Before the gate of the town.

Motley groups of people crowding out to walk.

Some Journeymen.

Brethren, whither bound?

Others.

To the JÆgerhaus.

The First.

We to the mill.

A Journeyman.

At Wasserhof best cheer is to be found.

A Second.

But then the road is not agreeable.

The Others.

And what dost thou?

A Third.

I go where others go.

A Fourth.

Let’s go to Burgdorf; there you’ll find, I know,

The best of beer, and maidens to your mind,

And roaring frolics too, if that’s your kind.

A Fifth.

Thou over-wanton losel, thou!

Dost itch again for some new row?

I loathe the place; and who goes thither,

He and I don’t go together.

A Servant Girl.

No! no! back to the town I’d rather fare.

Another.

We’re sure to find him ’neath the poplars there.

The First.

No mighty matter that for me,

Since he will walk with none but thee,

In every dance, too, he is thine:

What have thy joys to do with mine?

The Other.

To-day he’ll not come single; sure he said

That he would bring with him the curly-head.

Student.

Blitz, how the buxom wenches do their paces!

Come, let us make acquaintance with their faces.

A stiff tobacco, and a good strong beer,

And a fine girl well-rigged, that’s the true Burschen cheer!

Burghers’ Daughters.

Look only at those spruce young fellows there!

In sooth, ’tis more than one can bear;

The best society have they, if they please,

And run after such low-bred queans as these!

Second Student. [to the first]

Not quite so fast! there comes a pair behind,

So smug and trim, so blithe and debonair;

And one is my fair neighbor, I declare;

She is a girl quite to my mind.

They pass along so proper and so shy,

And yet they’ll take us with them by and by.

First Student.

No, no! these girls with nice conceits they bore you,

Have at the open game that lies before you!

The hand that plies the busy broom on Monday,

Caressed her love the sweetest on the Sunday.

A Burgher.

No! this new burgomaster don’t please me,

Now that he’s made, his pride mounts high and higher;

And for the town, say, what does he?

Are we not deep and deeper in the mire?

In strictness day by day he waxes,

And more than ever lays on taxes.

A Beggar. [singing]

Ye gentle sirs, and ladies fair,

With clothes so fine, and cheeks so red,

O pass not by, but from your eye

Be pity’s gracious virtue shed!

Let me not harp in vain; for blest

Is he alone who gives away;

And may this merry Easter-feast

Be for the poor no fasting day!

Another Burgher.

Upon a Sunday or a holiday,

No better talk I know than war and warlike rumors,

When in Turkey far away,

The nations fight out their ill humors.

We sit i’ the window, sip our glass at ease,

And see how down the stream the gay ships gently glide;

Then wend us safely home at even-tide,

Blessing our stars we live in times of peace.

Third Burgher.

Yea, neighbor, there you speak right wisely;

Ev’n so do I opine precisely.

They may split their skulls, they may,

And turn the world upside down,

So long as we, in our good town,

Keep jogging in the good old way.

Old Woman. [to the Burghers’ Daughters.]

Hey-day, how fine! these be of gentle stuff,

The eyes that would not look on you are blind.

Only not quite so high! ’Tis well enough—

And what you wish I think I know to find.

First Burgher’s Daughter.

Agatha, come! I choose not to be seen

With such old hags upon the public green;

Though on St. Andrew’s night she let me see

My future lover bodily.

Second Burgher’s Daughter.

Mine too, bold, soldier-like, she made to pass,

With his wild mates, before me in a glass;

I hunt him out from place to place,

But nowhere yet he shows his face.

Soldiers.

Castles and turrets

And battlements high,

Maids with proud spirits,

And looks that defy!

From the red throat of death,

With the spear and the glaive,

We pluck the ripe glory

That blooms for the brave.

The trumpet invites him,

With soul-stirring call,

To where joy delights him,

Nor terrors appall.

On storming maintains he

Triumphant the field,

Strong fortresses gains he,

Proud maidens must yield.

Thus carries the soldier

The prize of the day,

And merrily, merrily

Dashes away!

Scene II.

Enter Faust and Wagner.

Faust.

The ice is now melted from stream and brook

By the Spring’s genial life-giving look;

Forth smiles young Hope in the greening vale,

And ancient Winter, feeble and frail,

Creeps cowering back to the mountains grey;

And thence he sends, as he hies him away,

Fitfullest brushes of icy hail,

Sweeping the plain in his harmless flight.

But the sun may brook no white,

Everywhere stirs he the vegetive strife,

Flushing the fields with the glow of life;

But since few flowers yet deck the mead

He takes him gay-dressed folk in their stead.

Now from these heights I turn me back

To view the city’s busy track.

Through the dark, deep-throated gate

They are pouring and spreading in motley array.

All sun themselves so blithe to-day.

The Lord’s resurrection they celebrate,

For that themselves to life are arisen.

From lowly dwellings’ murky prison,

From labor and business’ fetters tight,

From the press of gables and roofs that meet

Over the squeezing narrow street,

From the churches’ solemn night

Have they all been brought to the light.

Lo! how nimbly the multitude

Through the fields and the gardens hurry,

How, in its breadth and length, the flood

Wafts onward many a gleesome wherry,

And this last skiff moves from the brink

So laden that it seems to sink.

Ev’n from the far hills’ winding way

I’ the sunshine glitter their garments gay.

I hear the hamlet’s noisy mirth;

Here is the people’s heaven on earth,

And great and small rejoice to-day.

Here may I be a man, here dare

The joys of men with men to share.

Wagner.

With you, Herr Doctor, one is proud to walk,

Sharing your fame, improving by your talk;

But, for myself, I shun the multitude,

Being a foe to everything that’s rude.

I may not brook their senseless howling,

Their fiddling, screaming, ninepin bowling;

Like men possessed, they rave along,

And call it joy, and call it song.

Scene III.

Peasants. [beneath a lime-tree]

The shepherd for the dance was dressed,

With ribbon, wreath, and spotted vest,

Right sprucely he did show.

And round and round the linden-tree

All danced as mad as mad could be.

Juchhe, juchhe!

Juchheisa, heisa, he!

So went the fiddle bow.

Then with a jerk he wheeled him by,

And on a maiden that stood nigh

He with his elbow came.

Quick turned the wench, and, “Sir,” quoth she,

“Such game is rather rough for me.”

Juchhe, juchhe!

Juchheisa, heisa, he!

“For shame, I say, for shame!”

