ife,
Its emptiness and defeat; I have beheld
Hearts, weary with recurrence of the days
That held no sweetness, turn in trust to where
In high aerial spaces far from earth
God in his heaven to all the weary ones
Offers a refuge. And in such a mood
Was I, too, led toward heaven by one whom now
I know my foe--Satan. Toward God I turned,
Seeking in Him fulfilment of all hopes
That earth had thwarted. Then, in the hour of prayer
And revelation, from my deepest breast
Flashed lightnings. And I saw the Lord of Hosts
High on a mountain, inaccessible
To yearning men, who, mastered by a dream,
Turn skyward from our dark and struggling earth.
I saw the crafty Satan urging on
The heavenward-yearning myriads, while the world
Lay like a stagnant quagmire, to his sway
Wholly abandoned, and man's mortal house
Burned in fierce conflagration of corruption.
And lo! the lightnings from my heart smote forth
Across the heavens; and God dissolved like cloud,
And through the cloud peered Satan's sinister face.

Friends: God is dead; your God and mine is dead.
And Satan in his place--Satan who is
The father of the gods--lures on your hearts
Unto an idol in the untrodden skies,
That, while ye dream oblivious in the void,
The earth may crumble. Or if God there be,
He is the God of dying hearts and spent--
A deity of chaos, for whose ends
One thing alone is mete--ruin of life,
Of loathings and of longings that on earth
Restlessly grapple with the powers of Hell.
I know not if in regions yet unguessed
Some gods may dwell, of nature fit to guide
Us, the adventurers of an earthly fight.
But I have seen with eyes that cannot lie
That they reside not in this Devil's net--
This heavenly trust, this labyrinth of peace,
Which draws men on to nothingness....

And I cry
With all the passion of my baffled soul--
Cast down your God! Cast down your peace and trust
In His far Will! It is a solace mete
For slaves, not men. With bitter hand, destroy
This idol of destruction! Smite all haunts
Of faith and resignation and defeat
And rest and peace and comfort. Heaven and earth
Alike are poisoned: somnolence in heaven,
Decay on earth is regnant. Every faith
And law and nation must in wreck go down
For us who see the death that taints their halls;
And ruin shall walk reckless through the world,
Destroying tombs where life is daily slain!

(_Faust pauses_)

BRANDER (_rises suddenly from his place in the