PROCTOPHANTASMIST.

Ghosts, to your faces openly I declare, That spirit despotism I will not bear. My spirit cannot exercise its sway.

[they dance on.

To-day I see I shall no progress make,
Still am prepared my journey to pursue;
And hope, before the latest step I take,

The devil and the poet to subdue.

MEPHISTOPHEles.

At once himself he in a pond will seat,
That is the way he takes his heart to cheer
And when the leeches fasten on his rear
Of spirits and spirit is his cure complete.

[to Faust, who has left the dance.

Why lettest thou that lovely girl away,
That to thee in the dance so sweetly sang?

FAUST.

Alas! just in the middle of her lay,

A red mouse forth from out her mouth there

MEPHISTOPHeles.

All right! We're not here so particular.

sprang.

It was enough that the mouse was not grey;
Who cares for such things in our hours of play?

Then saw I

FAUST.

MEPHISTOPHELES.

What?

FAUST.

Mephisto, seest thou there

A pale, fair girl, alone, and far away?

She drags herself along so sad and slow,
And then with shackled feet appears to go.

I must confess the thought my mind doth strike,
It is to my poor Margaret very like.

MEPHISTOPHEles.

Leave it alone. It hath wrought good to none,
A phantom,-lifeless, -a mere shape alone ;*
And to encounter it is never good.

With its fixed gaze it freezes mortal's blood,
Until it almost turns them into stone.

Medusa's story sure to you is known.

In

FAUST.

very truth a corpse's eyes are those,

Whose lids no loving hand was near to close;

* Idol, not a thing to be worshipped, but eidolon, a thing seen, and only seen.

That is the breast that Margaret yielded me,
That the sweet form that I so gloated on.

MEPHISTOPHeles.

Thou easily deluded fool! 'tis sorcery ;
This seems to be his Love to every one.

FAUST.

What a delight! and yet what agony!

I cannot tear me from its glance away. And yet that lovely neck; how curiously

Doth it one narrow, crimson stripe display ; No breadth more than a knife's back doth it fill.

MEPHISTOPHeles.

'Tis very true, I see it also so; Under her arm she carries it at will.

Perseus cut it off for her long ago. For ever what a craving for delusion! Up the hill here come away,

Where all is even as in the Prater* gay. And if my brains are not in some confusion, I see a theatre quite plain.

What's going on?

SERVIBILIS.

They'll just begin again.

• The Prater, the Hyde Park of Vienna.

X

"Tis a new piece, 'tis the last piece of seven, That is the number now is always given. An amateur has written all;

And amateurs take every part.

Your pardon, gentlemen, if I depart, As amateur, the curtain up to haul.

MEPHISTOPHELES.

of finding you on the Blocksberg, I approve, It is the true circle in which should move.

you

WALPURGIS NIGHT'S DREAM,

OR

OBERON AND TITANIA'S

GOLDEN WEDDING FEAST.

INTERMEZZO.