uite at home,
For _Zweifel_ rhymes with _Teufel_.[45]

_Leader of the music_. Grass-hid cricket, frogs in trees,
You cursed dilettanti!
Fly-snouts and gnats'-noses, peace!
Musicians you, right jaunty!

_The Clever ones_. Sans-souci we call this band
Of merry ones that skip it;
Unable on our feet to stand,
Upon our heads we trip it.

_The Bunglers_. Time was, we caught our tit-bits, too,
God help us now! that's done with!
We've danced our leathers entirely through,
And have only bare soles to run with.

_Jack-o'lanterns_. From the dirty bog we come,
Whence we've just arisen:
Soon in the dance here, quite at home,
As gay young _sparks_ we'll glisten.

_Shooting star_. Trailing from the sky I shot,
Not a star there missed me:
Crooked up in this grassy spot,
Who to my legs will assist me?

_The solid men_. Room there! room there! clear the ground!
Grass-blades well may fall so;
Spirits are we, but 'tis found
They have plump limbs also.

_Puck_. Heavy men! do not, I say,
Like elephants' calves go stumping:
Let the plumpest one to-day
Be Puck, the ever-jumping.

_Ariel_. If the spirit gave, indeed,
If nature gave you, pinions,
Follow up my airy lead
To the rose-dominions!

_Orchestra_ [_pianissimo_]. Gauzy mist and fleecy cloud
Sun and wind have banished.
Foliage rustles, reeds pipe loud,
All the show has vanished.

DREARY DAY.[46]

_Field_.

FAUST. MEPHISTOPHELES.

_Faust_. In wretchedness! In despair! Long hunted up and down the earth, a
miserable fugitive, and caught at last! Locked up as a malefactor in
prison, to converse with horrible torments--the sweet, unhappy creature!
Even to this pass! even to this!--Treacherous, worthless spirit, and this
thou hast hidden from me!--Stand up here--stand up! Roll thy devilish eyes
round grimly in thy head! Stand and defy me with thy intolerable presence!
Imprisoned! In irretrievable misery! Given over to evil spirits and to the
judgment of unfeeling humanity, and me meanwhile thou lullest in insipid
dissipations, concealest from me her growing anguish, and leavest her
without help to perish!

_Mephistopheles_. She is not the first!

_Faust_. Dog! abominable monster! Change him, thou Infinite Spirit! change
the worm back into his canine form, as he was often pleased in the night
to trot before me, to roll before the feet of the harmless wanderer, and,
when he fell, to hang on his shoulders. Change him again into his favorite
s