Yet merrily went it round and round,

And right and left they swept the ground,

And coat and kirtle flew;

And they grew red, and they grew warm,

And, panting, rested arm in arm;

Juchhe, juchhe!

Juchheisa, heisa, he!

And hips on elbows too.

And “Softly, softly,” quoth the quean,

“How many a bride hath cheated been

By men as fair as you!”

But he spoke a word in her ear aside,

And from the tree it shouted wide

Juchhe, juchhe!

Juchheisa, heisa, he!

With fife and fiddle too.

An Old Peasant.

Herr Doctor, ’tis most kind in you,

And all here prize the boon, I’m sure,

That one so learned should condescend

To share the pastimes of the poor.

Here, take this pitcher, filled ev’n now

With cooling water from the spring.

May God with grace to slake your thirst,

Bless the libation that we bring;

Be every drop a day to increase

Your years in happiness and peace!

Faust.

Your welcome offering I receive; the draught

By kind hands given, with grateful heart be quaffed!

[The people collect round him in a circle.

Old Peasant.

Soothly, Herr Doctor, on this tide,

Your grace and kindness passes praise;

Good cause had we whileome to bless

The name of Faust in evil days.

Here stand there not a few whose lives

Your father’s pious care attest,

Saved from fell fever’s rage, when he

Set limits to the deadly pest.

You were a young man then, and went

From hospital to hospital;

Full many a corpse they bore away,

But you came scaithless back from all;

Full many a test severe you stood

Helping helped by the Father of Good.

All the Peasants.

Long may the man who saved us live,

His aid in future need to give!

Faust.

Give thanks to Him above, who made

The hand that helped you strong to aid.

[He goes on farther with Wagner.

Wagner.

How proud must thou not feel, most learnÈd man,

To hear the praises of this multitude;

Thrice happy he who from his talents can

Reap such fair harvest of untainted good!

The father shows you to his son,

And all in crowds to see you run;

The dancers cease their giddy round,

The fiddle stops its gleesome sound;

They form a ring where’er you go,

And in the air their caps they throw;

A little more, and they would bend the knee,

As if the Holy Host came by in thee!

Faust.

Yet a few paces, till we reach yon stone,

And there our wearied strength we may repair.

Here oft I sat in moody thought alone,

And vexed my soul with fasting and with prayer.

Rich then in hope, in faith then strong,

With tears and sobs my hands I wrung,

And weened the end of that dire pest,

From heaven’s high-counselled lord to wrest.

Now their applause with mockery flouts mine ear.

O could’st thou ope my heart and read it here,

How little sire and son

For such huge meed of thanks have done!

My father was a grave old gentleman,

Who o’er the holy secrets of creation,

Sincere, but after his peculiar plan,

Brooded, with whimsied speculation.

Who, with adepts in painful gropings spent

His days, within the smoky kitchen pent,

And, after recipes unnumbered, made

The unnatural mixtures of his trade.

The tender lily and the lion red,

A suitor bold, in tepid bath were wed,

With open fiery flame well baked together,

And squeezed from one bride-chamber to another;

Then, when the glass the queen discovered,

Arrayed in youthful glistening pride,

Here was the medicine, and the patient died,

But no one questioned who recovered.

Thus in these peaceful vales and hills,

The plague was not the worst of ills,

And Death his ghastly work pursued,

The better for the hellish brewst we brewed.

Myself to thousands the curst juice supplied;

They pined away, and I must live to hear

The praise of mercy in the murderer’s ear.

Wagner.

How can you with such whims be grieved?

Surely a good man does his part

With scrupulous care to use the art

Which from his father he received.

When we, in youth, place on our sire reliance,

He opes to us his stores of information;

When we, as men, extend the bounds of science,

Our sons build higher upon our foundation.

Faust.

O happy he who yet hath hope to float

Above this sea of crude distempered thought!

What we know not is what we need to know,

And what we know, we might as well let go;

But cease; cheat not the moment of its right

By curious care and envious repining;

Behold how fair, in evening’s mellow light,

The green-embosomed cottages are shining.

The sun slants down, the day hath lived his date,

But on he hies to tend another sphere.

O that no wing upon my wish may wait

To follow still and still in his career!

Upborne on evening’s quenchless beams to greet

The noiseless world illumined at my feet,

Each peaceful vale, each crimson-flaming peak,

Each silver rill whose tinkling waters seek

The golden flood that feeds the fruitful plain.

Then savage crags, and gorges dark, would rein

My proud careering course in vain;

Ev’n now the sea spreads out its shimmering bays,

And charms the sense with ectasy of gaze.

Yet seems the god at length to sink;

But, borne by this new impulse of my mind,

I hasten on, his quenchless ray to drink,

The day before me, and the night behind,

The heavens above me, under me the sea.

A lovely dream! meanwhile the god is gone.

Alas! the soul, in wingÈd fancy free,

Seeks for a corporal wing, and findeth none.

Yet in each breast ’tis deeply graven,

Upward and onward still to pant,

When over us, lost in the blue of heaven,

Her quavering song the lark doth chaunt;

When over piny peaks sublime

The eagle soars with easy strain,

And over lands and seas the crane

Steers homeward to a sunnier clime.

Wagner.

I too have had my hours of whim,

But feeling here runs over reason’s brim.

Forest and field soon tire the eye to scan,

And eagle’s wings were never made for man.

How otherwise the mind and its delights!

From book to book, from page to page, we go.

Thus sweeten we the dreary winter nights,

Till every limb with new life is aglow;

And chance we but unroll some rare old parchment scroll,

All heaven stoops down, and finds a lodgment in the soul.

Faust.

Thou know’st but the one impulse—it is well!

Tempt not the yearning that divides the heart.

Two souls, alas! within my bosom dwell!

This strives from that with adverse strain to part.

The one, bound fast by stubborn might of love,

To this low earth with grappling organs clings;

The other spurns the clod, and soars on wings

To join a nobler ancestry above.

Oh! be there spirits in the air,

’Twixt earth and heaven that float with potent sway,

Drop from your sphere of golden-glowing day,

And waft me hence new varied life to share!

Might I but own a mantle’s fold enchanted,

To climes remote to bear me on its wing,

More than the costliest raiment I should vaunt it,

More than the purple robe that clothes a king.

Wagner.

Invoke not rash the well-known spirit-throng,

That stream unseen the atmosphere along,

And dangers thousandfold prepare,

Weak men from every quarter to ensnare.

