SEMI-CHORUS OF WIZARDS I.

We glide in Like snails when the women are all away; And from a house once given over to sin Woman has a thousand steps to stray.

SEMI-CHORUS II.

A thousand steps must a woman take,
Where a man but a single spring will make.

VOICES ABOVE.

Come with us, come with us, from Felunsee.

VOICES BELOW.

With what joy would we fly through the upper sky; We are washed, we are 'nointed, stark naked are we! But our toil and our pain are for ever in vain.

BOTH CHORUSES.

The wind is still, the stars are fled,

The melancholy moon is dead;

The magic notes, like spark on spark,
Drizzle, whistling through the dark.
Come away!

VOICES BELOW.

Stay, oh stay!

VOICES ABOVE.

Out of the crannies of the rocks

Who calls?

VOICES BELOW.

Oh, let me join your flocks!

I, three hundred years have striven

To catch your skirt and mount to Heaven,-—
And still in vain. Oh, might I be

With company akin to me!

BOTH CHORUSES.

Some on a ram and some on a prong,

On poles and on broomsticks we flutter along;
Forlorn is the wight who can rise not to-night.

A HALF-WITCH BELOW.

I have been tripping this many an hour:
Are the others already so far before?
No quiet at home, and no peace abroad!
And less methinks is found by the road.

CHORUS OF WITCHES.

Come onward, away! aroint thee, aroint!
A witch to be strong must anoint—anoint-
Then every trough will be boat enough";

With a rag for a sail we can sweep through the sky,
Who flies not to-night, when means he to fly?

BOTH CHORUSES.

We cling to the skirt, and we strike on the ground;
Witch-legions thicken around and around;

Wizard-swarms cover the heath all over.

MEPHISTOPHELES.

[They descend.

What thronging, dashing, raging, rustling!
What whispering, babbling, hissing, bustling!
What glimmering, spurting, stinking, burning!
As Heaven and earth were overturning.

There is a true witch element about us;
Take hold on me, or we shall be divided:-
Where are you?

FAUST (from a distance).

Here !

MEPHISTOPHELES.

What!

I must exert my authority in the house.

Place for young Voland! Pray make way, good people.
Take hold on me, doctor, and with one step
Let us escape from this unpleasant crowd:
They are too mad for people of my sort.
Just there shines a peculiar kind of light-
Something attracts me in those bushes.-Come
This way; we shall slip down there in a minute.

FAUST.

Spirit of Contradiction! Well, lead on—
"Twere a wise feat indeed to wander out
Into the Brocken upon May-day night,
And then to isolate oneself in scorn,
Disgusted with the humours of the time.

MEPHISTOPHELES.

See yonder, round a many-coloured flame
A merry-club is huddled all together:
Even with such little people as sit there
One would not be alone.

FAUST.

Would that I were

Up yonder in the glow and whirling smoke
Where the blind million rush impetuously
To meet the evil ones; there might I solve
Many a riddle that torments me!

MEPHISTOPHELES.

Many a riddle there is tied anew

Yet

Inextricably. Let the great world rage!
We will stay here safe in the quiet dwellings.
"Tis an old custom. Men have ever built
Their own small world in the great world of all.
I see young witches naked there, and old ones

Wisely attired with greater decency.

Be guided now by me, and you shall buy
A pound of pleasure with a dram of trouble.

I hear them tune their instruments-one must
Get used to this damned scraping. Come, I'll lead you
Among them; and what there you do and see,
As a fresh compact 'twixt us two shall be.

How say you now? this space is wide enough—
Look forth, you cannot see the end of it—
A hundred bonfires burn in rows, and they
Who throng around them seem innumerable :
Dancing and drinking, jabbering, making love,
And cooking, are at work. Now tell me, friend,
What is there better in the world than this?

FAUST.

In introducing us, do you assume
The character of wizard or of devil?

MEPHISTOPHELES.

In truth, I generally go about
In strict incognito; and yet one likes
To wear one's orders upon gala days.
I have no ribbon at my knee; but here

At home the cloven foot is honourable.

See you that snail there?—she comes creeping up, And with her feeling eyes hath smelt out something: I could not, if I would, mask myself here.

Come now we'll go about from fire to fire:

I'll be the pimp, and you shall be the lover.

[To some old Women, who are sitting round a heap of glimmering coals.

Old gentlewomen, what do you do out here?

You ought to be with the young rioters

Right in the thickest of the revelry-
But every one is best content at home.

GENERAL.

Who dare confide in right or a just claim?

So much as I had done for them! and nowWith women and the people 'tis the same, Youth will stand foremost ever,-age may go To the dark grave unhonoured.

MINISTER.

Now-a-days

People assert their rights; they go too far;
But, as for me, the good old times I praise.
Then we were all in all; 'twas something worth
One's while to be in place and wear a star;
That was indeed the golden age on earth.

PARVENU.*

We too are active, and we did and do

What we ought not perhaps; and yet we now

Will seize, whilst all things are whirled round and round, A spoke of Fortune's wheel, and keep our ground.

AUTHOR.

Who now can taste a treatise of deep sense
And ponderous volume? "Tis impertinence
To write what none will read, therefore will I
To please the young and thoughtless people try.

MEPHISTOPHELES. (Who at once appears to have grown very old.)

I find the people ripe for the last day,

Since I last came up to the wizard mountain;
And as my little cask runs turbid now,
So is the world drained to the dregs.

*A sort of fundholder.