Tell me, if we still are standing,
     Or if further we’re ascending? 
     All is turning, whirling, blending,
     Trees and rocks with grinning faces,
     Wandering lights that spin in mazes,
     Still increasing and expanding!

MEPHISTOPHELES

Grasp my skirt with heart undaunted! 
Here a middle-peak is planted,
Whence one seeth, with amaze,
Mammon in the mountain blaze.

FAUST

How strangely glimmers through the hollows
A dreary light, like that of dawn! 
Its exhalation tracks and follows
The deepest gorges, faint and wan. 
Here steam, there rolling vapor sweepeth;
Here burns the glow through film and haze: 
Now like a tender thread it creepeth,
Now like a fountain leaps and plays. 
Here winds away, and in a hundred
Divided veins the valley braids: 
There, in a corner pressed and sundered,
Itself detaches, spreads and fades. 
Here gush the sparkles incandescent
Like scattered showers of golden sand;—­
But, see! in all their height, at present,
The rocky ramparts blazing stand.

[Illustration:  Under the old ribs of the rock retreating,]

MEPHISTOPHELES

Has not Sir Mammon grandly lighted
His palace for this festal night? 
’Tis lucky thou hast seen the sight;
The boisterous guests approach that were invited.

FAUST

How raves the tempest through the air! 
With what fierce blows upon my neck ’tis beating!

MEPHISTOPHELES

Under the old ribs of the rock retreating,
Hold fast, lest thou be hurled down the abysses there! 
The night with the mist is black;
Hark! how the forests grind and crack! 
Frightened, the owlets are scattered: 
Hearken! the pillars are shattered. 
The evergreen palaces shaking! 
Boughs are groaning and breaking,
The tree-trunks terribly thunder,
The roots are twisting asunder! 
In frightfully intricate crashing
Each on the other is dashing,
And over the wreck-strewn gorges
The tempest whistles and surges! 
Hear’st thou voices higher ringing? 
Far away, or nearer singing? 
Yes, the mountain’s side along,
Sweeps an infuriate glamouring song!

WITCHES (in chorus)

     The witches ride to the Brocken’s top,
     The stubble is yellow, and green the crop. 
     There gathers the crowd for carnival: 
     Sir Urian sits over all.

And so they go over stone and stock;
The witch she-----s, and-----s the buck.

A VOICE

     Alone, old Baubo’s coming now;
     She rides upon a farrow-sow.