[MEPHISTOPHELES enters.]

MEPHISTOPHELES

Of this lone life have you not had your fill? 
How for so long can it have charms for you? 
’Tis well enough to try it if you will;
But then away again to something new!

FAUST

Would you could better occupy your leisure,
Than in disturbing thus my hours of joy.

MEPHISTOPHELES

Well!  Well!  I’ll leave you to yourself with pleasure,
A serious tone you hardly dare employ. 
To part from one so crazy, harsh, and cross,
Were not in truth a grievous loss. 
The live-long day, for you I toil and fret;
Ne’er from his worship’s face a hint I get,
What pleases him, or what to let alone.

FAUST

Ay truly! that is just the proper tone! 
He wearies me, and would with thanks be paid!

MEPHISTOPHELES

Poor Son of Earth, without my aid,
How would thy weary days have flown? 
Thee of thy foolish whims I’ve cured,
Thy vain imaginations banished. 
And but for me, be well assured,
Thou from this sphere must soon have vanished. 
In rocky hollows and in caverns drear,
Why like an owl sit moping here? 
Wherefore from dripping stones and moss with ooze embued,
Dost suck, like any toad, thy food? 
A rare, sweet pastime.  Verily! 
The doctor cleaveth still to thee.

FAUST

Dost comprehend what bliss without alloy
From this wild wand’ring in the desert springs?—­
Couldst thou but guess the new life-power it brings,
Thou wouldst be fiend enough to envy me my joy.

MEPHISTOPHELES

What super-earthly ecstasy! at night,
To lie in darkness on the dewy height,
Embracing heaven and earth in rapture high,
The soul dilating to a deity;
With prescient yearnings pierce the core of earth,
Feel in your laboring breast the six-days’ birth,
Enjoy, in proud delight what no one knows,
While your love-rapture o’er creation flows—­
The earthly lost in beatific vision,
And then the lofty intuition—­

(with a gesture)

I need not tell you how—­to close!

FAUST

Fie on you!

MEPHISTOPHELES