Dear lady of the lily hand--
Do then our stars so clearly shine
That we, who do not understand,
May mock Pierrot and Columbine?

Beyond this garden-grove I see
The wise, the noble, and the brave
In ultimate futility
Go down into the grave.

And all they dreamed and all they sought,
Crumbled and ashen grown, departs;
And is as if they had not wrought
These works with blood from out their hearts.

The nations fall, the faiths decay,
The great philosophies go by--
And life lies bare, some bitter day,
A charnel that affronts the sky.

The wise, the noble, and the brave--
They saw and solved--as we must see
And solve--the universal grave,
The ultimate futility.

* * * * *

Look--where beside the garden-pool
A Venus rises in the grove,
More suave, more debonair, more cool
Than ever burned with Paphian love.

'Twas here the delicate ribboned rout
Of gallants and the fair ones went
Among the shadows in and out
With infinite artful merriment.

Then let me take your lily hand,
And let us tread, where star-beams shine,
A dance; and be, and understand
Pierrot and Columbine.

FAUST

Splendid! Delightful!

SATAN

You are flattering me.
How did you like it, really?

FAUST

Well, as art
I think it splendid; as philosophy,
I hardly praise it. 'Tis a mood that comes
And has its will of us in its own hours--
Yes, irresistibly. But past the hour
Wait graver judges. I decline to be,
As you suggest delightfully, a fly
On the spoiled beer of life. Nor do I lean
Toward your ingenious blending of despair,
Satiety, and child's-play.

SATAN

Those who take
This attitude, however, swiftly grow
The darlings of existence--souls that sip
Of every flower the nectar, and are bound
Unto no laws or standards, but move free,
Viewing all things as relative.... And yet
Your special temperament may not prefer
Nectar. Those lines of sternness round your mouth
Convince me you are right; another cure
Better befits you. And a mighty one
I set before you, which has ever served
As lodestar for all high and glorious minds,
All kings of earth, all potentates of thought,
All great achievers. Power I offer you--
The one chief prize that all men have desired