You ought not to be too exact with him.
FAUST, MEPHISTOPHELES, and IGNIS-FATUUus in alternute Chorus.
The limits of the sphere of dream,
The bounds of true and false, are past.
Lead us on, thou wandering Gleam,
Lead us onward, far and fast,
To the wide, the desert waste.
But see, how swift advance and shift
Trees behind trees, row by row,-
How, clift by clift, rocks bend and lift
Their frowning foreheads as we go.
The giant-snouted crags, ho! ho!
How they snort, and how they blow!
Through the mossy sods and stones,
Stream and streamlet hurry down,
A rushing throng! A sound of song
Beneath the vault of Heaven is blown!
Sweet notes of love, the speaking tones
Of this bright day, sent down to say
That Paradise on Earth is known,
Resound around, beneath, above,
All we hope and all we love
Finds a voice in this blithe strain.
Which wakens hill and wood and rill,
And vibrates far o'er field and vale,
And which Echo, like the tale
Of old times, repeats again.
To-whoo! to-whoo! near, nearer now
The sound of song, the rushing throng!
Are the screech, the lapwing and the jay,
All awake as if 'twere day?
See, with long legs and belly wide,
A salamander in the brake!
Every root is like a snake,
And along the loose hill side,
With strange contortions through the night,
Curls, to seize or to affright;
And animated, strong, and many,
They dart forth polypus-antennæ,
To blister with their poison spume
The wanderer. Through the dazzling gloom
The many-coloured mice that thread
The dewy turf beneath our tread,
In troops each other's motions cross,
Through the heath and through the moss;
And in legions intertangled,
The fireflies flit, and swarm, and throng,
Till all the mountain depths are spangled.
Tell me, shall we go or stay?
Shall we onward? Come along!
Every thing around is swept
Forward, onward, far away!
Trees and masses intercept
The sight, and wisps on every side
Are puffed up and multiplied.
Now vigorously seize my skirt, and gain
This pinnacle of isolated crag.
One may observe with wonder from this point
How Mammon glows among the mountains.
And strangely through the solid depth below
A melancholy light, like the red dawn,
Shoots from the lowest gorge of the abyss
Of mountains, lighting hitherward; there, rise
Pillars of smoke; here, clouds float gently by;
Here the light burns soft as the enkindled air,
Or the illumined dust of golden flowers;
And now it glides like tender colours spreading;
And now bursts forth in fountains from the earth;
And now it winds one torrent of broad light,
Through the far valley with a hundred veins;
And now once more within that narrow corner
Masses itself into intensest splendour.
And near us see sparks spring out of the ground,
Like golden sand scattered upon the darkness;
The pinnacles of that black wall of mountains
That hems us in are kindled.
Does not Sir Mammon gloriously illuminate
His palace for this festival-it is
A pleasure which you had not known before.
I spy the boisterous guests already.
The children of the wind rage in the air!
With what fierce strokes they fall upon my neck!
Cling tightly to the old ribs of the crag.
Beware! for if with them thou warrest
In their fierce flight towards the wilderness,
Their breath will sweep thee into dust, and drag
Thy body to a grave in the abyss.
A cloud thickens the night.
Hark! how the tempest crashes through the forest!
The owls fly out in strange affright;
The columns of the evergreen palaces
The roots creak, and stretch, and groan;
And ruinously overthrown,
The trunks are crushed and shattered
By the fierce blast's unconquerable stress.
Over each other crack and crash they all
In terrible and intertangled fall;
And through the ruins of the shaken mountain
The airs hiss and howl-
It is not the voice of the fountain,
Nor the wolf in his midnight prowl.
Dost thou not here?
Strange accents are ringing
Aloft, afar, anear;
The witches are singing!
The torrent of a raging wizard's song Streams the whole mountain along,
The stubble is yellow, the corn is green,
Now to the Brocken the witches go;
The mighty multitude here may be seen
Gathering, wizard and witch, below.
Sir Urean is sitting aloft in the air;
Hey over stock! and hey over stone!
"Twixt witches and incubi, what shall be done?
Tell it who dare! tell it who dare!
Upon a sow-swine, whose farrows were nine, Old Baubo rideth alone.
Honour her to whom honour is due,
Old mother Baubo, honour to you!
An able sow with old Baubo upon her,
Is worthy of glory, and worthy of honour!
The legion of witches is coming behind,
Darkening the night and outspeeding the wind-
Over Ilsenstein; The owl was awake in the white moon-shine; I saw her at rest in her downy nest, And she stared at me with her broad bright eyne.
And you may now as well take your course on to Hell,
Since you ride by so fast on the headlong blast.
She dropt poison upon me as I past. Here are the wounds
Come away! come along! The way is wide, the way is long, But what is that for a Bedlam throng? Stick with the prong, and scratch with the broom. The child in the cradle lies strangled at home, And the mother is clapping her hands.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
Many a riddle there is tied anew
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?
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.
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