Spirit. Where life's floods flow And its tempests rave, Up and down I wave, Flit I to and fro! Birth and the grave, Life's hidden glow, A shifting motion, A boundless ocean Whose waters heave Eternally; Thus on the sounding loom of Time I weave The living mantle of the Deity. Faust. Thou who round the wide world wendest, Thou busy Spirit, how near I feel to thee! Spirit. Thou'rt like the spirit whom thou comprehendest, Not me! [_Vanishes._ Faust. Not thee! Whom, then? I, image of the Godhead, Dwarfed by thee! [_Knocking is heard._] O death!--'tis Wagner's knock--I know it well, My famulus; he comes to mar the spell! Woe's me that such bright vision of the spheres Must vanish when this pedant-slave appears! Scene II. _Enter_ /Wagner/ _in night-gown and night-cap; a lamp in his hand._ Wagner. Your pardon, sir, I heard your voice declaiming, No doubt some old Greek drama, and I came in, To profit by your learned recitation; For in these days the art of declamation Is held in highest estimation; And I have heard asserted that a preacher Might wisely have an actor for his teacher. Faust. Yes; when our parsons preach to make grimaces, As here and there a not uncommon case is. Wagner. Alack! when a poor wight is so confined Amid his books, shut up from all mankind, And sees the world scarce on a holiday, As through a telescope and far away, How may he hope, with nicely tempered skill, To bend the hearts he knows not to his will? Faust. What you don't feel, you'll hunt to find in vain. It must gush from the soul, possess the brain, And with an instinct kindly force compel All captive hearts to own the grateful spell; Go to! sit o'er your books, and snip and glue Your wretched piece-work, dressing your ragout From others' feasts, your piteous flames still blowing From sparks beneath dull heaps of ashes glowing; Vain wonderment of children and of apes, If with such paltry meed content thou art; The human heart to heart he only shapes, Whose words flow warm from human heart to heart. Wagner. But the delivery is a chief concern In Rhetoric; and alas! here I have much to learn. Faust. Be thine to seek the honest gain, No shallow-tinkling fool! Sound sense finds utterance for itself, Without the critic's rule. If clear your thought, and your intention true, What need to hunt for words with much ado? The trim orations your fine speaker weaves, Crisping light shreds of thought for shallow minds, Are unrefreshing as the foggy winds That whistle through the sapless autumn leaves.