Wizards [semi-chorus].  Like housed-up snails we’re creeping on,
The women all ahead are gone. 
When to the Bad One’s house we go,
She gains a thousand steps, you know.

The other half.  We take it not precisely so;
What she in thousand steps can go,
Make all the haste she ever can,
’Tis done in just one leap by man.

Voice [above].  Come on, come on, from Felsensee!

Voices [from below].  We’d gladly join your airy way.  For wash and clean us as much as we will, We always prove unfruitful still.

Both chorusses.  The wind is hushed, the star shoots by,
    The moon she hides her sickly eye. 
    The whirling, whizzing magic-choir
    Darts forth ten thousand sparks of fire.

Voice [from below].  Ho, there! whoa, there!

Voice [from above].  Who calls from the rocky cleft below there?

Voice [below].  Take me too! take me too! 
Three hundred years I’ve climbed to you,
Seeking in vain my mates to come at,
For I can never reach the summit.

Both chorusses.  Can ride the besom, the stick can ride,
    Can stride the pitchfork, the goat can stride;
    Who neither will ride to-night, nor can,
    Must be forever a ruined man.

Half-witch [below].  I hobble on—­I’m out of wind—­
And still they leave me far behind! 
To find peace here in vain I come,
I get no more than I left at home.

Chorus of witches.  The witch’s salve can never fail,
    A rag will answer for a sail,
    Any trough will do for a ship, that’s tight;
    He’ll never fly who flies not to-night.

Both chorusses.  And when the highest peak we round,
    Then lightly graze along the ground,
    And cover the heath, where eye can see,
    With the flower of witch-errantry.
           [They alight.]

Mephistopheles. What squeezing and pushing, what rustling and hustling! 
What hissing and twirling, what chattering and bustling! 
How it shines and sparkles and burns and stinks! 
A true witch-element, methinks! 
Keep close! or we are parted in two winks. 
Where art thou?

Faust [in the distance].  Here!

Mephistopheles.  What! carried off already? 
Then I must use my house-right.—­Steady! 
Room!  Squire Voland[36] comes.  Sweet people, Clear the ground! 
Here, Doctor, grasp my arm! and, at a single bound;
Let us escape, while yet ’tis easy;
E’en for the like of me they’re far too crazy. 
See! yonder, something shines with quite peculiar glare,
And draws me to those bushes mazy. 
Come! come! and let us slip in there.

Faust.  All-contradicting sprite!  To follow thee I’m fated. 
But I must say, thy plan was very bright! 
We seek the Brocken here, on the Walpurgis night,
Then hold ourselves, when here, completely isolated!