No More Learning

_Margaret_. It's not yet time for that, ah no!

_Mephistopheles_. If not a husband, say, meanwhile a beau.
It is a choice and heavenly blessing,
Such a dear thing to one's bosom pressing.

_Margaret_. With us the custom is not so.

_Mephistopheles_. Custom or not! It happens, though.

_Martha_. Tell on!

_Mephistopheles_. I slood beside his bed, as he lay dying,
Better than dung it was somewhat,--
Half-rotten straw; but then, he died as Christian ought,
And found an unpaid score, on Heaven's account-book lying.
"How must I hate myself," he cried, "inhuman!
So to forsake my business and my woman!
Oh! the remembrance murders me!
Would she might still forgive me this side heaven! "

_Martha_ [_weeping_]. The dear good man! he has been long forgiven.

_Mephistopheles_. "But God knows, I was less to blame than she. "

_Martha_. A lie! And at death's door! abominable!

_Mephistopheles_. If I to judge of men half-way am able,
He surely fibbed while passing hence.
"Ways to kill time, (he said)--be sure, I did not need them;
First to get children--and then bread to feed them,
And bread, too, in the widest sense,
And even to eat my bit in peace could not be thought on.