Hell's a-burning, burning, burning.
Cackling in his impish play,
Here and there the Devil's turning,

Forward here and back again,
Zig-zag as the lightning's ray,
While the fires burn amain.

In the church and in the cell
In the caves, in open day,
Ever prowls the fiend of hell.

But in the original the first and last lines of the first verse are used
as refrains in the succeeding verses, recurring alternately as the last
line. In the final verse they are united.--The prose translation is by
Philip Hale.]

In the maze of this modern setting of demon antics (not unlike, in
conceit, the capers of Till Eulenspiegel), with an eloquent use of new
French strokes of harmony, one must be eager to seize upon definite
figures. In the beginning is a brief wandering or flickering motive in
furious pace of harp and strings, ending ever in a shriek of the high
wood. Answering

[Music: _Presto (il piu possibile)_
(Woodwind)
(Strings with rhythmic chords in the tonic)
(With opposite descending chords)]

is a descending phrase mainly in the brass, that ends in a rapid jingle.

[Music: (Brass with quicker figures in strings and wood)]

There are various lesser motives, such as a minor scale of ascending
thirds, and a group of crossing figures that seem a guise of the first
motive. To be sure the picture lies less in the separate figures than in
the mingled color and bustle. Special in its humor is a soft gliding or
creeping phrase of three voices against a constant trip of cellos.

After a climax of the first motive a frolicking theme begins (in English
horn and violas). If we were forced to guess, we could see here the
dandy devil, with pointed mustachios, frisking about. It is probably
another guise of the second motive which presently appears in the bass.
A little later, _dolce amabile_ in a madrigal of wood and strings, we
may see the gentlemanly devil, the gallant. With a crash of chord and a
roll of cymbals re-enters the first motive, to flickering harmonies of
violins, harp and flutes, taken up by succeeding voices, all in the
whole-tone scale. Hurrying to a clamorous height, the pace glides into a
_Movimento di Valzer_, in massed volume, with the frolicking figure in
festive array.

To softest tapping of lowest strings and drums, a shadow of the second
figure passes here and there, with a flash of harp. Soon, in returning
merriment, it is coursing in unison strings (against an oppos