Reason and Knowledge only thou despise,
The highest strength in man that lies! 
Let but the Lying Spirit bind thee
With magic works and shows that blind thee,
And I shall have thee fast and sure!—­
Fate such a bold, untrammelled spirit gave him,
As forwards, onwards, ever must endure;
Whose over-hasty impulse drave him
Past earthly joys he might secure. 
Dragged through the wildest life, will I enslave him,
Through flat and stale indifference;
With struggling, chilling, checking, so deprave him
That, to his hot, insatiate sense,
The dream of drink shall mock, but never lave him: 
Refreshment shall his lips in vain implore—­
Had he not made himself the Devil’s, naught could save
him,
Still were he lost forevermore!

(A STUDENT enters.)

STUDENT

A short time, only, am I here,
And come, devoted and sincere,
To greet and know the man of fame,
Whom men to me with reverence name.

MEPHISTOPHELES

Your courtesy doth flatter me: 
You see a man, as others be. 
Have you, perchance, elsewhere begun?

STUDENT

Receive me now, I pray, as one
Who comes to you with courage good,
Somewhat of cash, and healthy blood: 
My mother was hardly willing to let me;
But knowledge worth having I fain would get me.

MEPHISTOPHELES

Then you have reached the right place now.

STUDENT

I’d like to leave it, I must avow;
I find these walls, these vaulted spaces
Are anything but pleasant places. 
Tis all so cramped and close and mean;
One sees no tree, no glimpse of green,
And when the lecture-halls receive me,
Seeing, hearing, and thinking leave me.

MEPHISTOPHELES

All that depends on habitude. 
So from its mother’s breasts a child
At first, reluctant, takes its food,
But soon to seek them is beguiled. 
Thus, at the breasts of Wisdom clinging,
Thou’lt find each day a greater rapture bringing.

STUDENT

I’ll hang thereon with joy, and freely drain them;
But tell me, pray, the proper means to gain them.

MEPHISTOPHELES

Explain, before you further speak,
The special faculty you seek.

STUDENT

I crave the highest erudition;
And fain would make my acquisition
All that there is in Earth and Heaven,
In Nature and in Science too.

MEPHISTOPHELES