Be yours to sweep along the side;
Up and down, and far and wide,
On the left, and on the right,
Witch and wizard massed together,
Scour the moor and sweep the heather,
Bravely on Walpurgis-night!
[They alight.
Mephistopheles.
What a thronging, and jolting, and rolling, and rattling!
What a whizzing, and whirling, and jostling, and battling!
What a sparkling, and blazing, and stinking, and burning!
And witches that all topsy-turvy are turning!—
Hold fast by me, or I shall lose you quite,
Where are you?
Faust. [at a distance]
Here!
Mephistopheles.
What! so far in the rear!
Why then ’tis time that I should use my right,
As master of the house to-night.
Make way! Squire Voland comes,[n12] sweet mob, make way!
Here, Doctor, hold by me!—and now, I say,
We must cut clear
Of this wild hubbub, while we may;
Even my cloth is puzzled here.
See’st thou that light on yonder mound quite near,
It hath a most peculiar glare,
We’ll slip in there,
And watch behind the bush the humors of the Fair.
Faust.
Strange son of contradiction!—may’st even guide us!
A rare conceit! of course you must be right;
This weary way we march on famed Walpurgis night,
Like hermits in a corner here to hide us!
Mephistopheles.
Lo! where the flames mount up with bickering glee;
In sooth it is a goodly company.
In such a place one cannot be alone.
Faust.
And yet a place I’d rather own
