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    "endpoint": "/api/sources/goethe-works/faust/faust-i/17-scene-14-forest-and-cavern.json"
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  "work": {
    "slug": "faust-i",
    "name": "Faust I (1808)"
  },
  "parents": [
    {
      "slug": "goethe-works",
      "name": "Works of Goethe",
      "url": "/sources/goethe-works/"
    },
    {
      "slug": "faust",
      "name": "Faust (Parts I and II)",
      "url": "/sources/faust/"
    }
  ],
  "chapter": {
    "num": 17,
    "slug": "17-scene-14-forest-and-cavern",
    "title": "Scene XIV — Forest and Cavern",
    "of": 28,
    "words": 1248,
    "text": "Faust (solus).\n\nPIRIT sublime, thou gav'st me, gav'st me all\nFor which I prayed. Not unto me in vain\n\nHast thou thy countenance revealed in fire.\nThou gav'st me Nature as a kingdom grand,\nWith power to feel and to enjoy it. Thou\nNot only cold, amazed acquaintance yield'st,\nBut grantest, that in her profoundest breast\nI gaze, as in the bosom of a friend.\nThe ranks of living creatures thou dost lead\nBefore me, teaching me to know my brothers\nIn air and water and the silent wood.\nAnd when the storm in forests roars and grinds,\nThe giant firs, in falling, neighbor boughs\nAnd neighbor trunks with crushing weight bear down,\nAnd falling, fill the hills with hollow thunders, —\nThen to the cave secure thou leadest me,\n\nThen show'st me mine own self, and in my breast\n\n208 — Faust.\n\nThe deep, mysterious miracles unfold.\n\nAnd when the perfect moon before my gaze\nComes up with soothing light, around me float\nFrom every precipice and thicket damp\n\nThe silvery phantoms of the ages past,\n\nAnd temper the austere delight of thought.\n\nThat nothing can be perfect unto Man\n\nI now am conscious. With this ecstasy,\n\nWhich brings me near and nearér to the Gods,\nThou gav'st the comrade, whom I now no more\nCan do without, though, cold and scornful, he\nDemeans me to myself, and with a breath,\n\nA word, transforms thy gifts to nothingness.\nWithin my breast he fans a lawless fire,\nUnwearied, for that fair and lovely form:\n\nThus in desire I hasten to enjoyment,\n\nAnd in enjoyment pine to feel desire.\n(MEPHISTOPHELES enters.)\n\nMEPHISTOPHELES.\n\nHave you not led this life quite long enough?\nHow can a further test delight you?\n\nScene XLV. 209\n\n'T is very well, that once one tries the stuff,\n\nBut something new must then requite you.\n\nFaust.\n\nWould there were other work for thee!\n\nTo plague my day auspicious thou returnest.\n\nMEPHISTOPHELES.\n\nWell! Ill engage to let thee be:\n\nThou darest not tell me so in earnest.\n\nThe loss of thee were truly very slight, —\n\nA comrade crazy, rude, repelling :\n\nOne has one's hands full all the day and night;\nIf what one does, or leaves undone, is right,\n\nFrom such a face as thine there is no telling.\n\nFaust.\n\nThere is, again, thy proper tone! —\nThat thou hast bored me, I must thankful be!\n\nMEPHISTOPHELES.\n\nPoor Son of Earth, how couldst thou thus alone\nHave led thy life, bereft of me?\n\n210 Faust\n\nI, for a time, at least, have worked thy. cure ;\n\nThy fancy's rickets plague thee not at all:\n\nHad I not been, so hadst thou, sure,\n\nWalked thyself off this earthly ball.\n\nWhy here to caverns, rocky hollows slinking,\n\nSit'st thou, as 't were an owl a-blinking ?\n\nWhy suck'st, from sodden moss and dripping stone,\nToad-like, thy nourishment alone?\n\nA fine way, this, thy time to fill!\n\n' The Doctor 's in thy body still.\n\nFaust.\n\nWhat fresh and vital forces, canst thou guess,\n\nSpring from my commerce with the wilderness?\n\nBut, if thou hadst the power of guessing,\n\nThou wouldst be devil enough to grudge my soul the\nblessing.\n\nMEPHISTOPHELES.\n\nA blessing drawn from supernatural fountains!