No More Learning

Brass, marble, parchment, paper, shall it be?
Shall I subscribe with pencil, pen or graver?
Among them all thy choice is free.

_Mephistopheles_. This rhetoric of thine to me
Hath a somewhat bombastic savor.
Any small scrap of paper's good.
Thy signature will need a single drop of blood. [17]

_Faust_. If this will satisfy thy mood,
I will consent thy whim to favor.

_Mephistopheles. _ Quite a peculiar juice is blood.

_Faust_. Fear not that I shall break this bond; O, never!
My promise, rightly understood,
Fulfils my nature's whole endeavor.
I've puffed myself too high, I see;
To _thy_ rank only I belong.
The Lord of Spirits scorneth me,
Nature, shut up, resents the wrong.
The thread of thought is snapt asunder,
All science to me is a stupid blunder.
Let us in sensuality's deep
Quench the passions within us blazing!
And, the veil of sorcery raising,
Wake each miracle from its long sleep!
Plunge we into the billowy dance,
The rush and roll of time and chance!
Then may pleasure and distress,
Disappointment and success,
Follow each other as fast as they will;
Man's restless activity flourishes still.

_Mephistopheles_. No bound or goal is set to you;
Where'er you like to wander sipping,
And catch a tit-bit in your skipping,
Eschew all coyness, just fall to,
And may you find a good digestion!

_Faust_. Now, once for all, pleasure is not the question.
I'm sworn to passion's whirl, the agony of bliss,
The lover's hate, the sweets of bitterness.
My heart, no more by pride of science driven,
Shall open wide to let each sorrow enter,
And all the good that to man's race is given,
I will enjoy it to my being's centre,
Through life's whole range, upward and downward sweeping,
Their weal and woe upon my bosom heaping,
Thus in my single self their selves all comprehending
And with them in a common shipwreck ending.

_Mephistopheles_. O trust me, who since first I fell from heaven,
Have chewed this tough meat many a thousand year,
No man digests the ancient leaven,
No mortal, from the cradle to the bier.
Trust one of _us_--the _whole_ creation
To God alone belongs by right;
_He_ has in endless day his habitation,
_Us_ He hath made for utter night,
_You_ for alternate dark and light.

_Faust_.