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Don’t tremble, let this look, Let this clasping of hands tell you What’s inexpressible: [3190] To give oneself wholly, and feel A joy that must be eternal! Eternal! – Its end would bring despair. No, no end! No end!
You gave me, With this joy, that brings me nearer, Nearer to the gods, a companion, Whom I can no longer do without, Though he is impudent, and chilling, Degrades me in my own eyes, and with [3245] A word, a breath, makes your gifts nothing. He fans a wild fire in my heart, Always alive to that lovely form. So I rush from desire to enjoyment, And in enjoyment pine to feel desire. [3250]
MARGARET: That’s not right, we must have faith. FAUST: Must we?
MARGARET: Ah, if in this I was only fluent! You don’t respect the Holy Sacrament. FAUST: I respect it. MARGARET: Without wanting it, though. You’ve passed So many years without confession, or mass. [3425] Do you believe in God? FAUST: My darling, who dare say: ‘I believe in God’? Choose priest to ask, or sage, The answer would seem a joke, would it not, Played on whoever asks? MARGARET: So, you don’t believe?
Says: ‘I don’t believe’? The all-clasping, The all-upholding, Does it not clasp, uphold,
Fill your heart from it: it is so vast, And when you are blessed by the deepest feeling, Call it then what you wish, Joy! Heart! Love! God! I have no name [3455] For it! Feeling is all: Names are sound and smoke, Veiling Heaven’s bright glow.
That man who hangs round you so, I hate him in my innermost soul: Nothing in all my life has ever Given my heart such pain, no, never, As his repulsive face has done.
His presence here, it chills my blood. To every other man I wish good: But much as I’m longing to see you
You angel: no need for that. [3510] Here is a little phial to keep! Three drops of this, in her drink, she’ll take, And Nature will favour her with deepest
FAUST: How the glow of the eternal light [3650] Shines from the Sacristy window, there, On either side grows fainter, fainter, And all around draws in the night! Now it seems as dark within my heart.
