Faust Part 48

We do not measure with such care: Woman in thousand steps is theft.

But howsoe'er she hasten may, Man in one leap has cleared the way.

VOICE (from above)

Come on, come on, from Rocky Lake!

VOICE (from below)

Aloft we'd fain ourselves betake.

We've washed, and are bright as ever you will, Yet we're eternally sterile still.

BOTH CHORUSES

The wind is hushed, the star shoots by.

The dreary moon forsakes the sky; The magic notes, like spark on spark, Drizzle, whistling through the dark.

VOICE (from below)

Halt, there! Ho, there!

VOICE (from above)

Who calls from the rocky cleft below there?

VOICE (below)

Take me, too! take me, too!

I'm climbing now three hundred years, And yet the summit cannot see: Among my equals I would be.

BOTH CHORUSES

Bears the broom and bears the stock, Bears the fork and bears the buck: Who cannot raise himself to-night Is evermore a ruined wight.

HALF-WITCH (below)

So long I stumble, ill bestead, And the others are now so far ahead!

At home I've neither rest nor cheer, And yet I cannot gain them here.

CHORUS OF WITCHES

To cheer the witch will salve avail; A rag will answer for a sail; Each trough a goodly s.h.i.+p supplies; He ne'er will fly, who now not flies.

BOTH CHORUSES

When round the summit whirls our flight, Then lower, and on the ground alight; And far and wide the heather press With witchhood's swarms of wantonness!

(They settle down.)

MEPHISTOPHELES

They crowd and push, they roar and clatter!

They whirl and whistle, pull and chatter!

They s.h.i.+ne, and spirt, and stink, and burn!

The true witch-element we learn.

Keep close! or we are parted, in our turn, Where art thou?

FAUST (in the distance)

Here!

MEPHISTOPHELES

What! whirled so far astray?

Then house-right I must use, and clear the way.

Make room! Squire Voland comes! Room, gentle rabble, room!

Here, Doctor, hold to me: in one jump we'll resume An easier s.p.a.ce, and from the crowd be free: It's too much, even for the like of me.

Yonder, with special light, there's something s.h.i.+ning clearer Within those bushes; I've a mind to see.

Come on! well slip a little nearer.

FAUST

Spirit of Contradiction! On! I'll follow straight.

'Tis planned most wisely, if I judge aright: We climb the Brocken's top in the Walpurgis-Night, That arbitrarily, here, ourselves we isolate.

MEPHISTOPHELES

But see, what motley flames among the heather!

There is a lively club together: In smaller circles one is not alone.

FAUST

Better the summit, I must own: There fire and whirling smoke I see.

They seek the Evil One in wild confusion: Many enigmas there might find solution.

MEPHISTOPHELES

But there enigmas also knotted be.

Leave to the mult.i.tude their riot!

Here will we house ourselves in quiet.

It is an old, transmitted trade, That in the greater world the little worlds are made.

I see stark-nude young witches congregate, And old ones, veiled and hidden shrewdly: On my account be kind, nor treat them rudely!

The trouble's small, the fun is great.

I hear the noise of instruments attuning,- Vile din! yet one must learn to bear the crooning.

Come, come along! It must be, I declare!

I'll go ahead and introduce thee there, Thine obligation newly earning.

That is no little s.p.a.ce: what say'st thou, friend?

Look yonder! thou canst scarcely see the end: A hundred fires along the ranks are burning.

They dance, they chat, they cook, they drink, they court: Now where, just tell me, is there better sport?

FAUST

Wilt thou, to introduce us to the revel, a.s.sume the part of wizard or of devil?