Part 48 (1/2)

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)