No More Learning

_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_.