From the keen north in troops they float,

With sharpest teeth and arrow-pointed tongues;

From the harsh east they bring a blasting drought,

And feed with wasting greed upon thy lungs.

When from the arid south their sultry powers

They send, hot fires upheaping on thy crown,

The West brings forth his swarms with cooling showers,

To end in floods that sweep thy harvests down.

Quick-ear’d are they, on wanton mischief bent,

And work our will with surer bait to ply us;

They show as fair as heaven’s own couriers sent,

And lisp like angels when they most belie us.

But let us hence! the air is chill,

The cold gray mists are creeping down the hill,

Now is the time to seek the bright fireside.

Why standest thou with strange eyes opened wide?

What twilight-spectre may thy fancy trouble?

Faust.

See’st thou that swarthy dog sweeping through corn and stubble?

Wagner.

I saw him long ago—not strange he seemed to me.

Faust.

Look at him well—what should the creature be?

Wagner.

He seems a poodle who employs his snout

Now here, now there, to snuff his master out.

Faust.

Dost thou not see how nigher still and nigher

His spiral circles round us wind?

And, err I not, he leaves behind

His track a train of sparkling fire.

Wagner.

A small black poodle is all I see;

Surely some strange delusion blinds thee!

Faust.

Methinks soft magic circles winds he,

About, about, a snare for thee and me.

Wagner.

I see him only doubtful springing round,

Having two strangers for his master found.

Faust.

He draws him closer—now he comes quite near!

Wagner.

A dog, be sure, and not a ghost, is here.

He growls, and looks about in fear,

And crouches down, and looks to you,

And wags his tail—what any dog will do.

Faust.

Come hither, poodle!

Wagner.

’Tis a drollish brute;

When you stand still, then stands he mute,

But when you speak, he springs as he would speak to you;

He will bring back what you let fall,

And fetch your stick out of the water.

Faust.

You are quite right. There’s no such matter.

No trace of ghost—a dog well trained, that’s all!

Wagner.

A well-trained dog may well engage

The favor of a man most sage;

This poodle well deserves your recognition;

Few students learn so much from good tuition.

[Exeunt, going in through the gate of the city.

Scene IV.

Faust’s Study.

Faust. [entering with the Poodle.]

Now field and meadow lie behind me,

Hushed ’neath the veil of deepest night,

And thoughts of solemn seeming find me,

Too holy for the garish light.

Calm now the blood that wildly ran,

Asleep the hand of lawless strife;

Now wakes to life the love of man,

The love of God now wakes to life.

Cease, poodle! why snuff’st and snifflest thou so,

Running restless to and fro?

Behind the stove there lie at rest,

And take for bed my cushion the best!

And as without, on our mountain-ramble,

We joyed to see thy freakish gambol,

So here, my hospitable care,

A quiet guest, and welcome share.

When in our narrow cell confined,

The friendly lamp begins to burn,

Then clearer sees the thoughtful mind,

With searching looks that inward turn.

Bright Hope again within us beams,

And Reason’s voice again is strong,

We thirst for life’s untroubled streams,

For the pure fount of life we long.

Quiet thee, poodle! it seems not well

To break, with thy growling, the holy spell

Of my soul’s music, that refuses

All fellowship with bestial uses.

Full well we know that the human brood,

What they don’t understand condemn,

And murmur in their peevish mood

At things too fair and good for them;

Belike the cur, as curs are they,

Thus growls and snarls his bliss away.

But, alas! already I feel it well,

No more may peace within this bosom dwell.

Why must the stream so soon dry up,

And I lie panting for the cup

That mocks my lips? so often why

Drink pleasure’s shallow fount, when scarce yet tasted, dry?

Yet is this evil not without remeid;

We long for heavenly food to feed

Our heaven-born spirit, and the heart, now bent

On things divine, to revelation turns,

Which nowhere worthier or purer burns,

Than here in our New Testament.

I feel strange impulse in my soul

The sacred volume to unroll,

With honest purpose, once for all,

The holy Greek Original

Into my honest German to translate.

[He opens the Bible and reads.]

“In the beginning was the Word:” thus here

The text stands written; but no clear

Meaning shines here for me, and I must wait,

A beggar at dark mystery’s gate,

Lamed in the start of my career.

The naked word I dare not prize so high,

I must translate it differently,

If by the Spirit I am rightly taught.

“In the beginning of all things was Thought.”

The first line let me ponder well,

Lest my pen outstrip my sense;

Is it Thought wherein doth dwell

All-creative omnipotence?

I change the phrase, and write—the course

Of the great stream of things was shaped by Force.

But even here, before I lift my pen,

A voice of warning bids me try again.

At length, at length, the Spirit helps my need,

I write—“In the beginning was the Deed.”

Wilt thou keep thy dainty berth,

Poodle, use a gentler mirth,

Cease thy whimpering and howling,

And keep for other place thy growling.

Such a noisy inmate may

Not my studious leisure cumber;

You or I, without delay,

Restless cur, must leave the chamber!

Not willingly from thee I take

The right of hospitality.

But if thou wilt my quiet break,

Seek other quarters—thou hast exit free.

But what must I see?

What vision strange

Beyond the powers

Of Nature’s range?

Am I awake, or bound with a spell?

How wondrously the brute doth swell!

Long and broad

Uprises he,

In a form that no form

Of a dog may be!

What spectre brought I into the house?

He stands already, with glaring eyes,

And teeth in grinning ranks that rise,

Large as a hippopotamus!

O! I have thee now!

For such half-brood of hell as thou

The key of Solomon the wise

Is surest spell to exorcise.[n3]

Spirits. [in the passage without]

Brother spirits, have a care!

One within is prisoned there!

Follow him none!—for he doth quail

Like a fox, trap-caught by the tail.

But let us watch!

Hover here, hover there,

Up and down amid the air;

For soon this sly old lynx of hell

Will tear him free, and all be well.

If we can by foul or fair,

We will free him from the snare,

And repay good service thus,

Done by him oft-times for us.

Faust.

First let the charm of the elements four

The nature of the brute explore.

Let the Salamander glow,

Undene twine her crested wave,

Silphe into ether flow,

And Kobold vex him, drudging slave![n4]

Whoso knows not

The elements four,

Their quality,

And hidden power,

In the magic art

Hath he no part.

Spiring in flames glow

Salamander!

Rushing in waves flow

Undene!

Shine forth in meteor-beauty

Silphe!

Work thy domestic duty

Incubus Incubus!

Step forth and finish the spell.

