Mephistopheles.  I do not feel it, not a bit! 
My wintry blood runs very slowly;
I wish my path were filled with frost and snow. 
The moon’s imperfect disk, how melancholy
It rises there with red, belated glow,
And shines so badly, turn where’er one can turn,
At every step he hits a rock or tree! 
With leave I’ll beg a Jack-o’lantern! 
I see one yonder burning merrily. 
Heigh, there! my friend!  May I thy aid desire? 
Why waste at such a rate thy fire? 
Come, light us up yon path, good fellow, pray!

Jack-o’lantern.  Out of respect, I hope I shall be 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,
And if your guide’s to be a Jack-o’lantern’s light,
Strict rectitude you’ll scarce require.

FAUST, MEPHISTOPHELES, JACK-O’LANTERN, in alternate song.

    Spheres of magic, dream, and vision,
    Now, it seems, are opening o’er us. 
    For thy credit, use precision! 
    Let the way be plain before us
    Through the lengthening desert regions.

    See how trees on trees, in legions,
    Hurrying by us, change their places,
    And the bowing crags make faces,
    And the rocks, long noses showing,
    Hear them snoring, hear them blowing![33]

    Down through stones, through mosses flowing,
    See the brook and brooklet springing. 
    Hear I rustling? hear I singing? 
    Love-plaints, sweet and melancholy,
    Voices of those days so holy? 
    All our loving, longing, yearning? 
    Echo, like a strain returning
    From the olden times, is ringing.

    Uhu!  Schuhu!  Tu-whit!  Tu-whit! 
    Are the jay, and owl, and pewit
    All awake and loudly calling? 
    What goes through the bushes yonder? 
    Can it be the Salamander—­
    Belly thick and legs a-sprawling? 
    Roots and fibres, snake-like, crawling,
    Out from rocky, sandy places,
    Wheresoe’er we turn our faces,
    Stretch enormous fingers round us,
    Here to catch us, there confound us;
    Thick, black knars to life are starting,
    Polypusses’-feelers darting
    At the traveller.  Field-mice, swarming,
    Thousand-colored armies forming,
    Scamper on through moss and heather! 
    And the glow-worms, in the darkling,
    With their crowded escort sparkling,
    Would confound us altogether.

    But to guess I’m vainly trying—­
    Are we stopping? are we hieing? 
    Round and round us all seems flying,
    Rocks and trees, that make grimaces,
    And the mist-lights of the places
    Ever swelling, multiplying.