heal
A discontented mind. I now know more
Than when I left the earth, but feel that I
Have bought my knowledge with increase of sorrow.

Spirit.

Did I not tell thee that its path were steep,
And hard to climb, and thick beset with thorns,--
And that its tempting, longed-for fruit, tho' bought
With a great price, is full of bitterness?
If though art satisfied, let us retrace
Our way to earth again; wert thou to go
Yet farther on, thou might'st regret the more
Our coming hither.

Werner.

What! is there aught still more remote than these
From the great centre of the universe,--
The fair domain of life and living things?

Spirit.

There is,--
A kingdom tenanted with such dark shapes,
That angels shudder when they look on them!
Thou surely dost not wish to visit it.

Werner.

Why not? There is within my mind a void
Whose vacant weight is harder to be borne
Than the keen stingings of more active pangs;
When it has traced the mystic chain of being
To its last link, it may perchance shake off
The misery of restless discontent,--
Its fulness then may sink it into rest.

Spirit.

I have no power to disobey thy word;
If thou wilt on, I must proceed with thee,
Even though in looking on I share the pangs
Of those who suffer.

Werner.

Come, then, I too must see them, tho' it cost
Me years of pain to gaze but for a moment.

Spirit.

'Twere harder now to find Eve's' buried dust,
Than to declare who has inherited
The largest portion of her prying spirit.

(Sings.)

Where Pain keepeth vigil
With Sorrow and Care,
And Horror sits watching
By dull-eyed Despair,--
Where the Spirit accurst
Maketh moan in its wo,
Thy wishes direct us,
And thither we go.

[Exeunt.

ACT III.

Scene I. Near the place of the damned. Enter Werner and Spirit.

Werner.

What piercing, stunning sounds assail my ear!
Wild shrieks and wrathful curses, groans and prayers,
A chaos of all cries! making the space
Through which they penetrate to flutter like
The heart of a trapped hare,--are revelling round us.
Unlike the gloomy realm we just have quitted,
Silent and solemn, all is restless here,
A