None of the four

In the brute doth dwell.

It lies quite still with elfish grinning there.

It shall know a stronger charm,

It shall shrink from sharper harm,

When by a mightier name I swear.

Art thou a fugitive

Urchin of hell?

So yield thee at length

To this holiest spell!

Bend thee this sacred

Emblem before,

Which the powers of darkness

Trembling adore.[n5]

Already swells he up with bristling hair.

Can’st thou read it,

The holy sign,

Reprobate spirit,

The emblem divine?

The unbegotten,

Whom none can name,

Moving and moulding

The wide world’s frame,

Yet nailed to the cross

With a death of shame.

Now behind the stove he lies,

And swells him up to an elephant’s size,

And fills up all the space.

He’ll melt into a cloud; not so!

Down, I say, down, proud imp, and know

Here, at thy master’s feet, thy place!

In vain, in vain, thou seek’st to turn thee,

With an holy flame I burn thee!

Wait not the charm

Of the triple-glowing light!

Beware the harm

If thou invite

Upon thy head my spell of strongest might!

[The clouds vanish, and Mephistopheles comes forward from behind the fireplace, dressed like an itinerant scholar.

Scene V.

Faust and Mephistopheles.

Mephistopheles.

What’s all the noise about? I’m here at leisure

To work your worship’s will and pleasure.

Faust.

So, so! such kernel cracked from such a shell!

A travelling scholar! the jest likes me well!

Mephistopheles.

I greet the learned gentleman!

I’ve got a proper sweating ’neath your ban.

Faust.

What is thy name?

Mephistopheles.

What is my power were better,

From one who so despises the mere letter,

Who piercing through the coarse material shell,

With Being’s inmost substance loves to dwell.

Faust.

Yes, but you gentlemen proclaim

Your nature mostly in your name;

Destroyer, God of Flies, the Adversary,[1]

Such names their own interpretation carry.

But say, who art thou?

Mephistopheles.

I am a part of that primordial Might,

Which always wills the wrong, and always works the right.

Faust.

You speak in riddles; the interpretation?

Mephistopheles.

I am the Spirit of Negation:

And justly so; for all that is created

Deserves to be annihilated.

’Twere better, thus, that there were no creation.

Thus everything that you call evil,

Destruction, ruin, death, the devil,

Is my pure element and sphere.

Faust.

Thou nam’st thyself a part, yet standest wholly here.

Mephistopheles.

I speak to thee the truth exact,

The plain, unvarnished, naked fact,

Though man, that microcosm of folly deems

Himself the compact whole he seems.

Part of the part I am that erst was all,

Part of the darkness, from whose primal pall

Was born the light, the proud rebellious Light,

Which now disputeth with its mother Night,

Her rank and room i’ the world by ancient right.

Yet vainly; though it strain and struggle much,

’Tis bound to body with the closer clutch;

From body it streams, on body paints a hue,

And body bends it from its course direct;

Thus in due season I expect,

When bodies perish, Light will perish too.

Faust.

Hold! now I know thy worthy duties all!

Unable to annihilate wholesale,

Thy mischief now thou workest by retail.

Mephistopheles.

And even thus, my progress is but small.

This something, the big lumpish world, which stands

Opposed to nothing, still ties my hands,

And spite of all the ground that I seem winning,

Remains as firm as in the beginning;

With storms and tempests, earthquakes and burnings,

Earth still enjoys its evenings and mornings,

And the accursÈd fry of brute and human clay,

On them my noblest skill seems worse than thrown away.

How many thousands have I not buried!

Yet still a new fresh blood is hurried

Through fresh young veins, that I must sheer despair.

The earth, the water, and the air,

The moist, the dry, the hot, the cold,

A thousand germs of life unfold;

And had I not of flame made reservation,

I had no portion left in the creation.

Faust.

And thus thou seekest to oppose

The genial power, from which all life and motion flows,

Against Existence’ universal chain,

Clenching thy icy devil’s fist in vain!

Try some more profitable feats,

Strange son of Chaos, full of cross conceits.

Mephistopheles.

The hint is good, and on occasion,

May well deserve consideration;

Meanwhile, with your good leave, I would withdraw.

Faust.

My leave! do I make devil’s law?

The liberty, methinks, is all your own.

I see you here to-day with pleasure,

Go now, and come back at your leisure.

Here is the door, there is the window, and

A chimney, if you choose it, is at hand.

Mephistopheles.

Let me speak plain! there is a small affair,

That, without your assistance, bars my way,

The goblin-foot upon the threshold there—

Faust.

The pentagram stands in your way![n6]

Ha! tell me then, thou imp of sin,

If this be such a potent spell

To bar thy going out, how cam’st thou in?

What could have cheated such a son of hell?

Mephistopheles.

Look at it well, the drawing is not true;

One angle, that towards the door, you see,

Left a small opening for me.

Faust.

So so! for once dame Fortune has been kind,

And I have made a prisoner of you!

Chance is not always blind.

Mephistopheles.

The cur sprang in before it looked about;

But now the thing puts on a serious air;

The devil is in the house and can’t get out.

Faust.

You have the window, why not jump out there?

Mephistopheles.

It is a law which binds all ghosts and sprites;

Wherever they creep in, there too they must creep out;

I came in at the door, by the door I must go out.

Faust.

So so! then hell too has its laws and rights,

Thus might one profit by the powers of evil,

And make an honest bargain with the devil.

Mephistopheles.

The devil, sir, makes no undue exaction,

And pays what he has promised to a fraction;

But this affair requires consideration,

We’ll leave it for some future conversation.

For this time, I beseech your grace,

Let me be gone; I’ve work to do.

Faust.

Stay but one minute, I’ve scarce seen your face.

Speak; you should know the newest of the new.

Mephistopheles.

I’ll answer thee at length some other day;

At present, I beseech thee, let me loose.

Faust.

I laid no trap to snare thee in the way,

Thyself didst thrust thy head into the noose;

Whoso hath caught the devil, hold him fast!

Such lucky chance returns not soon again.

Mephistopheles.

If ’tis your pleasure so, I will remain,

But on condition that the time be passed

In worthy wise, and you consent to see

Some cunning sleights of spirit-craft from me.

Faust.

Thy fancy jumps with mine. Thou may’st commence,

So that thy dainty tricks but please the sense.

Mephistopheles.

Thou shalt, in this one hour, my friend,

More for thy noblest senses gain,

Than in the year’s dull formal train,

From stale beginning to stale end.

