ACT I.
A fountain near the summit of a mountain, from which, through a deep glen, a stream descends to the valley below. A city seen in the distance. Time, midnight. Werner standing near the fountain.
Werner (solus).
Eternal rocks and hills! Mighty and vast; and you, ye giant oaks, Whose massy branches have for centuries Played with the breeze and battled with the storm, He, who so oft has trod your rugged paths, And laid him down beneath your shades to rest, Returns to be your dweller once again. I sooner far would make your wilds my home, With nought but your rude eaves to shield me from The winter's cold or summer's heat, than be One of the hundred thousand human flies That swarm within yon filthy city's walls. Here, I at least may live in solitude, Free from a forced communion with a race, Whose presence makes me feel that I am bound, By nature, to the thing I loathe the most, Earth's stateliest, proudest, meanest reptile, man! The beauty of a god adorns his form, The foulness of a fiend is in his heart; The viper's, or the scorpion's filthy nest Nurses a far less deadly, poisonous brood Than are the hellish lusts, the avarice,-- The pride--the hate--the double-faced deceits-- That make his breast their dwelling. If he be not beneath hell's wish to damn, Too lost for even fiends to meddle with, How must they laugh to hear him, in his pride, Baptize his vices, virtues; making use Of holy names to designate his crimes; Giving his lust the sacred name of love; Calling his avarice a goodly sin, Care for his household; naming his deceit Praiseworthy caution; boasting of his hate, When be no more can cloak it, as a proof Of strength of mind and honesty of heart. For all of goodness that remains on earth, The name of virtue might be banished from it. Fathers, who waste in shameful riotingsThe bread for which their children cry at home; Mothers, who put aside th' unconscious babe That they may wrong its father; children, who Grow old in crime ere they have spent their youth; These are its habitants. I cannot brook the thought, that I belong To their vile race. My sufferings have been great, And keen enough to prove my immortality; For dust could not have borne what I have suffered. My mind has pierced far, far beyond the length Of mortal vision, and discovered things Of which men scarcely dream, and paid in pain, The price of what it learned and bought with pangs By which a thousand ages were compressed Into one hour of agony: a power Which is a terror to possess, and yet This one thought only irks me. Methinks the peaceful earth will scarcely give My dust a resting-place within its bosom, But cast it forth as if too vile, to mingle With clay that ne'er has been the slave of sin. What! other watchers here at this lone hour?
[An evil spirit enters, singing. The world is half hidden, By midnight's dark shadow;The filly, witch-ridden, Skims over the meadow; The house-dog is barking,The night-owl is hooting, The glow-worm is sparkling, The meteor is shooting; And forms, which lie So stiff and still, In their shrouds so chill,Through the live-long day, Now burst their clay, And flit through the sky,On their dusky pinions: Hell's dominionsKeep holiday. Sisters, sisters, wherever your watches Are kept, fleet hither to me, Fleet hither, fleet hither, and leave earth's wretches Alone to their misery.
[A chorus of evil spirits answer as they enter from different parts of the mountain. We come! Vice needs no assistance, She meets no resistance, Virtue's existence Is only in name; Drinking and eating,Intriguing and cheating, Carousing, completing Their ruin and shame; Old age unrepenting, Manhoodunrelenting, Youthsighingandwinning, Deceiving and sinning, Deserting, repining,All men are the same. Ho! ho! Earth quakes with the weight of the anguish she bears, Her plains and her valleys are deluged with tears, And her sighs,if united, were deeper by far, Than the thunderbolt's peal, when the clouds are at war. There is, not a bosom, that bears not within Its chambers, the blot and the burden of sin; Not a mind, but in many an hour bath felt The curse of its nature, the pangs of its guilt.
These earth-worms! whose sire would have had us to bow To his dust- moulded Godship! what--what are they now? In the scale of true goodness, they sink far below The poor, patient ox, that they yoke to the plough. Let them revel awhile, in the false glaring light Of deception, that blindness but seems to make bright; Let them gather awhile of time's perishing flowers; The revenge of eternity! This shall be ours! Ho! ho!
[They settle near the fountain. The first Spirit addresses them.
The night is advancing, Come, let us, dancing In dewy circles deftly tread; And while we dance round, New schemes shall be found, To ruin the living, and trouble the dead.
[They form a circle on the margin of the stream, and dance round singing.
I.
Life is but a fleeting day, Half of which man dreams away; Night! we follow in thy train-- Sleep! supreme o'er thee we reign; Ours the dreams that come when thou Sit'st upon the unconscious brow; Reason then deserts her throne, We then reign, and we alone.
II.
Then seek we, for the maiden's pillow, Far beyond the Atlantic's billow, Love's apple, and when we have found it, Draw the magic circle round it;(1) Fearless pluck it, then no charm That it bears may do us harm; Place it near the sleeper's head, It will bring love's visions nigh, And when the pleasing, dreams are fled, The waking, pensive maid will sigh, Till her bosom has possessed, The form that made her dreams so blest. And when a maiden finds a lover, Her happy days are nearly over: Nature hath unchaste desires, Love awakes her slumbering fires, And the bosom that is true in Love is ever near its ruin; Passion's pleading melts the frost Of chilliest hearts, and all is lost: For, once vice blots a maiden's name, She soon forgets her maiden shame.
III.
