No More Learning

_Margaret_. Ah, dearest Dame, despair not thou!

_Mephistopheles_ Then, hear the mournful story now!

_Margaret_. Ah, keep me free from love forever,
I should never survive such a loss, no, never!

_Mephistopheles_. Joy and woe, woe and joy, must have each other.

_Martha_. Describe his closing hours to me!

_Mephistopheles_. In Padua lies our departed brother,
In the churchyard of St. Anthony,
In a cool and quiet bed lies sleeping,
In a sacred spot's eternal keeping.

_Martha_. And this was all you had to bring me?

_Mephistopheles_.
All but one weighty, grave request!
"Bid her, when I am dead, three hundred masses sing me! "
With this I have made a clean pocket and breast.

_Martha_. What! not a medal, pin nor stone?
Such as, for memory's sake, no journeyman will lack,
Saved in the bottom of his sack,
And sooner would hunger, be a pauper--

_Mephistopheles_. Madam, your case is hard, I own!
But blame him not, he squandered ne'er a copper.
He too bewailed his faults with penance sore,
Ay, and his wretched luck bemoaned a great deal more.

_Margaret_. Alas! that mortals so unhappy prove!
I surely will for him pray many a requiem duly.

_Mephistopheles_. You're worthy of a spouse this moment; truly
You are a child a man might love.