The songs the gentle Spirits sing thee,

The lovely visions that they bring thee,

Are not an empty juggling show.

On thine ear sweet sounds shall fall,

Odorous breezes round thee blow,

Taste, and touch, and senses all

With delicious tingling glow.

No lengthened prelude need we here,

Sing, Spirit-imps that hover near!

Spirits.

Vanish ye murky

Old arches away!

Through the cloud curtain

That blinds heaven’s ray

Mild and serenely

Look forth the queenly

Eye of the day!

Star now and starlet

Beam more benign,

And purer suns now

Softlier shine.

In beauty ethereal,

A swift-moving throng,

Of spirits aËrial,

Are waving along,

And the soul follows

On wings of desire;

The fluttering garlands

That deck their attire,

Cover the meadows,

Cover the bowers,

Where lovers with lovers

Breathe rapturous hours.

Bower on bower!

The shoots of the vine,

With the leaves of the fig-tree,

Their tendrils entwine!

Clusters of ripe grapes,

Bright-blushing all,

Into the wine-press

Heavily fall;

From fountains divine

Bright rivers of wine

Come foaming and swirling;

O’er gems of the purest,

Sparkling and purling,

They flow and they broaden

In bright vista seen,

To deep-bosomed lakes

Lightly fringed with the green,

Where leafy woods nod

In their tremulous sheen.

On light-oaring pinions

The birds cut the gale,

Through the breezy dominions

As sunward they sail;

They sail on swift wings

To the isles of the blest,

On the soft swelling waves

That are cradled to rest;

Where we hear the glad spirits

In jubilee sing,

As o’er the green meadows

Fleet-bounding they spring:

With light airy footing,

A numberless throng,

Like meteors shooting

The mountains along;

Some there are flinging

Their breasts to the seas,

Others are swinging

In undulant ease,

Lovingly twining

Life’s tissue divine,

Where pure stars are shining

In beauty benign!

Mephistopheles.

He sleeps! well done, ye airy urchins! I

Remain your debtor for this lullaby,

By which so bravely ye have sung asleep

This restless spirit, who, with all his wit,

Is not yet quite the man with cunning cast,

To hook the devil and hold him fast.

Around him let your shapes fantastic flit,

And in a sea of dreams his senses steep.

But now this threshold’s charm to disenchant,

The tooth of a rat is all I want;

Nor need I make a lengthened conjuration,

I hear one scraping there in preparation.

The lord of the rats and of the mice,

Of the flies, and frogs, and bugs, and lice,

Commands you with your teeth’s good saw,

The threshold of this door to gnaw!

Forth come, and there begin to file,

Where he lets fall this drop of oil.

Ha! there he jumps! that angle there,

With thy sharp teeth I bid thee tear,

Which jutting forward, sad disaster,

Unwilling prisoner keeps thy master.

Briskly let the work go on,

One bite more and it is done! [Exit.

Faust. [awakening from his trance]

Once more the juggler Pleasure cheats my lip,

Gone the bright spirit-dream, and left no trace,

That I spake with the devil face to face,

And that a poodle dog gave me the slip!

Scene VI.

Faust’s Study as before.

Faust. Mephistopheles.

Faust.

Who’s there to break my peace once more? come in!

Mephistopheles.

’Tis I!

Faust.

Come in!

Mephistopheles.

Thou must repeat it thrice.

Faust.

Come in.

Mephistopheles.

Thus with good omen we begin;

I come to give you good advice,

And hope we’ll understand each other.

The idle fancies to expel,

That in your brain make such a pother,

At your service behold me here,

Of noble blood, a cavalier,

A gallant youth rigged out with grace,

In scarlet coat with golden lace,

A short silk mantle, and a bonnet,

With a gay cock’s feather on it,

And at my side a long sharp sword.

Now listen to a well-meant word;

Do thou the like, and follow me,

All unembarrassed thus and free,

To mingle in the busy scenes

Of life, and know what living means.

Faust.

Still must I suffer, clothe me as you may,

This narrow earthly life’s incumbrancy;

Too old I am to be content with play,

Too young from every longing to be free.

What can the world hold forth for me to gain?

Abstain, it saith, and still it saith, Abstain!

This is the burden of the song

That in our ears eternal rings,

Life’s dreary litany lean and long,

That each dull moment hoarsely sings.

With terror wake I in the morn from sleep,

And bitter tears might often weep,

To see the day, when its dull course is run,

That brings to fruit not one small wish,—not one!

That, with capricious criticising,

Each taste of joy within my bosom rising,

Ere it be born, destroys, and in my breast

Chokes every thought that gives existence zest,

With thousand soulless trifles of an hour.

And when the dark night-shadows lower,

I seek to ease my aching brain

Upon a weary couch in vain.

With throngs of feverish dreams possessed,

Even in the home of sleep I find no rest;

The god, that in my bosom dwells,

Can stir my being’s inmost wells;

But he who sways supreme our finer stuff,

Moves not the outward world, hard, obdurate, and tough.

Thus my existence is a load of woes,

Death my best friend, and life my worst of foes.

Mephistopheles.

And yet methinks this friend you call your best,

Is seldom, when he comes, a welcome guest.

Faust.

Oh! happy he to whom, in victory’s glance,

Death round his brow the bloody laurel winds!

Whom, ’mid the circling hurry of the dance,

Locked in a maiden’s close embrace he finds;

O! would to God that I had sunk that night

In tranceful death before the Spirit’s might!

Mephistopheles.

Yet, on a certain night, a certain man was slow

To drink a certain brown potation out.

Faust.

It seems ’tis your delight to play the scout.

Mephistopheles.

Omniscient am I not; but many things I know.

Faust.

If, in that moment’s wild confusion,

A well-known tone of blithesome youth

Had power, by memory’s dear delusion,

To cheat me with the guise of truth;

Then curse I all whate’er the soul

With luring juggleries entwines,

And in this gloomy dungeon-hole

With dazzling flatteries confines!

Curst be ’fore all the high opinion

The soul has of its own dominion!

Curst all the show of shallow seeming,

Through gates of sense fallacious streaming!

Curst be the hollow dreams of fame,

Of honor, glory, and a name!

Curst be the flattering goods of earth,

Wife, child, and servant, house and hearth!

Accursed be Mammon, when with treasures

To riskful venture he invites us,

Curst when, the slaves of passive pleasures,

On soft-spread cushions he delights us!

Curst be the balsam juice o’ the grape!

