But tell me, in this strange confusion, What is real, what delusion? Do we walk with forward faces, Or stand and halt with baffled paces? All things seem to change their places, Rocks and trees to make grimaces, And the lights in witchy row, Twinkle more and more they blow! Mephistopheles. Hold me tightly by the cue! From this hillock, we may view, At leisure, with admiring gaze, How Mammon in the mount doth blaze! Faust. How strangely through the glooming glens Dim sheen, like morning redness, glimmers! Ev'n to the darkest, deepest dens With its long streaky rays it shimmers. Here mounts the smoke, there rolls the steam, There flames through the white vapors gleam, Here like a thread along the mountain It creeps; there gushes in a fountain! Here stretching out, in many a rood, Along the vale, its veinèd flood, And here at once it checks its flight, And bursts in globes of studded light. There sparks are showering on the ground, Like golden sand besprinkled round, And lo! where all the rocky height, From head to foot is bathed in light! Mephistopheles. Hath not old Mammon lit with goodly flame His palace for the jubilee? Thou art in luck to see the game; Even now I scent the lusty company. Faust. How the mad storm doth howl and hiss And beats my neck with angry buffeting! Mephistopheles. To the old mountain's hard ribs cling, Or the strong blast will hurl thee down the abyss; The night with clouds is overcast; Hear in the woods the grinding of the blast! How the frightened owlets flit! How the massive pillars split Of the dark pine-palaces! How the branches creak and break! How the riven stems are groaning! How the gaping roots are moaning! In terrible confusion all, One on another clashing, they fall, And through the clefts, where their wrecks are buried, Hissing and howling the winds are hurried. Sounds of voices dost thou hear? Voices far, and voices near? And, all the mountain-side along, Streams a raving wizard song. Witches. [_in chorus_] The witches to the Brocken ride, The stubble is yellow, the corn is green; A merry crew to a merry scene, And good Sir Urian is the guide.[*n10] Over stock and stone we float, Wrinkled hag and rank old goat. A Voice. Old mother Baubo comes up now, Alone, and riding on a sow. Chorus. Honor to him to whom honor is due! Lady Baubo heads the crew! On the back of a sow, with the wings of the wind, And all the host of witches behind. A Voice. Sister, which way came you? A Voice. By Ilsenstein! and I looked into An owlet's nest, as on I fared, That with its two eyes broadly stared! A Voice. The deuce! at what a devil's pace You go; this march is not a race. A Voice. It tore me, it flayed me! These red wounds it made me!