Faust [part 1]. Translated Into English in the Original Metres

Chapter 25: XV

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About This Book

An aging scholar, dissatisfied with purely intellectual pursuits, makes a pact with a cynical supernatural agent who offers renewed youth and worldly experience. The agreement propels him from secluded study into city life, mystical encounters, revelry, and a romantic involvement with a young woman whose innocence and reputation are destroyed amid social scandal and personal tragedy. Episodes range from a celestial prologue and occult gambits to folk festivities and courtroom-like reckonings, together exploring longing, guilt, moral responsibility, the clash of spiritual striving with earthly desire, and the ambiguous possibilities of forgiveness and redemption.

XV

MARGARET’S ROOM

MARGARET

(at the spinning-wheel, alone)

My peace is gone,
My heart is sore:
I never shall find it,
Ah, nevermore!

Save I have him near.
The grave is here;
The world is gall
And bitterness all.

My poor weak head
Is racked and crazed;
My thought is lost,
My senses mazed.

My peace is gone,
My heart is sore:
I never shall find it,
Ah, nevermore!

To see him, him only,
At the pane I sit;
To meet him, him only,
The house I quit.

His lofty gait,
His noble size,
The smile of his mouth,
The power of his eyes,

And the magic flow
Of his talk, the bliss
In the clasp of his hand,
And, ah! his kiss!

My peace is gone,
My heart is sore:
I never shall find it,
Ah, nevermore!

My bosom yearns
For him alone;
Ah, dared I clasp him,
And hold, and own!

And kiss his mouth,
To heart’s desire,
And on his kisses
At last expire!