Читать книгу The Greatest German Classics (Vol. 1-14) - Various - Страница 1393

LYNCEUS THE WARDER (on the watch-tower singing)

Keen vision my birth-dower,

I'm placed on this height,

Still sworn to the watch-tower,

The world's my delight.

I gaze on the distant,

I look on the near,

On moon and on planet,

On wood and the deer:

The beauty eternal

In all things I see;

And pleased with myself

All bring pleasure to me.

Glad eyes, look around ye

And gaze, for whate'er

The sight they encounter,

It still hath been fair!

(Pause)

Not alone for pleasure-taking

Am I planted thus on high;

What dire vision, horror-waking,

From yon dark world scares mine eye!

Fiery sparkles see I gleaming

Through the lindens' two-fold night;

By the breezes fanned, their beaming

Gloweth now with fiercer light!

Ah! the peaceful hut is burning;

Stood its moss-grown walls for years;

They for speedy help are yearning—

And no rescue, none appears!

Ah the aged folk, so kindly,

Once so careful of the fire,

Now, to smoke a prey, they blindly

Perish, oh misfortune dire!

'Mid red flames, the vision dazing,

Stands the moss-hut, black and bare;

From the hell, so fiercely blazing,

Could we save the honest pair!

Lightning-like the fire advances,

'Mid the foliage, 'mid the branches;

Withered boughs—they flicker, burning,

Swiftly glow, then fall;—ah me!

Must mine eyes, this woe discerning,

Must they so far-sighted be!

Down the lowly chapel crashes

'Neath the branches' fall and weight;

Winding now, the pointed flashes

To the summit climb elate.

Roots and trunks the flames have blighted,

Hollow, purple-red, they glow!

(Long pause. Song)

Gone, what once the eye delighted,

With the ages long ago!

FAUST (on the balcony, toward the downs)

From above what plaintive whimper?

Word and tone are here too late!

Wails my warder; me, in spirit

Grieves this deed precipitate!

Though in ruin unexpected

Charred now lie the lindens old,

Soon a height will be erected,

Whence the boundless to behold.

I the home shall see, enfolding

In its walls, that ancient pair,

Who, my gracious care beholding,

Shall their lives end joyful there.

MEPHISTOPHELES and THE THREE (below)

Hither we come full speed. We crave

Your pardon! Things have not gone right!

Full many a knock and kick we gave,

They opened not, in our despite;

Then rattled we and kick'd the more,

And prostrate lay the rotten door;

We called aloud with threat severe,

Yet sooth we found no listening ear.

And as in such case still befalls,

They heard not, would not hear our calls;

Forthwith thy mandate we obeyed,

And straight for thee a clearance made.

The pair—their sufferings were light,

Fainting they sank, and died of fright.

A stranger, harbor'd there, made show

Of force, full soon was he laid low;

In the brief space of this wild fray,

From coals, that strewn around us lay,

The straw caught fire; 'tis blazing free,

As funeral death-pyre for the three.