w.

_Chorus_. Then honor to whom honor's due!
Ma'am Baubo ahead! and lead the crew!
A good fat sow, and ma'am on her back,
Then follow the witches all in a pack.

_Voice_. Which way didst thou come?

_Voice_. By the Ilsenstein!
Peeped into an owl's nest, mother of mine!
What a pair of eyes!

_Voice_. To hell with your flurry!
Why ride in such hurry!

_Voice_. The hag be confounded!
My skin flie has wounded!

_Witches_ [_chorus]._ The way is broad, the way is long,
What means this noisy, crazy throng?
The broom it scratches, the fork it flicks,
The child is stifled, the mother breaks.

_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 twirlin