Accursed be love’s deceitful thrall!

Accursed be Hope! accursed be Faith!

Accursed be Patience above all!

Chorus of Spirits. [invisible]

Woe! woe!

Thou hast destroyed it!

The beautiful world,

With mightiest hand,

A demigod

In ruin has hurled!

We weep,

And bear its wrecked beauty away,

Whence it may never

Return to the day.

Mightiest one

Of the sons of earth,

Brightest one,

Build it again!

Proudly resurgent with lovelier birth

In thine own bosom build it again!

Life’s glad career

Anew commence

With insight clear,

And purgÈd sense,

The while new songs around thee play,

To launch thee on more hopeful way!

Mephistopheles.

These are the tiny

Spirits that wait on me;

Hark how to pleasure

And action they counsel thee!

Into the world wide

Would they allure thee,

In solitude dull

No more to immure thee,

No more to sit moping

In mouldy mood,

With a film on thy sense,

And a frost in thy blood!

Cease then with thine own peevish whim to play,

That like a vulture makes thy life its prey.

Society, however low,

Still gives thee cause to feel and know

Thyself a man, amid thy fellow-men.

Yet my intent is not to pen

Thee up with the common herd! and though

I cannot boast, or rank, or birth

Of mighty men, the lords of earth,

Yet do I offer, at thy side,

Thy steps through mazy life to guide;

And, wilt thou join in this adventure,

I bind myself by strong indenture,

Here, on the spot, with thee to go.

Call me companion, comrade brave,

Or, if it better please thee so,

I am thy servant, am thy slave!

Faust.

And in return, say, what the fee

Thy faithful service claims from me?

Mephistopheles.

Of that you may consider when you list.

Faust.

No, no! the devil is an Egotist,

And seldom gratis sells his labor,

For love of God, to serve his neighbor.

Speak boldly out, no private clause conceal;

With such as you ’tis dangerous to deal.

Mephistopheles.

I bind myself to be thy servant here,

And wait with sleepless eyes upon thy pleasure,

If, when we meet again in yonder sphere,

Thou wilt repay my service in like measure.

Faust.

What yonder is I little reck to know,

Provided I be happy here below;

The future world will soon enough arise,

When the present in ruin lies.

’Tis from this earth my stream of pleasure flows,

This sun it is that shines upon my woes;

And, were I once from this my home away,

Then happen freely what happen may.

Nor hope in me it moves, nor fear,

If then, as now, we hate and love;

Or if in yonder world, as here,

An under be, and an above.

Mephistopheles.

Well, in this humor, you bid fair

With hope of good result to dare.

Close with my plan, and you will see

Anon such pleasant tricks from me,

As never eyes of man did bliss

From father Adam’s time to this.

Faust.

Poor devil, what hast thou to give,

By which a human soul may live?

By thee or thine was never yet divined

The thought that stirs the deep heart of mankind!

True, thou hast food that sateth never,

And yellow gold that, restless ever,

Like quicksilver between the fingers,

Only to escape us, lingers;

A game where we are sure to lose our labor,

A maiden that, while hanging on my breast,

Flings looks of stolen dalliance on my neighbor;

And honor by which gods are blest,

That, like a meteor, vanishes in air.

Show me the fruit that rots before ’tis broken,

And trees that day by day their green repair!

Mephistopheles.

A word of mighty meaning thou hast spoken,

Yet such commission makes not me despair.

Believe me, friend, we only need to try it,

And we too may enjoy our morsel sweet in quiet.

Faust.

If ever on a couch of soft repose

My soul shall rock at ease,

If thou canst teach with sweet delusive shows

Myself myself to please,

If thou canst trick me with a toy

To say sincerely I enjoy,

Then may my latest sand be run!

A wager on it!

Mephistopheles.

Done!

Faust.

And done, and done!

When to the moment I shall say,

Stay, thou art so lovely, stay!

Then with thy fetters bind me round,

Then perish I with cheerful glee!

Then may the knell of death resound,

Then from thy service art thou free!

The clock may stand,

And the falling hand

Mark the time no more for me!

Mephistopheles.

Consider well: in things like these

The devil’s memory is not apt to slip.

Faust.

That I know well; may’st keep thy heart at ease,

No random word hath wandered o’er my lip.

Slave I remain, or here, or there,

Thine, or another’s, I little care.

Mephistopheles.

My duty I’ll commence without delay,

When with the graduates you dine to-day.

One thing remains!—black upon white

A line or two, to make the bargain tight.

Faust.

A writing, pedant!—hast thou never found

A man whose word was better than his bond?

Is’t not enough that by my spoken word,

Of all I am and shall be thou art lord?

The world drives on, wild wave engulfing wave,

And shall a line bind me, if I would be a knave?

Yet ’tis a whim deep-graven in the heart,

And from such fancies who would gladly part?

Happy within whose honest breast concealed

There lives a faith, nor time nor chance can shake;

Yet still a parchment, written, stamped, and sealed,

A spectre is before which all must quake.

Commit but once thy word to the goose-feather,

Then must thou yield the sway to wax and leather.

Say, devil—paper, parchment, stone, or brass?

With me this coin or that will pass;

Style, or chisel, or pen shall it be?

Thou hast thy choice of all the three.

Mephistopheles.

What need of such a hasty flare

Of words about so paltry an affair?

Paper or parchment, any scrap will do,

Then write in blood your signature thereto.

Faust.

If this be all, there needs but small delay,

Such trifles shall not stand long in my way.

Mephistopheles. [while Faust is signing the paper]

Blood is a juice of most peculiar virtue.

Faust.

Only no fear that I shall e’er demur to

The bond as signed; my whole heart swears

Even to the letter that the parchment bears.

Too high hath soared my blown ambition;

I now take rank with thy condition;

The Mighty Spirit of All hath scorned me,

And Nature from her secrets spurned me:

My thread of thought is rent in twain,

All science I loathe with its wranglings vain.

In the depths of sensual joy, let us tame

Our glowing passion’s restless flame!

In magic veil, from unseen hand,

Be wonders ever at our command!

Plunge we into the rush of Time!

Into Action’s rolling main!

Then let pleasure and pain,

Loss and gain,

Joy and sorrow, alternate chime!

Let bright suns shine, or dark clouds lower,

The man that works is master of the hour.

Mephistopheles.

To thee I set nor bound nor measure,

Every dainty thou may’st snatch,

Every flying joy may’st catch,

Drink deep, and drain each cup of pleasure;

Only have courage, friend, and be not shy!

