Part 53 (1/2)

Darting hither from the sky, In star and fire light shooting, Cross-wise now in gra.s.s I lie: Who'll help me to my footing?

THE HEAVY FELLOWS

Room! and round about us, room!

Trodden are the gra.s.ses: Spirits also, spirits come, And they are bulky ma.s.ses.

PUCK

Enter not so stall-fed quite, Like elephant-calves about one!

And the heaviest weight to-night Be Puck, himself, the stout one!

ARIEL

If loving Nature at your back, Or Mind, the wings uncloses, Follow up my airy track To the mount of roses!

ORCHESTRA

pianissimo Cloud and trailing mist o'erhead Are now illuminated: Air in leaves, and wind in reed, And all is dissipated.

XXIII

DREARY DAY

A FIELD

FAUST MEPHISTOPHELES

FAUST

In misery! In despair! Long wretchedly astray on the face of the earth, and now imprisoned! That gracious, ill-starred creature shut in a dungeon as a criminal, and given up to fearful torments! To this has it come! to this!-Treacherous, contemptible spirit, and thou hast concealed it from me!-Stand, then,-stand! Roll the devilish eyes wrathfully in thy head! Stand and defy me with thine intolerable presence!

Imprisoned! In irretrievable misery! Delivered up to evil spirits, and to condemning, unfeeling Man! And thou hast lulled me, meanwhile, with the most insipid dissipations, hast concealed from me her increasing wretchedness, and suffered her to go helplessly to ruin!

Roll the devilish eyes wrathfully in thy head

MEPHISTOPHELES

She is not the first.

FAUST

Dog! Abominable monster! Transform him, thou Infinite Spirit! transform the reptile again into his dog-shape? in which it pleased him often at night to scamper on before me, to roll himself at the feet of the unsuspecting wanderer, and hang upon his shoulders when he fell! Transform him again into his favorite likeness, that he may crawl upon his belly in the dust before me,-that I may trample him, the outlawed, under foot! Not the first! O woe! woe which no human soul can grasp, that more than one being should sink into the depths of this misery,-that the first, in its writhing death-agony under the eyes of the Eternal Forgiver, did not expiate the guilt of all others! The misery of this single one pierces to the very marrow of my life; and thou art calmly grinning at the fate of thousands!

MEPHISTOPHELES

Now we are already again at the end of our wits, where the understanding of you men runs wild. Why didst thou enter into fellows.h.i.+p with us, if thou canst not carry it out? Wilt fly, and art not secure against dizziness? Did we thrust ourselves upon thee, or thou thyself upon us?

FAUST