Paracelsus Part IV Paracelsus Aspires

Scene.— Colmar in Alsatia: an Inn. 1528.

Paracelsus,

Festus.

Paracelsus[to Johannes Oporinus, his Secretary].

Sic itur ad astra!

Dear Von

Is scandalized, and poor Torinus paralysed,

And every honest soul that Basil

Aghast; and yet we live, as one may say,

Just as though Liechtenfels had never

So true a value on his sorry carcass,

And learned Pütter had not frowned us dumb.

We live; and shall as surely start to

For Nuremberg, as we drink speedy

To Basil in this mantling wine, suffusedA delicate blush, no fainter tinge is bornI' the shut heart of a bud.

Pledge me, good John—"Basil; a hot plague ravage it, and Pütter"Oppose the plague!" Even so?

Do you too

Their panic, the reptiles?

Ha, ha; faint through these,

Desist for these!

They manage matters

At Basil, 't is like: but others may find

To bring the stoutest braggart of the

Once more to crouch in silence—means to breedA stupid wonder in each fool again,

Now big with admiration at the

Which stript a vain pretender of his plumes:

And, that done,—means to brand each slavish

So deeply, surely, ineffaceably,

That henceforth flattery shall not pucker

Out of the furrow; there that stamp shall

To show the next they fawn on, what they are,

This Basil with its magnates,—fill my cup,—Whom I curse soul and limb.

And now despatch,

Despatch, my trusty John; and what

To do, whate'er arrangements for our

Are yet to be completed, see you

This night; we'll weather the storm at least:

For Nuremberg!

Now leave us; this grave

Has divers weighty matters for my ear:[Oporinus goes out.

And spare my lungs.

At last, my gallant Festus,

I am rid of this arch-knave that dogs my

As a gaunt crow a gasping sheep; at

May give a loose to my delight.

How kind,

How very kind, my first best only friend!

Why, this looks like fidelity.

Embrace me!

Not a hair silvered yet?

Right! you shall

Till I am worth your love; you shall be pround,

And I—but let time show!

Did you not wonder?

I sent to you because our compact

Upon my conscience—(you recall the

At Basil, which the gods

Once more I aspire.

I call you to my side:

You come.

You thought my message strange?

Festus.                                             So

That I must hope, indeed, your

Has mingled his own fancies with the

Purporting to be yours.

Paracelsus.                         He said no more,'T is probable, than the precious folk I

Said fiftyfold more roughly.

Well-a-day,'T is true! poor Paracelsus is

At last; a most egregious quack he proves:

And those he overreached must spit their

On one who, utterly beneath contempt,

Could yet deceive their topping wits.

You

Bare truth; and at my bidding you come

To speed me on my enterprise, as

Your lavish wishes sped me, my own friend!

Festus.

What is your purpose,

Aureole?

Paracelsus.                                 Oh, for purpose,

There is no lack of precedents in a

Like mine; at least, if not precisely mine,

The case of men cast off by those they

To benefit.

Festus.            They really cast you off?

I only heard a vague tale of some priest,

Cured by your skill, who wrangled at your claim,

Knowing his life's worth best; and how the

The matter was referred to, saw no

To interfere, nor you to hide your

Contempt of him; nor he, again, to

His wrath thereat, which raised so fierce a

That Basil soon was made no place for you.

Paracelsus.

The affair of Liechtenfels? the shallowest fable,

The last and silliest outrage—mere pretence!

I knew it,

I foretold it from the first,

How soon the stupid wonder you

For genuine loyalty—a cheering

Of better things to come—would pall and pass;

And every word comes true.

Saul is

The prophets!

Just so long as I was

To play off the mere antics of my art,

Fantastic gambols leading to no end,

I got huge praise: but one can ne'er keep

Our foolish nature's weakness.

There they flocked,

Poor devils, jostling, swearing and perspiring,

Till the walls rang again; and all for me!

I had a kindness for them, which was right;

But then I stopped not till I tacked to thatA trust in them and a respect—a

Of sympathy for them;

I must needs

To teach them, not amaze them, "to impart"The spirit which should instigate the search"Of truth," just what you bade me!

I spoke out.

Forthwith a mighty squadron, in disgust,

Filed off—"the sifted chaff of the sack," I said,

Redoubling my endeavours to

The rest.

