Mephistopheles monologue (Act 5) — Faust: A Tragedy

Sith thou, O Lord, approachest near, And how we fare would'st fain have information, And thou of old wert glad to see me here, I stand to-day amid the courtly nation. Pardon; no words of fine address I know, Nor could, though all should hoot me down with sneers; My pathos would move laughter, and not tears, Wert thou not weaned from laughter long ago. Of suns and worlds I've nought to say, I only see how men must fret their lives away. The little god o' the world jogs and jogs on, the same As when from ruddy clay he took his name; And, sooth to say, remains a riddle, just As much as when you shaped him from the dust. Perhaps a little better he had thriven, Had he not got the show of glimmering light from heaven: He calls it reason, and it makes him free To be more brutish than a brute can be; He is, methinks, with reverence of your grace, Like one of the long-leggèd race Of grasshoppers that leap in the air, and spring, And straightway in the grass the same old song they sing; 'Twere well that from the grass he never rose, On every stubble he must break his nose!