Ugh! what a discord! The tone, the voice, the words, the very metre, so horribly out of tune with what had gone before! Mephistopheles is the speaker. He has been standing behind, looking about him and listening with a sarcastic air to the song of the Archangels; and, when they have done, he thinks it his turn to speak, and immediately begins. (We give the passage in translation.) "Since thou, O Lord, approachest us once more, And askest how affairs with us are going, And commonly hast seen me here before, To this my presence 'mid the rest is owing. Excuse my plainness; I'm no hand at chaffing; I _can't_ talk fine, though all around should scorn; _My_ pathos certainly would set thee laughing, Hadst thou not laughter long ago forborne. Of suns and worlds deuce one word can _I_ gabble; I only know how men grow miserable. The little god of Earth is still the same old clay, And is as odd this hour as on Creation's day. Better somewhat his situation Hadst thou not given him that same light of inspiration: Reason he calls 't, and uses 't so that he Grows but more beastly than the beasts to be; He seems to me, begging your Grace's pardon, Like one of those long-legged things in a garden That fly about and hop and spring, And in the grass the same old chirrup sing. Would I could say that here the story closes! But in each filthy mess they thrust their noses." And so shameless, and at the same time so voluble, is he that he would go on longer in the same strain did not the Lord interrupt him.