When lo! one man had tarried so

Only to ascertain if I

This tenet of his, or that; another

To hear impartially before he judged,

And having heard, now judged; this bland

Passed for my dupe, but all along, it seems,

Spied error where his neighbours marvelled most;

That fiery doctor who had hailed me friend,

Did it because my by-paths, once proved

And beaconed properly, would commend

The good old ways our sires jogged safely o'er,

Though not their squeamish sons; the other

Discovered divers verses of St.

John,

Which, read successively, refreshed the soul,

But, muttered backwards, cured the gout, the stone,

The colic and what not.

Quid multa?

The

Was a clear class-room, and a quiet

From grave folk, and a sour reproachful

From those in chief who, cap in hand,

The new professor scarce a year before;

And a vast flourish about patient

Obscured awhile by flashy tricks, but

Sooner or later to emerge in splendour—Of which the example was some luckless

Whom my arrival had discomfited,

But now, it seems, the general voice

To fill my chair and so efface the

Basil had long incurred.

I sought no better,

Only a quiet dismissal from my post,

And from my heart I wished them better

And better served.

Good night to Basil, then!

But fast as I proposed to rid the

Of my obnoxious back,

I could not spare

The pleasure of a parting kick.

Festus.                                  You smile:

Despise them as they merit!

Paracelsus.                              If I smile,'T is with as very contempt as ever

Flesh into stone.

This courteous recompense,

This grateful . . .

Festus, were your nature

To be defiled, your eyes the eyes to

At gangrene-blotches, eating poison-blains,

The ulcerous barky scurf of

Which finds—a man, and leaves—a hideous

That cannot but be mended by hell fire,—I would lay bare to you the human

Which God cursed long ago, and devils make

Their pet nest and their never-tiring home.

Oh, sages have discovered we are

For various ends—to love, to know: has

One stumbled, in his search, on any

Of a nature in us formed to hate?

To hate?

If that be our true object which

Our powers in fullest strength, be sure 't is hate!

Yet men have doubted if the best and

Of spirits can nourish him with hate alone.

I had not the monopoly of fools,

It seems, at Basil.

Festus.                     But your plans, your plans!

I have yet to learn your purpose,

Aureole!

Paracelsus.

Whether to sink beneath such ponderous shame,

To shrink up like a crushed snail,

In silence and desist from further toil,and so subside into a

Of one their censure blasted? or to

Cheerfully as submissively, to

My old pretensions even as Basil dictates,

To drop into the rank her wits assign

And live as they prescribe, and make that

Of my poor knowledge which their rules allow,

Proud to be patted now and then, and

To practise the true posture for

The amplest benefit from their hoofs'

When they shall condescend to tutor me?

Then, one may feel resentment like a

Within, and deck false systems in truth's garb,

And tangle and entwine mankind with error,

And give them darkness for a dower and

For a possession, ages: or one may

Into a shade through thinking, or else

Into a dreamless sleep and so die off.

But I,—now Festus shall divine!—but

Am merely setting out once more,

My earliest aims again!

What thinks he now?

Festus.

Your aims? the aims?—to Know? and where is

The early trust . . .

Paracelsus.                       Nay, not so fast;

I say,

The aims—not the old means.

You know they made meA laughing-stock;

I was a fool; you

The when and the how: hardly those means again!

Not but they had their beauty; who should

Their passing beauty, if not I?

Still,

They were, so let them vanish, yet in

If that may be.

Stay: thus they pass in song![He sings.

Heap cassia, sandal-buds and stripes  Of labdanum, and aloe-balls,

Smeared with dull nard an Indian wipes  From out her hair: such balsam falls  Down sea-side mountain pedestals,

From tree-tops where tired winds are fain,

Spent with the vast and howling main,

To treasure half their island-gain.

And strew faint sweetness from some old  Egyptian's fine worm-eaten

Which breaks to dust when once unrolled;  Or shredded perfume, like a cloud  From closet long to quiet vowed,

With mothed and dropping arras hung,

Mouldering her lute and books among,

As when a queen, long dead, was young.

Mine, every word!

And on such pile shall

My lovely fancies, with fair perished things,

Themselves fair and forgotten; yes, forgotten,

Or why abjure them?

So,

I made this

That fitting dignity might be preserved;

No little proud was I; though the list of

Smacks of my old vocation, and the

Halts like the best of Luther's psalms.

Festus.                                           But,

Aureole,

Talk not thus wildly and madly.

