My fair young lady, may I dare
To offer you my escort home?
Margaret.
Nor lady I, good sir, nor fair,
And need no guide to show me home. [Exit.
Faust.
By heaven, this child is passing fair!
A fairer never crossed my view;
Of such a modest gentle air,
Yet with a dash of pertness too,
And girlish innocent conceit;
Her lips so red, her cheeks so bright,
Forget I could not, if I might.
How she casts down her lovely eyes
Deep graven in my heart it lies,
And how so smartly she replied,
And with a sharp turn stepped aside,
It was most ravishingly sweet!
Enter Mephistopheles.
Faust.
Hark! you must get the girl for me!
Mephistopheles.
Which one?
Faust.
She’s just gone by.
Mephistopheles.
What! she?
She’s only now come from confession,
Where she received a full remission.
I slinked close by the box, and heard
The simple damsel’s every word;
’Tis a most guileless thing, that goes
For very nothing to the priest.
My power does not extend to those.
Faust.
Yet she is fourteen years of age at least.
Mephistopheles.
You speak like Jack the debauchee,
Who thinks each sweet flow’r grows for me;
As if his wish sufficed alone
