CATHEDRAL. Service, Organ, and Singing. [MARGERY amidst a crowd of people. EVIL SPIRIT behind Evil Spirit. MARGERY.] How different was it with thee, When, innocent and artless, Thou cam'ft here to the altar, From the well-thumbed little prayer-book, Petitions lisping, Half full of child's play, Half full of Heaven! Margy! Where are thy thoughts? What crime is buried Deep within thy heart? Prayeft thou haply for thy mother, who Slept over into long, long pain, on thy account? -And ftirs there not already Beneath thy heart a life Tormenting itself and thee With bodings of its coming hour? Margery. Woe! Woe! Could I rid me of the thoughts, Still through my brain backward and forward flitting, Against my will! Chorus. Dies irae, dies illa Solvet saeclum in favillâ. [Organ plays.] Evil Spirit. Wrath smites thee! Hark! the trumpet sounds! The graves are trembling! And thy heart, Made o'er again For fiery torments, Waking from its afhes Starts up! Margery. Would I were hence! I feel as if the organ's peal. My breath were stifling, The choral chant My heart were melting. Chorus. Judex ergo cum sedebit, Quidquid latet apparebit. Nil inultum remanebit. Margery. How cramped it feels! The walls and pillars Imprison me! And the arches Crush me!-Air! Evil Spirit. What! hide thee! sin and shame Will not be hidden! Air? Light? Chorus. Quid sum miser tunc dicturus? Quem patronum rogaturus ? Cum vix juftus sit securus. Evil Spirit. They turn their faces, The glorified, from thee. To take thy hand, the pure ones Woe! Cherus. Quid sum miser tunc dicturus? stick, now, to ride on? At this rate we are, still, a long way off; I'd rather have a good tough goat, by half, Than the best legs a man e'er set his pride on. Fauft. So long as I've a pair of good fresh legs to ftride on, Enough for me this knotty staff. What use of shortening the way! Following the valley's labyrinthine winding, Then up this rock a pathway finding, From which the spring leaps down in bubbling play, That is what spices such a walk, I say y! Spring through the birch-tree's veins is flowing, Should not its influence set our limbs a-glowing? My wintry blood runs very flowly ; I wish my path were filled with froft and snow. And shines so badly, turn where'er one can turn, At every step he hits a rock or tree! Heigh, there! my friend! May I thy aid desire? Come, light us up yon path, good fellow, pray ! able 'To rein a nature quite unstable; We usually take a zigzag way. Mephistopheles. Heigh! heigh! He thinks man's crooked course to travel. Go straight ahead, or, by the devil, I'll blow your flickering life out with a puff. Jack-o'lantern. You're master of the house, that's plain enough, So I'll comply with your desire. But see! The mountain's magic-mad to-night, FAUST, MEPHISTOPHELES, JACK-O'LANTERN, in alternate “ong. Now, it seems, are opening o'er us. For thy credit, use precision! Let the way be plain before us |