search
Of life has brought me one great verity:
_I do not like it!_ No, I do not like
Anything in it: birth, death, all that lies
Between--I find inadequate, incomplete,
Offensive. So you see me sitting here,
Instead of talking politics in the streets,
Or weeping at the opera, or agog
At a cotillon. For the savor's gone
From these, as parts of an unsavored whole.
I simply have, with reason and sound thought,
Convinced myself that only fools attain
Their hope on earth--in a fools' paradise
That does not interest me.... Now, could you treat
This case, good Mr. Satan?

SATAN

In my day,
I have relieved far sicker men than you,
My dear friend Faust. And yet I would not say
Even for a moment that your case is not
A grave one: not so much the case itself,
As what might spring from it. In such a mood,
Men sometimes have done mad and foolish things
With consequences sad to view. Some minds,
Reaching your state, and finding life a bane,
Decide within themselves that naught can be
Worse than the present world, and then set out
To revolutionize, rend, whirl, uproot
The world's foundations. And the mess they make
Is pitiful to contemplate! Such sweet
And beautiful souls as I have seen go wrong
Along this path: Shelley--he had your eyes;
And Christ--but I'll not talk theology.
Besides, his churches almost have made good
His personal havoc....

FAUST

That is not my line.

SATAN

No, no, you keep your head! Now let me see....
A temporary sedative you require
To bridge the dangerous moment. I suggest
A little course that old Saint Anthony,
Epicure though he was, would grant as rare
And finely chosen: careless days and nights--
Delicious gayeties--the Bacchic bowl--
Exquisite company from whom some two
Or three, with golden or with auburn hair,
A man of taste might choose to solace him
In sunlight or in starlight--while the lure
Of subtle secrets in those yielding breasts
Spice the preceding revelries....

FAUST

Go tell
That tale to college boys, whose lonely dreams
Have shaped Iseult of Ireland, Helen of Troy,
As end of heart's desire--and, lacking these,
Clasp chorus-Aphrodites. But I know
That from the topmost peak of ecstasy
Falls a straight precipice; half-times the foot
Misses the peak--but never mortal step
Has missed the gulf beyond it. And I see
Where, in night's gorgeous dome, to-morrow waits
With cold insisten