Of superstition, and the world will not
Come clean with all my pains! — it is a case

Unheard of!

THE GIRL

Then leave off teasing us so.

PROCTO-PHANTASMIST

I tell you, spirits, to your faces now,
That I should not regret this despotism
Of spirits, but that mine can wield it not.
To-night I shall make poor work of it,
Yet I will take a round with you, and hope
Before my last step in the living dance
To beat the poet and the devil together.

MEPHISTOPHELES

At last he will sit down in some foul puddle;
That is his way of solacing himself;
Until some leech, diverted with his gravity,
Cures him of spirits and the spirit together.

[To FAUST, who has seceded from the dance. Why do you let that fair girl pass from you, Who sung so sweetly to you in the dance?

FAUST

A red mouse in the middle of her singing
Sprung from her mouth.

MEPHISTOPHELES

That was all right, my friend:

Be it enough that the mouse was not gray.
Do not disturb your hour of happiness
With close consideration of such trifles.

Then saw I

FAUST

MEPHISTOPHELES

What?

FAUST

Seest thou not a pale,

Fair girl, standing alone, far, far away?
She drags herself now forward with slow steps,
And seems as if she moved with shackled feet.
I cannot overcome the thought that she

A lifeless idol; with its numbing look,

It freezes up the blood of man; and they

Who meet its ghastly stare are turned to stone, Like those who saw Medusa.

FAUST

Oh, too true!

Her eyes are like the of a fresh corpse

eyes

Which no beloved hand has closed, alas!
That is the breast which Margaret yielded to me—
Those are the lovely limbs which I enjoyed!

MEPHISTOPHELES

It is all magic, poor deluded fool!

She looks to every one like his first love.

FAUST

Oh, what delight! what woe! I cannot turn My looks from her sweet piteous countenance. How strangely does a single blood-red line, Not broader than the sharp edge of a knife, Adorn her lovely neck!

MEPHISTOPHELES

Ay, she can carry

Her head under her arm upon occasion ;
Perseus has cut it off for her. These pleasures
End in delusion. - Gain this rising ground,
It is as airy here as in a

And if I am not mightily deceived,

Quite a new piece, the last of seven, for 'tis
The custom now to represent that number.
'Tis written by a Dilettante, and
The actors who perform are Dilettanti;
Excuse me, gentlemen; but I must vanish.
I am a Dilettante curtain-lifter.

JUVENILIA

The Juvenilia were published in part by Shelley, but mainly by Medwin, Rossetti and Dowden, as shown by the footnotes. In this division all verse earlier than Queen Mab is included, except what is placed under DOUBTFUL, LOST AND UNPUBLISHED POEMS.