capricious; spurning the common earth he climbs ever higher and higher
amidst the mountain crags, singing ravishing melodies to his lyre. He
reaches the topmost crag and casts himself into the air. A flame
flickers upwards, and the body of a beautiful youth 'in which one seems
to recognize a well-known form' falls to the ground, at the feet of
Faust and Helen.

Euphorion symbolizes modern poetry, and the well-known form is that of
Byron. For a moment the body lies there; it then dissolves in flame,
which ascends to heaven, and a voice is heard calling on Helen to
follow.

Yes, she must follow. As flame she must return to her home in the
Empyrean--the home of ideal beauty and all other ideals. However much we
strive to realize ideal beauty in art or in our lives, however we may
hold it to our hearts as a warm and living possession, it always escapes
our grasp. The short-lived winged child of poetic inspiration gleams but
for a moment and disappears, as a flame flickering back to its native
empyrean. And she, the mother, she too must follow, leaving us alone to
face the stern reality of life and of death.

In the embrace of Faust Helen melts away into thin air, leaving in his
arms her robe and veil. These change into a cloud, which envelops him,
raises him into the air and bears him also away. The Phorkyad picks up
Euphorion's lyre and mantle; he steps forward and addresses the
audience, assuring them that in the leavings of poetic genius he has got
enough to fit out any number of modern poets, and is open to a bargain.
He then swells up to a gigantic height, removes the Gorgon-mask, and
reveals himself as Mephistopheles once more the northern modern devil;
and the curtain falls.

When it rises for the Fourth Act we see a craggy mountain peak before
us. A cloud approaches, and deposits Faust on the topmost crag. It
lingers for a time, assuming wondrous shapes and then gradually melts
away into the blue. Faust gazes at it. In its changing outlines he seems
to discern first the regal forms of Olympian goddesses, of Juno, of
Leda--then of Helen. But they fade away and, ere it disappears, the
cloud assumes the likeness of that other half-forgotten human form which
once had aroused in his heart that which he now feels to have been a
love far truer and deeper than all his passion for ideal beauty--that
'swiftly felt and scarcely comprehended' love for a human heart which,
as he now confesses to himself, 'had it been retaine