CHORUS

     Then honor to whom the honor is due! 
     Dame Baubo first, to lead the crew! 
     A tough old sow and the mother thereon,
     Then follow the witches, every one.

A VOICE

Which way com’st thou hither?

VOICE

O’er the Ilsen-stone. 
I peeped at the owl in her nest alone: 
How she stared and glared!

VOICE

Betake thee to Hell! 
Why so fast and so fell?

VOICE

She has scored and has flayed me: 
See the wounds she has made me!

WITCHES (chorus)

     The way is wide, the way is long: 
     See, what a wild and crazy throng! 
     The broom it scratches, the fork it thrusts,
     The child is stifled, the mother bursts. 
WIZARDS (semichorus)

     As doth the snail in shell, we crawl: 
     Before us go the women all. 
     When towards the Devil’s House we tread,
     Woman’s a thousand steps ahead.

OTHER SEMICHORUS

     We do not measure with such care: 
     Woman in thousand steps is theft. 
     But howsoe’er she hasten may,
     Man in one leap has cleared the way.

VOICE (from above)

Come on, come on, from Rocky Lake!

VOICE (from below)

Aloft we’d fain ourselves betake. 
We’ve washed, and are bright as ever you will,
Yet we’re eternally sterile still.

BOTH CHORUSES

     The wind is hushed, the star shoots by. 
     The dreary moon forsakes the sky;
     The magic notes, like spark on spark,
     Drizzle, whistling through the dark.

VOICE (from below)

Halt, there!  Ho, there!

VOICE (from above)

Who calls from the rocky cleft below there?

VOICE (below)

Take me, too! take me, too! 
I’m climbing now three hundred years,
And yet the summit cannot see: 
Among my equals I would be.

BOTH CHORUSES

     Bears the broom and bears the stock,
     Bears the fork and bears the buck: 
     Who cannot raise himself to-night
     Is evermore a ruined wight.

HALF-WITCH (below)

So long I stumble, ill bestead,
And the others are now so far ahead! 
At home I’ve neither rest nor cheer,
And yet I cannot gain them here.

CHORUS OF WITCHES

     To cheer the witch will salve avail;
     A rag will answer for a sail;
     Each trough a goodly ship supplies;
     He ne’er will fly, who now not flies.