Faust.

Content from thee thy proper wares to buy,

Thou markest well, I do not speak of joy,

Pleasure that smarts, giddy intoxication,

Enamoured hate, and stimulant vexation.

My bosom healed from hungry greed of science

With every human pang shall court alliance;

What all mankind of pain and of enjoyment

May taste, with them to taste be my employment;

Their deepest and their highest I will sound,

Want when they want, be filled when they abound,

My proper self unto their self extend,

And with them too be wrecked, and ruined in the end.

Mephistopheles.

Believe thou me, who speak from test severe,

Chewing the same hard food from year to year,

There lives (were but the naked truth confessed)

No man who, from his cradle to his bier,

The same sour leaven can digest!

Trust one of us—this universe so bright,

He made it only for his own delight;

Supreme He reigns, in endless glory shining,

To utter darkness me and mine consigning,

And grudges ev’n to you the day without the night.

Faust.

But I will!

Mephistopheles.

There you are right!

One thing alone gives me concern,

The time is short, and we have much to learn.

There is a way, if you would know it,

Just take into your pay a poet;

Then let the learned gentleman sweep

Through the wide realms of imagination

And every noble qualification,

Upon your honored crown upheap,

The strength of the lion,

The wild deer’s agility,

The fire of the south,

With the north’s durability.

Then let his invention the secret unfold,

To be crafty and cunning, yet generous and bold;

And teach your youthful blood, as poets can,

To fall in love according to a plan.

Myself have a shrewd notion where we might

Enlist a cunning craftsman of this nature,

And Mr. Microcosmus he is hight.

Faust.

What am I then, if still I strive in vain

To reach the crown of manhood’s perfect stature,

The goal for which with all my life of life I strain?

Mephistopheles.

Thou art, do what thou wilt, just what thou art.

Heap wigs on wigs by millions on thy head,

And upon yard-high buskins tread,

Still thou remainest simply what thou art.

Faust.

I feel it well, in vain have I uphoarded

All treasures that the mind of man afforded,

And when I sit me down, I feel no more

A well of life within me than before;

Not ev’n one hairbreadth greater is my height,

Not one inch nearer to the infinite.

Mephistopheles.

My worthy friend, these things you view,

Just as they appear to you;

Some wiser method we must shape us,

Ere the joys of life escape us.

Why, what the devil! hands and feet,

Brain and brawn and blood are thine;

And what I drink, and what I eat,

Whose can it be, if ’tis not mine?

If I can number twice three horses,

Are not their muscles mine? and when I’m mounted,

I feel myself a man, and wheel my courses,

Just as if four-and-twenty legs I counted.

Quick then! have done with reverie,

And dash into the world with me!

I tell thee plain, a speculating fellow

Is like an ox on heath all brown and yellow,

Led in a circle by an evil spirit,

With roods of lush green pasture smiling near it.

Faust.

But how shall we commence?

Mephistopheles.

We start this minute:

Why, what a place of torture is here,

And what a life you live within it!

Yourself and your pack of younkers dear,

Killing outright with ennui!

Leave that to honest neighbor Paunch!

Thrashing of straw is not for thee:

Besides, into the best of all your knowledge,

You know ’tis not permitted you to launch

With chicken-hearted boys at College.

Ev’n now, methinks, I hear one on the stair.

Faust.

Send him away: I cannot bear—

Mephistopheles.

Poor boy! he’s waited long, nor must depart

Without some friendly word for head and heart;

Come, let me slip into your gown; the mask

Will suit me well; as for the teaching task,

[He puts on Faust’s scholastic robes.]

Leave that to me! I only ask

A quarter of an hour; and you make speed

And have all ready for our journey’s need. [Exit.

Mephistopheles. [solus]

Continue thus to hold at nought

Man’s highest power, his power of thought;

Thus let the Father of all lies

With shows of magic blind thine eyes,

And thou art mine, a certain prize.

To him hath Fate a spirit given,

With reinless impulse ever forwards driven,

Whose hasty striving overskips

The joys that flow for mortal lips;

Him drag I on through life’s wild chase,

Through flat unmeaning emptiness;

He shall cling and cleave to me,

Like a sprawling child in agony,

And food and drink, illusive hovering nigh,

Shall shun his parchÈd lips, and cheat his longing eye;

He shall pine and pant and strain

For the thing he may not gain,

And, though he ne’er had sold him to do evil,

He would have damned himself without help from the devil.

Scene VII.

Enter a Student.

Student.

I am but fresh arrived to-day,

And come my best respects to pay,

To one whose name, from boor to Kaiser,

None, without veneration, mention.

Mephistopheles.

I feel obliged by your attention!

You see a man than other men no wiser:

Have you made inquiry elsewhere?

Student.

Beseech you, sir, be my adviser!

I come with money to spend and spare,

With fresh young blood, and a merry heart,

On my college career to start:

My mother sent me, not without a tear,

To get some needful schooling here.

Mephistopheles.

A better place you could not find.

Student.

To speak the truth, ’tis not much to my mind.

Within these narrow cloister walls,

These antiquated Gothic halls,

I feel myself but ill at ease;

No spot of green I see, no trees,

And ’mid your formal rows of benches,

I almost seem to lose my senses.

Mephistopheles.

That all depends on custom. Don’t you see

How a young babe at first is slow

To know its mother’s breast; but soon

With joy it strains the milky boon;

So you anon will suck nutrition

From Wisdom’s breasts with blest fruition.

Student.

I yearn to do so even now;

But, in the first place, tell me how?

Mephistopheles.

My help is yours, or great or small;

But choose your Faculty, first of all.

Student.

I aim at culture, learning, all

That men call science on the ball

Of earth, or in the starry tent

Of heaven; all Nature high and low,

Broad and deep, I seek to know.

Mephistopheles.

There you are on the proper scent;

Only beware of too much distraction.

Student.

With soul and body I’m girt for action,

And yet I cannot choose but praise

A little freedom and merriment,

On pleasant summer holidays.

Mephistopheles.

Redeem the time, for fast it fleets away,

But order rules the hour it cannot stay.

Therefore ’tis plain that you must pass

First of all through the logic class.

There will your mind be postured rightly,

Laced up in Spanish buskins tightly,

That with caution and care, as wisdom ought,

It may creep along the path of thought,

And not with fitful flickering glow

Will o’ the wisp it to and fro.

