eterne, Invisible, yet visible?

Fill, then, thy heart, however vast, with this, And when the feeling perfecteth thy bliss, O, call it what thou wilt, Call it joy! heart! love! G.o.d!

No name for it I know!

'Tis feeling all--nought else; Name is but sound and smoke, Obscuring heaven's bright glow.

VII.

MARGARET, Placing fresh flowers in the flower-pots.

O THOU well-tried in grief,

Grant to thy child relief, And view with mercy this unhappy one!

The sword within thy heart,

Speechless with bitter smart, Thou Lookest up towards thy dying son.

Thou look'st to G.o.d on high,

And breathest many a sigh O'er his and thy distress, thou holy One!

Who e'er can know

The depth of woe

Piercing my very bone?

The sorrows that my bosom fill, Its trembling, its aye-yearning will,

Are known to thee, to thee alone!

Wherever I may go,

With woe, with woe, with woe, My bosom sad is aching!

I scarce alone can creep,

I weep, I weep, I weep, My very heart is breaking.

The flowers at my window

My falling tears bedewed, When I, at dawn of morning,

For thee these flow'rets strewed.

When early to my chamber

The cheerful sunbeams stole, I sat upon my pallet,

In agony of soul.

Help! rescue me from death and misery!

Oh, thou well-tried in grief,

Grant to thy child relief, And view with mercy my deep agony!