The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Part 172

[HEAVEN CLOSES; THE ARCHANGELS EXEUNT.]

MEPHISTOPHELES: From time to time I visit the old fellow, _110 And I take care to keep on good terms with Him.

Civil enough is the same G.o.d Almighty, To talk so freely with the Devil himself.

SCENE 2.--MAY-DAY NIGHT.

THE HARTZ MOUNTAIN, A DESOLATE COUNTRY.

FAUST, MEPHISTOPHELES.

MEPHISTOPHELES: Would you not like a broomstick? As for me I wish I had a good stout ram to ride; For we are still far from the appointed place.

FAUST: This knotted staff is help enough for me, Whilst I feel fresh upon my legs. What good _5 Is there in making short a pleasant way?

To creep along the labyrinths of the vales, And climb those rocks, where ever-babbling springs, Precipitate themselves in waterfalls, Is the true sport that seasons such a path. _10 Already Spring kindles the birchen spray, And the h.o.a.r pines already feel her breath: Shall she not work also within our limbs?

MEPHISTOPHELES: Nothing of such an influence do I feel.

My body is all wintry, and I wish _15 The flowers upon our path were frost and snow.

But see how melancholy rises now, Dimly uplifting her belated beam, The blank unwelcome round of the red moon, And gives so bad a light, that every step _20 One stumbles 'gainst some crag. With your permission, I'll call on Ignis-fatuus to our aid: I see one yonder burning jollily.

Halloo, my friend! may I request that you Would favour us with your bright company? _25 Why should you blaze away there to no purpose?

Pray be so good as light us up this way.

IGNIS-FATUUS: With reverence be it spoken, I will try To overcome the lightness of my nature; Our course, you know, is generally zigzag. _30

MEPHISTOPHELES: Ha, ha! your wors.h.i.+p thinks you have to deal With men. Go straight on, in the Devil's name, Or I shall puff your flickering life out.

NOTE: _33 shall puff 1824; will blow 1822.

IGNIS-FATUUS: Well, I see you are the master of the house; I will accommodate myself to you. _35 Only consider that to-night this mountain Is all enchanted, and if Jack-a-lantern Shows you his way, though you should miss your own, You ought not to be too exact with him.

FAUST, MEPHISTOPHELES, AND IGNIS-FATUUS, IN ALTERNATE CHORUS: The limits of the sphere of dream, _40 The bounds of true and false, are past.

Lead us on, thou wandering Gleam, Lead us onward, far and fast, To the wide, the desert waste.

But see, how swift advance and s.h.i.+ft _45 Trees behind trees, row by row,-- How, clift by clift, rocks bend and lift Their frowning foreheads as we go.

The giant-snouted crags, ho! ho!

How they snort, and how they blow! _50

Through the mossy sods and stones, Stream and streamlet hurry down-- A rus.h.i.+ng throng! A sound of song Beneath the vault of Heaven is blown!

Sweet notes of love, the speaking tones _55 Of this bright day, sent down to say That Paradise on Earth is known, Resound around, beneath, above.

All we hope and all we love Finds a voice in this blithe strain, _60 Which wakens hill and wood and rill, And vibrates far o'er field and vale, And which Echo, like the tale Of old times, repeats again.

To-whoo! to-whoo! near, nearer now _65 The sound of song, the rus.h.i.+ng throng!

Are the screech, the lapwing, and the jay, All awake as if 'twere day?

See, with long legs and belly wide, A salamander in the brake! _70 Every root is like a snake, And along the loose hillside, With strange contortions through the night, Curls, to seize or to affright; And, animated, strong, and many, _75 They dart forth polypus-antennae, To blister with their poison spume The wanderer. Through the dazzling gloom The many-coloured mice, that thread The dewy turf beneath our tread, _80 In troops each other's motions cross, Through the heath and through the moss; And, in legions intertangled, The fire-flies flit, and swarm, and throng, Till all the mountain depths are spangled. _85

Tell me, shall we go or stay?

Shall we onward? Come along!

Everything around is swept Forward, onward, far away!

Trees and ma.s.ses intercept _90 The sight, and wisps on every side Are puffed up and multiplied.

NOTES: _48 frowning]fawning 1822.

_70 brake 1824; lake 1822.

MEPHISTOPHELES: Now vigorously seize my skirt, and gain This pinnacle of isolated crag.

One may observe with wonder from this point, _95 How Mammon glows among the mountains.

FAUST: Ay-- And strangely through the solid depth below A melancholy light, like the red dawn, Shoots from the lowest gorge of the abyss Of mountains, lightning hitherward: there rise _100 Pillars of smoke, here clouds float gently by; Here the light burns soft as the enkindled air, Or the illumined dust of golden flowers; And now it glides like tender colours spreading; And now bursts forth in fountains from the earth; _105 And now it winds, one torrent of broad light, Through the far valley with a hundred veins; And now once more within that narrow corner Ma.s.ses itself into intensest splendour.

And near us, see, sparks spring out of the ground, _110 Like golden sand scattered upon the darkness; The pinnacles of that black wall of mountains That hems us in are kindled.

MEPHISTOPHELES: Rare: in faith!

Does not Sir Mammon gloriously illuminate His palace for this festival?--it is _115 A pleasure which you had not known before.

I spy the boisterous guests already.

FAUST: How The children of the wind rage in the air!

With what fierce strokes they fall upon my neck!

NOTE: _117 How 1824; Now 1822.

MEPHISTOPHELES: Cling tightly to the old ribs of the crag. _120 Beware! for if with them thou warrest In their fierce flight towards the wilderness, Their breath will sweep thee into dust, and drag Thy body to a grave in the abyss.

A cloud thickens the night. _125 Hark! how the tempest crashes through the forest!

The owls fly out in strange affright; The columns of the evergreen palaces Are split and shattered; The roots creak, and stretch, and groan; _130 And ruinously overthrown, The trunks are crushed and shattered By the fierce blast's unconquerable stress.

Over each other crack and crash they all In terrible and intertangled fall; _135 And through the ruins of the shaken mountain The airs hiss and howl-- It is not the voice of the fountain, Nor the wolf in his midnight prowl.

Dost thou not hear? _140 Strange accents are ringing Aloft, afar, anear?

The witches are singing!

The torrent of a raging wizard song Streams the whole mountain along. _145

NOTE: _132 shattered]scattered Rossetti.

CHORUS OF WITCHES: The stubble is yellow, the corn is green, Now to the Brocken the witches go; The mighty mult.i.tude here may be seen Gathering, wizard and witch, below.

Sir Urian is sitting aloft in the air; _150 Hey over stock! and hey over stone!

'Twixt witches and incubi, what shall be done?

Tell it who dare! tell it who dare!

NOTE: _150 Urian]Urean editions 1824, 1839.

A VOICE: Upon a sow-swine, whose farrows were nine, Old Baubo rideth alone. _155

CHORUS: Honour her, to whom honour is due, Old mother Baubo, honour to you!

An able sow, with old Baubo upon her, Is worthy of glory, and worthy of honour!

The legion of witches is coming behind, _160 Darkening the night, and outspeeding the wind--

A VOICE: Which way comest thou?

A VOICE: Over Ilsenstein; The owl was awake in the white moons.h.i.+ne; I saw her at rest in her downy nest, And she stared at me with her broad, bright eyne. _165

NOTE: _165 eyne 1839, 2nd edition; eye 1822, 1824, 1839, 1st edition.

VOICES: And you may now as well take your course on to h.e.l.l, Since you ride by so fast on the headlong blast.