No More Learning

Thus, with electuaries so satanic,
Worse than the plague with all its panic,
We rioted through hill and vale;
Myself, with my own hands, the drug to thousands giving,
They passed away, and I am living
To hear men's thanks the murderers hail!

_Wagner. _ Forbear! far other name that service merits!
Can a brave man do more or less
Than with nice conscientiousness
To exercise the calling he inherits?
If thou, as youth, thy father honorest,
To learn from him thou wilt desire;
If thou, as man, men with new light hast blest,
Then may thy son to loftier heights aspire.

_Faust. _ O blest! who hopes to find repose,
Up from this mighty sea of error diving!
Man cannot use what he already knows,
To use the unknown ever striving.
But let not such dark thoughts a shadow throw
O'er the bright joy this hour inspires!
See how the setting sun, with ruddy glow,
The green-embosomed hamlet fires!
He sinks and fades, the day is lived and gone,
He hastens forth new scenes of life to waken.
O for a wing to lift and bear me on,
And on, to where his last rays beckon!
Then should I see the world's calm breast
In everlasting sunset glowing,
The summits all on fire, each valley steeped in rest,
The silver brook to golden rivers flowing.
No savage mountain climbing to the skies
Should stay the godlike course with wild abysses;
And now the sea, with sheltering, warm recesses
Spreads out before the astonished eyes.
At last it seems as if the God were sinking;
But a new impulse fires the mind,
Onward I speed, his endless glory drinking,
The day before me and the night behind,
The heavens above my head and under me the ocean.
A lovely dream,--meanwhile he's gone from sight.
Ah! sure, no earthly wing, in swiftest flight,
May with the spirit's wings hold equal motion.
Yet has each soul an inborn feeling
Impelling it to mount and soar away,
When, lost in heaven's blue depths, the lark is pealing
High overhead her airy lay;
When o'er the mountain pine's black shadow,
With outspread wing the eagle sweeps,
And, steering on o'er lake and meadow,
The crane his homeward journey keeps.

_Wagner. _ I've had myself full many a wayward hour,
But never yet felt such a passion's power.
One soon grows tired of field and wood and brook,
I envy not the fowl of heaven his pinions.
Far nobler joy to soar through thought's dominions
From page to page, from book to book!
Ah! winter nights, so dear to mind and soul!
Warm, blissful life through all the limbs is thrilling,
And when thy hands unfold a genuine ancient scroll,
It seems as if all heaven the room were filling.

_Faust_. One passion only has thy heart possessed;
The other, friend, O, learn it never!
Two souls, alas!