THE LORD.

Pray come here when it suits you; for I never
Had much dislike for people of your sort.
And, among all the Spirits who rebelled,

ΙΟΙ

The knave was ever the least tedious to me.
The active spirit of man soon sleeps, and soon
He seeks unbroken quiet; therefore I
Have given him the Devil for a companion,
Who may provoke him to some sort of work,
And must create for ever.-But ye, pure
Children of God, enjoy eternal beauty ;-
Let that which ever operates and lives
Clasp you within the limits of its love;
And seize with sweet and melancholy thoughts
The floating phantoms of its loveliness.

[Heaven closes; the Archangels exeunt.

MEPHISTOPHELES.

110

From time to time I visit the old fellow,
And I take care to keep on good terms with him.
Civil enough is this same God Almighty,
To talk so freely with the Devil himself.

SCENE II.-MAY-DAY NIGHT.

SCENE-The Hartz Mountain, a desolate Country.

FAUST, MEPHISTOPHELES.

MEPHISTOPHEles.

Would you not like a broomstick? As for me
I wish I had a good stout ram to ride;
For we are still far from the appointed place.

FAUST.

This knotted staff is help enough for me, Whilst I feel fresh upon my legs. What good

Is there in making short a pleasant way?
To creep along the labyrinths of the vales,
And climb those rocks, where ever-babbling
springs,

Precipitate themselves in waterfalls,

Is the true sport that seasons such a path.
Already Spring kindles the birchen spray,
And the hoar pines already feel her breath:
Shall she not work also within our limbs?

MEPHISTOPHELES.

Nothing of such an influence do I feel.
My body is all wintry, and I wish

The flowers upon our path were frost and snow.
But see how melancholy rises now,
Dimly uplifting her belated beam,

The blank unwelcome round of the red moon,
And gives so bad a light, that every step
One stumbles 'gainst some crag.

permission,

I'll call an Ignis-fatuus to our aid:

I see one yonder burning jollily.

20

With your

Halloo, my friend! may I request that you Would favour us with your bright company? Why should you blaze away there to no pur

pose?

Pray be so good as light us up this way.

IGNIS-FATUus.

With reverence be it spoken, I will try
To overcome the lightness of my nature;
Our course, you know, is generally zig-zag. 30

MEPHISTOPHELES.

Ha, ha! your worship thinks you have to deal With men. Go straight on, in the Devil's name, Or I shall puff your flickering life out.

IGNIS-FATUus.

I see you are the master of the house;
I will accommodate myself to you.

Well,

Only consider that to-night this mountain
Is all enchanted, and if Jack-a-lantern

Shows you his way, though you should miss your own,

You ought not to be too exact with him.

FAUST, MEPHISTOPHELES, and IGNIS-FATUUS, in alternate 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

40

50

Finds a voice in this blithe strain,

60

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,

70

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

80

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 fire-flies flit, and swarm, and throng, Till all the mountain depths are spangled.

Tell me, shall we go or stay? Shall we onward? Come along! Everything around is swept

Forward, onward, far away!

Trees and masses intercept

The sight, and wisps on every side
Are puffed up and multiplied.

MEPHISTOPHEles.

Now vigorously seize my skirt, and gain

This pinnacle of isolated crag.

90

One may observe with wonder from this point, How Mammon glows among the mountains.

FAUST.

Aye

99

And strangely through the solid depth below
A melancholy light, like the red dawn,
Shoots from the lowest gorge of the abyss
Of mountains, lightning 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.

MEPHISTOPHEles.

Rare, in faith!

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.

FAUST.

How

The children of the wind rage in the air!
With what fierce strokes they fall upon my

neck!