No More Learning

_Faust_. Yes, when the preacher is a player, granted:
As often happens in our modern ways.

_Wagner_. Ah! when one with such love of study's haunted,
And scarcely sees the world on holidays,
And takes a spy-glass, as it were, to read it,
How can one by persuasion hope to lead it?

_Faust_. What you don't feel, you'll never catch by hunting,
It must gush out spontaneous from the soul,
And with a fresh delight enchanting
The hearts of all that hear control.
Sit there forever! Thaw your glue-pot,--
Blow up your ash-heap to a flame, and brew,
With a dull fire, in your stew-pot,
Of other men's leavings a ragout!
Children and apes will gaze delighted,
If their critiques can pleasure impart;
But never a heart will be ignited,
Comes not the spark from the speaker's heart.

_Wagner_. Delivery makes the orator's success;
There I'm still far behindhand, I confess.

_Faust_. Seek honest gains, without pretence!
Be not a cymbal-tinkling fool!
Sound understanding and good sense
Speak out with little art or rule;
And when you've something earnest to utter,
Why hunt for words in such a flutter?
Yes, your discourses, that are so refined'
In which humanity's poor shreds you frizzle,
Are unrefreshing as the mist and wind
That through the withered leaves of autumn whistle!

_Wagner_. Ah God! well, art is long!
And life is short and fleeting.
What headaches have I felt and what heart-beating,
When critical desire was strong.
How hard it is the ways and means to master
By which one gains each fountain-head!
And ere one yet has half the journey sped,
The poor fool dies--O sad disaster!

_Faust_. Is parchment, then, the holy well-spring, thinkest,
A draught from which thy thirst forever slakes?
No quickening element thou drinkest,
Till up from thine own soul the fountain breaks.

_Wagner_. Excuse me! in these olden pages
We catch the spirit of the by-gone ages,
We see what wisest men before our day have thought,
And to what glorious heights we their bequests have brought.

_Faust_.