Voices below.
Oh, let me join your flocks!
I, three hundred years have striven
To catch your skirt and mount to Heaven,—
And still in vain. Oh, might I be
195
With company akin to me!
Both Choruses.
Some on a ram and some on a prong,
On poles and on broomsticks we flutter along;
Forlorn is the wight who can rise not to-night.
A Half-Witch below.
I have been tripping this many an hour:
200
Are the others already so far before?
No quiet at home, and no peace abroad!
And less methinks is found by the road.
Chorus of Witches.
Come onward, away! aroint thee, aroint!
A witch to be strong must anoint—anoint—
205
Then every trough will be boat enough;
With a rag for a sail we can sweep through the sky,
Who flies not to-night, when means he to fly?
Both Choruses.
We cling to the skirt, and we strike on the ground;
Witch-legions thicken around and around;
210
Wizard-swarms cover the heath all over.
[They descend.
Mephistopheles.
What thronging, dashing, raging, rustling;
What whispering, babbling, hissing, bustling;
What glimmering, spurting, stinking, burning,
As Heaven and Earth were overturning.
215
There is a true witch element about us;
Take hold on me, or we shall be divided:—
Where are you?
Faust (from a distance). Here!
Mephistopheles. What!
I must exert my authority in the house.
Place for young Voland! pray make way, good people.
220
Take hold on me, doctor, and with one step
Let us escape from this unpleasant crowd:
They are too mad for people of my sort.
Just there shines a peculiar kind of light—
Something attracts me in those bushes. Come
225
This way: we shall slip down there in a minute.
Faust. Spirit of Contradiction! Well, lead on—
’Twere a wise feat indeed to wander out
Into the Brocken upon May-day night,
And then to isolate oneself in scorn,
230
Disgusted with the humours of the time.
Mephistopheles. See yonder, round a many-coloured flame
A merry club is huddled altogether:
Even with such little people as sit there
One would not be alone.
Faust. Would that I were
235
Up yonder in the glow and whirling smoke,
Where the blind million rush impetuously
To meet the evil ones; there might I solve
Many a riddle that torments me!
Mephistopheles. Yet
Many a riddle there is tied anew
240
Inextricably. Let the great world rage!
We will stay here safe in the quiet dwellings.
’Tis an old custom. Men have ever built
Their own small world in the great world of all.
I see young witches naked there, and old ones
245
Wisely attired with greater decency.
Be guided now by me, and you shall buy
A pound of pleasure with a dram of trouble.
I hear them tune their instruments—one must
Get used to this damned scraping. Come, I’ll lead you
250
Among them; and what there you do and see,
As a fresh compact ’twixt us two shall be.
How say you now? this space is wide enough—
Look forth, you cannot see the end of it—
An hundred bonfires burn in rows, and they
255
Who throng around them seem innumerable:
Dancing and drinking, jabbering, making love,
And cooking, are at work. Now tell me, friend,
What is there better in the world than this?
Faust. In introducing us, do you assume
260
The character of Wizard or of Devil?
Mephistopheles. In truth, I generally go about
In strict incognito; and yet one likes
To wear one’s orders upon gala days.
I have no ribbon at my knee; but here
265
At home, the cloven foot is honourable.
See you that snail there?—she comes creeping up,
And with her feeling eyes hath smelt out something.
I could not, if I would, mask myself here.
Come now, we’ll go about from fire to fire:
270
I’ll be the Pimp, and you shall be the Lover.
[To some old Women, who are sitting round a heap of glimmering coals.
Old gentlewomen, what do you do out here?
You ought to be with the young rioters
Right in the thickest of the revelry—
But every one is best content at home.
General.
275
Who dare confide in right or a just claim?
So much as I had done for them! and now—
With women and the people ’tis the same,
Youth will stand foremost ever,—age may go
To the dark grave unhonoured.
Minister.
Nowadays
280
People assert their rights: they go too far;
But as for me, the good old times I praise;
Then we were all in all—’twas something worth
One’s while to be in place and wear a star;
That was indeed the golden age on earth.
Parvenu.
285
We too are active, and we did and do
What we ought not, perhaps; and yet we now
Will seize, whilst all things are whirled round and round,
A spoke of Fortune’s wheel, and keep our ground.