There, too, if you hear the gentleman through

The term, to every lecture true,

You’ll learn that a stroke of human thinking,

Which you had practised once as free

And natural as eating and drinking,

Cannot be made without one! two! three!

True, it should seem that the tissue of thought

Is like a web by cunning master wrought,

Where one stroke moves a thousand threads,

The shuttle shoots backwards and forwards between,

The slender threads flow together unseen,

And one with the others thousand-fold weds:

Then steps the philosopher forth to show

How of necessity it must be so:

If the first be so, the second is so,

And therefore the third and the fourth is so;

And unless the first and the second before be,

The third and the fourth can never more be.

So schoolmen teach and scholars believe,

But none of them yet ever learned to weave.

He who strives to know a thing well

Must first the spirit within expel,

Then can he count the parts in his hand,

Only without the spiritual band.

Encheiresis naturÆ, ’tis clept in Chemistry,

Thus laughing at herself, albeit she knows not why.

Student.

I must confess I can’t quite comprehend you.

Mephistopheles.

In this respect time by and by will mend you,

When you have learned the crude mixed masses

To decompose, and rank them in their classes.

Student.

I feel as stupid to all he has said,

As a mill-wheel were whirling round in my head.

Mephistopheles.

After logic, first of all,

To the study of metaphysics fall!

There strive to know what ne’er was made

To go into a human head;

For what is within and without its command

A high-sounding word is always at hand.

But chiefly, for the first half year,

Let order in all your studies appear;

Five lectures a-day, that no time be lost,

And with the clock be at your post!

Come not, as some, without preparation,

But con his paragraphs o’er and o’er,

To be able to say, when you hear his oration,

That he gives you his book, and nothing more;

Yet not the less take down his words in writing,

As if the Holy Spirit were inditing!

Student.

I shall not quickly give you cause

To repeat so weighty a clause;

For what with black on white is written,

We carry it home, a sure possession.

Mephistopheles.

But, as I said, you must choose a profession.

Student.

With Law, I must confess, I never was much smitten.

Mephistopheles.

I should be loath to force your inclination,

Myself have some small skill in legislation;

For human laws and rights from sire to son,

Like an hereditary ill, flow on;

From generation dragged to generation,

And creeping slow from place to place.

Reason is changed to nonsense, good to evil,

Art thou a grandson, woe betide thy case!

Of Law they prate, most falsely clept the Civil,

But for that right, which from our birth we carry,

’Tis not a word found in their Dictionary.

Student.

Your words have much increased my detestation.

O happy he, to whom such guide points out the way!

And now, I almost feel an inclination

To give Theology the sway.

Mephistopheles.

I have no wish to lead you astray.

As to this science, ’tis so hard to eschew

The false way, and to hit upon the true,

And so much hidden poison lurks within,

That’s scarce distinguished from the medicine.

Methinks that here ’twere safest done

That you should listen but to one,

And jurare in verba magistri

Is the best maxim to assist thee.

Upon the whole, I counsel thee

To stick to words as much as may be,

For such will still the surest way be

Into the temple of certainty.

Student.

Yet in a word some sense must surely lurk.

Mephistopheles.

Yes, but one must not go too curiously to work;

For, just when our ideas fail us,

A well-coined word may best avail us.

Words are best weapons in disputing,

In system-building and uprooting,

To words most men will swear, though mean they ne’er so little,

From words one cannot filch a single tittle.

Student.

Pardon me, if I trespass on your time,

Though to make wisdom speak seems scarce a crime;

On medicine, too, I am concerned

To hear some pregnant word from one so learned.

Three years, God knows, is a short time,

And we have far to go, and high to climb;

A wise man’s fingers pointing to the goal

Will save full many a groan to many a laboring soul.

Mephistopheles. [aside]

I’m weary of this dry pedantic strain,

’Tis time to play the genuine devil again.

[Aloud.] The spirit of Medicine ’tis not hard to seize:

The world, both great and small, you seek to know,

That in the end you may let all things go

As God shall please.

In vain you range around with scientific eyes,

Each one at length learns only what he can;

But he who knows the passing hour to prize,

That is the proper man.

A goodly shape and mien you vaunt,

And confidence, I guess, is not your want,

Trust but yourself, and, without more ado,

All other men will straightway trust you too.

But chiefly be intent to get a hold

O’ the women’s minds: their endless Oh! and Ah!

So thousandfold,

In all its change, obeys a single law,

And, if with half a modest air you come,

You have them all beneath your thumb.

A title first must purchase their reliance,

That you have skill surpassing vulgar science;

Thus have you hold at once of all the seven ends,

Round which another year of labor spends.

Study to press the pulse right tenderly,

And, with a sly and fiery eye,

To hold her freely round the slender waist,

That you may see how tightly she is laced.

Student.

This seems to promise better; here we see

Where to apply and how to use the knife.

Mephistopheles.

Gray, my good friend, is every theory,

But green the golden tree of life.

Student.

I vow I feel as in a dream; my brain

Contains much more than it can comprehend;

Some other day may I come back again,

To hear your wisdom to the end?

Mephistopheles.

What I can teach all men are free to know.

Student.

One little favor grant me ere I go;

It were my boast to take home on this page

[Presenting a leaf from his album.]

Some sapient maxim from a man so sage.

Mephistopheles.

Right willingly.

[He writes, and gives back the book.

Student. [reads]

Eritis sicut Deus scientes bonum et malum.

[He closes the book reverently, and takes his leave.

Mephistopheles.

Follow the ancient saw, and my cousin, the famous old Serpent,

Right soon shalt thou have cause, at thy godlike knowledge to tremble!

Enter Faust.

Faust.

Now, whither bound?

Mephistopheles.

Where’er it pleases you;

The world, both great and small, we view.

O! how it will delight, entrance you,

The merry reel of life to dance through!

Faust.

My beard, I am afraid, is rather long;

And without easy manners, gentle breeding,

I fear there is small chance of my succeeding;

I feel so awkward ’mid the busy throng,

So powerless and so insignificant,

And what all others have I seem to want.

Mephistopheles.

Bah! never fear; the simple art of living

Is just to live right on without misgiving!

Faust.

But how shall we commence our course?

I see nor coach, nor groom, nor horse.

Mephistopheles.

We only need your mantle to unfold,

And it shall waft us on the wind.

Who makes with me this journey bold

No bulky bundle busks behind;

A single puff of inflammable air,

And from the ground we nimbly fare.

Lightly we float. I wish the best of cheer

To Doctor Faustus on his new career.

end of act second.