No More Learning

There, in a row, a hundred fires are burning;
They dance, chat, cook, drink, love; where can be found
Any thing better, now, the wide world round?

_Faust_. Wilt thou, as things are now in this condition,
Present thyself for devil, or magician?

_Mephistopheles_. I've been much used, indeed, to going incognito;

But then, on gala-day, one will his order show.
No garter makes my rank appear,
But then the cloven foot stands high in honor here.
Seest thou the snail? Look there! where she comes creeping yonder!
Had she already smelt the rat,
I should not very greatly wonder.
Disguise is useless now, depend on that.
Come, then! we will from fire to fire wander,
Thou shalt the wooer be and I the pander.
[_To a party who sit round expiring embers_. ]
Old gentlemen, you scarce can hear the fiddle!
You'd gain more praise from me, ensconced there in the middle,
'Mongst that young rousing, tousing set.
One can, at home, enough retirement get.

_General_. Trust not the people's fickle favor!
However much thou mayst for them have done.
Nations, as well as women, ever,
Worship the rising, not the setting sun.

_Minister_. From the right path we've drifted far away,
The good old past my heart engages;
Those were the real golden ages,
When such as we held all the sway.

_Parvenu_. We were no simpletons, I trow,
And often did the thing we should not;
But all is turning topsy-turvy now,
And if we tried to stem the wave, we could not.

_Author_. Who on the whole will read a work today,
Of moderate sense, with any pleasure?
And as regards the dear young people, they
Pert and precocious are beyond all measure.

_Mephistopheles_ [_who all at once appears very old_].
The race is ripened for the judgment day:
So I, for the last time, climb the witch-mountain, thinking,
And, as my cask runs thick, I say,
The world, too, on its lees is sinking.

_Witch-broker_.