Is there a magic vapor here? 
I came, with lust of instant pleasure,
And lie dissolved in dreams of love’s sweet leisure! 
Are we the sport of every changeful atmosphere?

And if, this moment, came she in to me,
How would I for the fault atonement render! 
How small the giant lout would be,
Prone at her feet, relaxed and tender!

MEPHISTOPHELES

Be quick!  I see her there, returning.

FAUST

Go! go!  I never will retreat.

MEPHISTOPHELES

Here is a casket, not unmeet,
Which elsewhere I have just been earning. 
Here, set it in the press, with haste! 
I swear, ’twill turn her head, to spy it: 
Some baubles I therein had placed,
That you might win another by it. 
True, child is child, and play is play.

FAUST

I know not, should I do it?

MEPHISTOPHELES

Ask you, pray? 
Yourself, perhaps, would keep the bubble? 
Then I suggest, ’twere fair and just
To spare the lovely day your lust,
And spare to me the further trouble. 
You are not miserly, I trust? 
I rub my hands, in expectation tender—­

(He places the casket in the press, and locks it again.)

Now quick, away! 
The sweet young maiden to betray,
So that by wish and will you bend her;
And you look as though
To the lecture-hall you were forced to go,—­
As if stood before you, gray and loath,
Physics and Metaphysics both! 
But away! [Exeunt.

MARGARET (with a lamp)

It is so close, so sultry, here!

(She opens the window)

And yet ’tis not so warm outside. 
I feel, I know not why, such fear!—­
Would mother came!—­where can she bide? 
My body’s chill and shuddering,—­
I’m but a silly, fearsome thing!

(She begins to sing while undressing)

        There was a King in Thule,
        Was faithful till the grave,—­
        To whom his mistress, dying,
        A golden goblet gave.

        Naught was to him more precious;
        He drained it at every bout: 
        His eyes with tears ran over,
        As oft as he drank thereout.

        When came his time of dying,
        The towns in his land he told,
        Naught else to his heir denying
        Except the goblet of gold.

        He sat at the royal banquet
        With his knights of high degree,
        In the lofty hall of his fathers
        In the Castle by the Sea.

        There stood the old carouser,
        And drank the last life-glow;
        And hurled the hallowed goblet
        Into the tide below.