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

Finds a voice in this blithe strain,
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 lake!

Every root is like a snake,

And along the loose hill side,

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
The wanderer. Through the dazzling gloom
The many-coloured mice, that thread

The dewy turf beneath our tread,

In troops each others 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!
Every thing around is swept
Forward, onward, far away!
Trees and masses intercept

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

Meph. Now vigorously seize my skirt, and gain This pinnacle of isolated crag.

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

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.

Meph. 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. Now

The children of the wind rage in the air!

With what fierce strokes they fall upon my neck!
Meph. Cling tightly to the old ribs of the crag.
Beware! for if with them thou warrest

In their fierce flight towards the wilderness,
Their breath will sweep thee into dust, and drag

Thy body to a grave in the abyss.

A cloud thickens the night.

Hark! how the tempest crashes through the forest!
The owls fly out in strange affright;

The columns of the evergreen palaces

Are split and shattered;

The roots creak, and stretch, and groan;

And ruinously overthrown,

The trunks are crushed and shattered

By the fierce blast's unconquerable stress.
Over each other crack and crash they all
In terrible and intertangled fall;

And through the ruins of the shaken mountain
The airs hiss and howl.

It is not the voice of the fountain,

Nor the wolf in his midnight prowl.

Dost thou not hear?

Strange accents are ringing

Aloft, afar, anear;

The witches are singing!

The torrent of a raging wizard song
Streams the whole mountain along.
Chorus of Witches.

The stubble is yellow, the corn is green,
Now to the Brocken the witches go;
The mighty multitude here may be seen
Gathering, wizard and witch, below.
Sir Urean is sitting aloft in the air;
Hey over stock! and hey over stone!
"Twixt witches and incubi, what shall be done?
Tell it who dare! tell it who dare!

A Voice.

Upon a sow swine, whose farrows were nine,
Old Baubo rideth alone.

Chorus.

Honour her to whom honour is due,
Old mother Baubo, honor to you!

An able sow, with old Baubo upon her,
Is worthy of glory, and worthy of honour!
The legion of witches is coming behind,
Darkening the night, and outspeeding the wind.

Which way comest thou?

A Voice.

A Voice.

Over Ilsenstein;

The owl was awake in the white moon-shine;

I saw her at rest in her downy nest,

And she stared at me with her broad, bright eye.

And

Voices.

you may now as well take your course on to Hell, Since you ride by so fast on the headlong blast.

A Voice.

She dropt poison upon me as I past.

Here are the wounds

The way

Chorus of Witches.

Come away! come along!

is wide, the way is long,

But what is that for a bedlam throng?

Stick with the prong, and scratch with the broom. The child in the cradle lies strangled at home, And the mother is clapping her hands.

Semi-Chorus of Wizards I.
We glide in

Like snails, when the women are all away;
And from a house once given over to sin
Woman has a thousand steps to stray.

Semi-Chorus II.

A thousand steps must a woman take,

Where a man but a single spring will make.

Voices above.

Come with us, come with us,

from Felumee.

Voices below.

With what joy would we fly through the upper sky! We are washed, we are 'nointed, stark naked are we ; But our toil and our pain is for ever in vain.

Both Chorusses.

The wind is still, the stars are fled,

The melancholy moon is dead;

The magic notes, like spark on spark,

Drizzle, whistling through the dark...

Come away!

Voices below.

Stay, oh, stay!

Voices above.

Out of the crannies of the rocks,

Who calls?