Who holds o'er all my faculties control
Has o'er the outer world no power;
Existence lies a load upon my breast,
Life is a curse and death a long'd-for rest.

_Mephistopheles_. And yet death never proves a wholly welcome guest.

_Faust_. O blest! for whom, when victory's joy fire blazes,
Death round his brow the bloody laurel windeth,
Whom, weary with the dance's mazes,
He on a maiden's bosom findeth.
O that, beneath the exalted spirit's power,
I had expired, in rapture sinking!

_Mephistopheles_. And yet I knew one, in a midnight hour,
Who a brown liquid shrank from drinking.

_Faust_. Eaves-dropping seems a favorite game with thee.

_Mephistopheles_. Omniscient am I not; yet much is known to me.

_Faust_. Since that sweet tone, with fond appealing,
Drew me from witchcraft's horrid maze,
And woke the lingering childlike feeling
With harmonies of happier days;
My curse on all the mock-creations
That weave their spell around the soul,
And bind it with their incantations
And orgies to this wretched hole!
Accursed be the high opinion