Keep better time, why can’t ye?
Clever Spirits.
Sans-souci is hight the crew
On limber limbs that ply it;
When on our feet it will not do,
Then on our heads we try it.
Awkward Spirits.
With once or twice a lucky throw
We tramped the road together;
But now we flounder on, and show
Our toes outside the leather!
Ignes Fatui.
Though born but with the sultry ray
This morn, in the morass all,
Yet now, amid the gallants gay,
We shine here and surpass all.
Falung Star.
Last night I shot from starry sky
And fell upon my nose here;
Will no one come where flat I lie,
And plant me on my toes here?
Stout Spirits.
Make way, make way! and brush the dew
Right bravely from the lawn here;
Spirits we are, but Spirits too
Can show both pith and brawn here!
Puck.
Why tramp ye so majestical
As cub of river-horse is?
The plumpest spirit of you all
Stout Puck himself of course is.
Ariel.
If loving Nature’s bounteous care
Hath fitted you with pinions,
Then cleave with me the yielding air
To rosy bright dominions.
Orchestra.
The mist draws off, and overhead
All clear and bright the air is,
And with the rustling breeze are fled
The devils and the fairies!
end of the interlude.
Scene III.
A cloudy day. The Fields.
Faust and Mephistopheles.
Faust.
In misery! in despair! Wandering in hopeless wretchedness over the wide earth, and at last made prisoner! Shut up like a malefactor in a dungeon, victim of the most horrible woes—poor miserable girl! Must it then come to this? Thou treacherous and worthless Spirit! this hast thou concealed from me!—Stand thou there! stand!—Roll round thy fiendish eyes, infuriate in thy head! Stand and confront me with thy insupportable presence. A prisoner! in irredeemable misery! given over to evil Spirits, and to the condemning voice of the unfeeling world! and me, meanwhile, thou cradlest to sleep amid a host of the most vapid dissipations, concealing from my knowledge her aggravated woes!—while she—she is left in hopeless wretchedness to die!
Mephistopheles.
She’s not the first.
Faust.
