Spirit. Reluctant mortal!
Is this the Magian who would so pervade
The world invisible, and make himself
Almost our equal? Can it be that thou
Art thus in love with life? the very life
Which made thee wretched?

Man. Thou false fiend, thou liest!
My life is in its last hour,—that I know,110
Nor would redeem a moment of that hour;
I do not combat against Death, but thee
And thy surrounding angels; my past power
Was purchased by no compact with thy crew,
But by superior science—penance, daring,
And length of watching, strength of mind, and skill
In knowledge of our Fathers—when the earth
Saw men and spirits walking side by side,
And gave ye no supremacy: I stand
Upon my strength—I do defy—deny—120
Spurn back, and scorn ye!—

Spirit. But thy many crimes
Have made thee—

Man. What are they to such as thee?
Must crimes be punished but by other crimes,
And greater criminals?—Back to thy hell!
Thou hast no power upon me, that I feel;
Thou never shalt possess me, that I know:
What I have done is done; I bear within
A torture which could nothing gain from thine:
The Mind which is immortal makes itself
Requital for its good or evil thoughts,—130
Is its own origin of ill and end—
And its own place and time:170 its innate sense,
When stripped of this mortality, derives
No colour from the fleeting things without,
But is absorbed in sufferance or in joy,
Born from the knowledge of its own desert.
Thou didst not tempt me, and thou couldst not tempt me;
I have not been thy dupe, nor am thy prey—
But was my own destroyer, and will be
My own hereafter.—Back, ye baffled fiends!140
The hand of Death is on me—but not yours!
The Demons disappear.

Abbot. Alas! how pale thou art—thy lips are white—
And thy breast heaves—and in thy gasping throat
The accents rattle: Give thy prayers to Heaven
Pray—albeit but in thought,—but die not thus.

Man. 'Tis over—my dull eyes can fix thee not;
But all things swim around me, and the earth
Heaves as it were beneath me. Fare thee well—
Give me thy hand.

Abbot. Cold—cold—even to the heart—
But yet one prayer—Alas! how fares it with thee?150

Man. Old man! 'tis not so difficult to die.171
Manfred expires.

Abbot. He's gone—his soul hath ta'en its earthless flight;
Whither? I dread to think—but he is gone.172

FOOTNOTES:

106 [The MS. of Manfred, now in Mr. Murray's possession, is in Lord Byron's handwriting. A note is prefixed: "The scene of the drama is amongst the higher Alps, partly in the Castle of Manfred, and partly in the mountains." The date, March 18, 1817, is in John Murray's handwriting.]

107 [So, too, Faust is discovered "in a high—vaulted narrow Gothic chamber."]

108 [Compare Faust, act i. sc. 1—

"Alas! I have explored
Philosophy, and Law, and Medicine,
And over deep Divinity have pored,
Studying with ardent and laborious zeal."

Anster's Faust, 1883, p. 88.]