Author.
Who now can taste a treatise of deep sense
290
And ponderous volume? ’tis impertinence
To write what none will read, therefore will I
To please the young and thoughtless people try.
Mephistopheles (who at once appears to have grown very old). I find the people ripe for the last day,
Since I last came up to the wizard mountain;
295
And as my little cask runs turbid now,
So is the world drained to the dregs.
Pedlar-witch. Look here,
Gentlemen; do not hurry on so fast;
And lose the chance of a good pennyworth.
I have a pack full of the choicest wares
300
Of every sort, and yet in all my bundle
Is nothing like what may be found on earth;
Nothing that in a moment will make rich
Men and the world with fine malicious mischief—
There is no dagger drunk with blood; no bowl
305
From which consuming poison may be drained
By innocent and healthy lips; no jewel,
The price of an abandoned maiden’s shame;
No sword which cuts the bond it cannot loose,
Or stabs the wearer’s enemy in the back;
No—
310
Mephistopheles. Gossip, you know little of these times.
What has been, has been; what is done, is past,
They shape themselves into the innovations
They breed, and innovation drags us with it.
The torrent of the crowd sweeps over us:
315
Yo
u think to impel, and are yourself impelled.
Faust. What is that yonder?
Mephistopheles. Mark her well. It is
Lilith.
Faust. Who?
Mephistopheles. Lilith, the first wife of Adam.
Beware of her fair hair, for she excels
All women in the magic of her locks;
320
And when she winds them round a young man’s neck,
She will not ever set him free again.
Faust.
There sit a girl and an old woman—they
Seem to be tired with pleasure and with play.
Mephistopheles.
There is no rest to-night for any one:
325
When one dance ends another is begun;
Come, let us to it. We shall have rare fun.
[FAUST dances and sings with a girl, and MEPHISTOPHELES with an old Woman.
Faust.
I had once a lovely dream
In which I saw an apple-tree,
Where two fair apples with their gleam
330
To climb and taste attracted me.
The Girl.
She with apples you desired
From Paradise came long ago:
With you I feel that if required,
Such still within my garden grow.
· · · · ·
Procto-Phantasmist. What is this cursed multitude about?
Have we not long since proved to demonstration.
That ghosts move not on ordinary feet?
But these are dancing just like men and women.
The Girl. What does he want then at our ball?
Faust. Oh! he
340
Is far above us all in his conceit:
Whilst we enjoy, he reasons of enjoyment;
And any step which in our dance we tread,
If it be left out of his reckoning,
Is not to be considered as a step.
345
There are few things that scandalize him not:
And when you whirl round in the circle now,
As he went round the wheel in his old mill,
He says that you go wrong in all respects,
Especially if you congratulate him
Upon the strength of the resemblance.
350
Procto-Phantasmist. Fly!
Vanish! Unheard-of impudence! What, still there!
In this enlightened age too, since you have been
Proved not to exist!—But this infernal brood
Will hear no reason and endure no rule.
355
Are we so wise, and is the pond still haunted?
How long have I been sweeping out this rubbish
Of superstition, and the world will not
Come clean with all my pains!—it is a case Unheard of!
The Girl. Then leave off teasing us so.
360
Procto-Phantasmist. I tell you, spirits, to your faces now,
That I should not regret this despotism
Of spirits, but that mine can wield it not.
To-night I shall make poor work of it,
Yet I will take a round with you, and hope
365
Before my last step in the living dance
To beat the poet and the devil together.
Mephistopheles. At last he will sit down in some foul puddle;
That is his way of solacing himself;
Until some leech, diverted with his gravity,
370
Cures him of spirits and the spirit together.
[To FAUST, who has seceded from the dance,
Why do you let that fair girl pass from you,
Who sung so sweetly to you in the dance?
Faust. A red mouse in the middle of her singing
Sprung from her mouth.
Mephistopheles. That was all right, my friend:
375
Be it enough that the mouse was not gray.
Do not disturb your hour of happiness
With close consideration of such trifles.
Faust. Then saw I—
Mephistopheles. What?
Faust. Seest thou not a pale,
Fair girl, standing alone, far, far away?