\n\nIn night and dew to lie upon the mountains ;\n\nAll Heaven and Earth in rapture penetrating ;\n\nThyself to Godhood haughtily inflating ;\n\nTo grub with yearning force throu gh Earth's dark marrow,\n\nScene XIV. 211\n\nCompress the six days' work within thy bosom narrow —\nTo taste, I know not what, in haughty power,\n\nThine own ecstatic life on all things shower,\n\nThine earthly self behind thee cast,\n\nAnd then the lofty instinct, thus —\n\n(With a gesture -)\n\nat last, —\n\nI dare n't say how —to pluck the final flower !\n\nFaust.\nShame on thee!\n\nMEPHISTOPHELES.\n\nYes, thou findest that unpleasant !\nThou hast the moral right to cry me \"shame!\" at present.\nOne dares not that before chaste ears declare,'°9\nWhich chaste hearts, notwithstanding, cannot spare ;\nAnd, once for all, I grudge thee not the pleasure\nOf lying to thyself in moderate measure.\nBut such a course thou wilt not long endure;\nAlready art thou o'er-excited, |\nAnd, if it last, wilt soon be plighted\n\nTo madness and to horror, sure.\n\n212 ; Faust.\n\nEnough of that! Thy love sits lonely yonder,'?°\n\nBy all things saddened and oppressed ;\n\nHer thoughts and yearnings seek thee, tenderer, fonder, —\nA mighty love is in her breast. |\n\nFirst came thy passion's flood and poured around her\nAs when from melted snow a streamlet overflows ;\nThou hast therewith so filled and drowned her,\nThat now ¢fy stream all shallow shows.\n\nMethinks, instead of in the forests lording,\n\nThe noble Sir should find it good,\n\nThe love of this young silly blood\n\nAt once to set about rewarding.\n\nHer time is miserably long ;\n\nShe haunts her window, watching clouds that stray\nO'er the old city-wall, and far away.\n\n\"Were I a little bird!\" so runs her song,\"\n\nDay long, and half night long.\n\nNow she is lively, mostly sad,\n\nNow, wept beyond her tears;\n\nThen again quiet she appears, —\n\nAlways love-mad.\n\nFaust.\n\nSerpent! serpent!\n\nScene XIV. 213\n\nMEPHISTOPHELES (aside).\n\nHa! do I trap thee?\n\n| Faust.\nGet thee away with thine offences,\nReprobate! Name not that fairest thing,\nNor the desire for her sweet body bring\nAgain before my half-distracted senses !\n\nMEPHISTOPHELES.\n\nWhat wouldst thou, then? She thinks that thou art flown;\nAnd half and half thou art, I own.\n\n4 Faust.\n\nYet am I near, and love keeps watch and ward ;\nThough I were ne'er so far, it cannot falter:\n\nI envy even the Body of the Lord\n\nThe touching of her lips, before the altar.\n\nMEPHISTOPHELES.\n\n\"T is very well! My envy oft reposes\n\nOn your twin-pair, that feed among the roses.\"\n\nFaust.\n\nAway, thou pimp!\n\n214 Faust.\n\nMEPHISTOPHELES.\n\nYou rail, and it is fun to me.\nThe God, who fashioned youth and maid,\nPerceived the noblest purpose of His trade,\nAnd also made their opportunity.\nGo on! It is a woe profound!\n\n\"T is for your sweetheart's room you 're bound,\n\nAnd not for death, indeed.\n\nFaust.\n\nWhat are, within her arms, the heavenly blisses?\nThough I be glowing with her kisses,\nDo I not always share her need?\n\nI am the fugitive, all houseless roaming,\nThe monster without aim or rest,\n\nThat like a cataract, down rocks and gorges foaming,\nLeaps, maddened, into the abyss's breast !\n\nAnd side-wards she, with young unwakened senses,\nWithin her cabin on the Alpine field\n\nHer simple, homely life commences,\n\nHer little world therein concealed.\n\nAnd I, God's hate flung o'er me,\n\nHad not enough, to thrust\n\nThe stubborn rocks before me\n\nScene XIV. 215\n\nAnd strike them into dust!\n\nShe and her peace I yet must undermine:\n\nThou, Hell, hast claimed this sacrifice as thine!\nHelp, Devil! through the coming pangs to push me;\nWhat must be, let it quickly be!\n\nLet fall on me her fate, and also crush me, —\n\nOne ruin whelm both her and me!\n\nMEPHISTOPHELES.\n\nAgain it seethes, again it glows!\n\nThou fool, go in and comfort her!\n\nWhen such 'a head as thine no outlet knows,\nIt thinks the end must soon occur.\n\nHail him, who keeps a steadfast mind!\nThou, else, dost well the devil-nature wear:\nNaught so insipid in the world I find\n\nAs is a devil in despair.\n\n216 Faust.\n\nXV.\nMARGARET'S ROOM.",
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}