MEPHISTOPHELES

Well done, my dainty spirits! now he slumbers!
Ye have entranc'd him fairly with your numbers!
This minstrelsy of yours I must repay,--
Thou art not yet the man to hold the devil fast!--
With fairest shapes your spells around him cast,
And plunge him in a sea of dreams!
But that this charm be rent, the threshold passed,
Tooth of rat the way must clear.
I need not conjure long it seems,
One rustles hitherward, and soon my voice will hear.
The master of the rats and mice,
Of flies and frogs, of bugs and lice,
Commands thy presence; without fear
Come forth and gnaw the threshold here,
Where he with oil has smear'd it.--Thou
Com'st hopping forth already! Now
To work! The point that holds me bound
Is in the outer angle found.
Another bite--so--now 'tis done--
Now, Faustus, till we meet again, dream on.

FAUST (awaking)
Am I once more deluded! must I deem
That thus the throng of spirits disappear?
The devil's presence, was it but a dream?
Hath but a poodle scap'd and left me here?