380
She drags herself now forward with slow steps,
And seems as if she moved with shackled feet:
I cannot overcome the thought that she
Is like poor Margaret.
Mephistopheles. Let it be—pass on—
No good can come of it—it is not well
385
To meet it—it is an enchanted phantom,
A lifeless idol; with its numbing look,
It freezes up the blood of man; and they
Who meet its ghastly stare are turned to stone,
Like those who saw Medusa.
Faust. Oh, too true!
390
Her eyes are like the eyes of a fresh corpse
Which no belovèd hand has closed, alas!
That is the breast which Margaret yielded to me—
Those are the lovely limbs which I enjoyed!
Mephistopheles. It is all magic, poor deluded fool!
395
She looks to every one like his first love.
Faust. Oh, what delight! what woe! I cannot turn
My looks from her sweet piteous countenance.
How strangely does a single blood-red line,
Not broader than the sharp edge of a knife,
Adorn her lovely neck!
400
Mephistopheles. Ay, she can carry
Her head under her arm upon occasion;
Perseus has cut it off for her. These pleasures
End in delusion.—Gain this rising ground,
It is as airy here as in a …
405
And if I am not mightily deceived,
I see a theatre.—What may this mean?
Attendant. Quite a new piece, the last of seven, for ’tis
The custom now to represent that number.
’Tis written by a Dilettante, and
410
The actors who perform are Dilettanti;
Excuse me, gentlemen; but I must vanish.
I am a Dilettante curtain-lifter.
* * *
1 I confess I do not understand this.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.]
2
Raphael. The sun sounds, according to ancient custom,
In the song of emulation of his brother-spheres.
And its fore-written circle
Fulfils with a step of thunder.
Its countenance gives the Angels strength
Though no one can fathom it.
The incredible high works
Are excellent as at the first day.
Gabriel. And swift, and inconceivably swift
The adornment of earth winds itself round,
And exchanges Paradise-clearness
With deep dreadful night.
The sea foams in broad waves
From its deep bottom, up to the rocks,
And rocks and sea are torn on together
In the eternal swift course of the spheres.
Michael. And storms roar in emulation
From sea to land, from land to sea,
And make, raging, a chain
Of deepest operation round about.
There flames a flashing destruction
Before the path of the thunderbolt.
But Thy servants, Lord, revere
The gentle alternations of Thy day.
Chorus. Thy countenance gives the Angels strength,
Though none can comprehend Thee:
And all Thy lofty works
Are excellent as at the first day.
Such is a literal translation of this astonishing chorus; it is impossible to represent in another language the melody of the versification; even the volatile strength and delicacy of the ideas escape in the cruci
ble of translation, and the reader is surprisd to find a caput mortuum.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.]
JUVENILIA
QUEEN MAB
A PHILOSOPHICAL POEM, WITH NOTES
TO HARRIET * * * * *
WHOSE is the love that gleaming through the world,
Wards off the poisonous arrow of its scorn?
Whose is the warm and partial praise,
Virtue’s most sweet reward?
5
Beneath whose looks did my reviving soul
Riper in truth and virtuous daring grow?
Whose eyes have I gazed fondly on,
And loved mankind the more?
HARRIET! on thine:—thou wert my purer mind;
10
Thou wert the inspiration of my song;
Thine are these early wilding flowers,
Though garlanded by me.
Then press into thy breast this pledge of love;
And know, though time may change and years may roll,
15
Each floweret gathered in my heart
It consecrates to thine.
QUEEN MAB
I
HOW wonderful is Death,
Death and his brother Sleep!
One, pale as yonder waning moon
With lips of lurid blue;
5
The other, rosy as the morn
When throned on ocean’s wave
It blushes o’er the world:
Yet both so passing wonderful!
Hath then the gloomy Power
10
Whose reign is in the tainted sepulchres
Seized on her sinless soul?
Must then that peerless form
Which love and admiration cannot view
Without a beating heart, those azure veins
15
Which steal like streams along a field of snow,
That lovely outline, which is fair
As breathing marble, perish?
Must putrefaction’s breath
The Complete Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley: (A Modern Library E-Book) Page 114