I am here—Did you know all!

I have travelled far, indeed,

To learn your wishes.

Be yourself again!

For in this mood I recognize you

Than in the horrible despondencyI witnessed last.

You may account this, joy;

But rather let me gaze on that

Than hear these incoherent words and

This flushed cheek and intensely-sparkling eye.

Paracelsus.

Why, man,

I was light-hearted in my primeI am light-hearted now; what would you have?

Aprile was a poet,

I make songs—'T is the very augury of success I want!

Why should I not be joyous now as then?

Festus.

Joyous! and how? and what remains for joy?

You have declared the ends (which I am

Of naming) are impracticable.

Paracelsus.                                Ay,

Pursued as I pursued them—the arch-fool!

Listen: my plan will please you not, 't is like,

But you are little versed in the world's ways.

This is my plan—(first drinking its good luck)—I will accept all helps; all I

So rashly at the outset,

With early impulses, late years have quenched:

I have tried each way singly: now for both!

All helps! no one sort shall exclude the rest.

I seek to know and to enjoy at once,

Not one without the other as before.

Suppose my labour should seem God's own

Once more, as first I dreamed,—it shall not baulk

Of the meanest earthliest sensualest

That may be snatched; for every joy is gain,

And gain is gain, however small.

My

Can die then, nor be taunted—"what was gained?"Nor, on the other hand, should pleasure

As though I had not spurned her hitherto,

Shall she o'ercloud my spirit's rapt

With the tumultuous past, the teeming future,

Glorious with visions of a full success.

Festus.

Success!

Paracelsus.         And wherefore not?

Why not

Results obtained in my best state of being,

To those derived alone from seasons

As the thoughts they bred?

When I was best, my

Unwasted, seemed success not surest too?

It is the nature of darkness to obscure.

I am a wanderer:

I remember

One journey, how I feared the track was missed,

So long the city I desired to

Lay hid; when suddenly its spires

Flashed through the circling clouds; you may

My transport.

Soon the vapours closed again,

But I had seen the city, and one such

No darkness could obscure: nor shall the present—A few dull hours, a passing shame or two,

Destroy the vivid memories of the past.

I will fight the battle out; a little

Perhaps, but still an able combatant.

You look at my grey hair and furrowed brow?

But I can turn even weakness to account:

Of many tricks I know, 't is not the

To push the ruins of my frame,

The fire of vigour trembles scarce alive,

Into a heap, and send the flame aloft.

What should I do with age?

So, sickness

An aid; it being,

I fear, the source of

We boast of: mind is nothing but disease,

And natural health is ignorance.

Festus.                                   I

But one good symptom in this notable scheme.

I feared your sudden journey had in

To wreak immediate vengeance on your foes'T is not so:

I am glad.

Paracelsus.                          And if I

To spit on them, to trample them, what then?'T is sorry warfare truly, but the

Provoke it.

I would spare their

But if they must provoke me, cannot

Forbearance on my part, if I may

No quality in the shade, must needs put

Power to match power, my strength against their strength,

And teach them their own game with their own arms—Why, be it so and let them take their chance!

I am above them like a god, there's

Hiding the fact: what idle scruples, then,

Were those that ever bade me soften it,

Communicate it gently to the world,

Instead of proving my supremacy,

Taking my natural station o'er their head,

Then owning all the glory was a man's!—And in my elevation man's would be.

But live and learn, though life's short, learning, hard!

And therefore, though the wreck of my past self,

I fear, dear Pütter, that your

Must wait awhile for its best ornament,

The penitent empiric, who set

For somebody, but soon was taught his place;

Now, but too happy to be let

His error, snuff the candles, and illustrate(Fiat experientia corpore vili)Your medicine's soundness in his person.

Wait,

Good Pütter!

Festus.             He who sneers thus, is a god!

Paracelsus.

Ay, ay, laugh at me!

I am very

You are not gulled by all this swaggering;

Can see the root of the matter!—how I

To put a good face on the overthrowI have experienced, and to bury and

My degradation in its length and breadth;

How the mean motives I would make you

Just mingle as is due with nobler aims,

The appetites I modestly

May influence me as being mortal still—Do goad me, drive me on, and fast

My youth's desires.

You are no stupid dupe:

You find me out!

Yes,

I had sent for

To palm these childish lies upon you,

Festus!

Laugh—you shall laugh at me!

Festus.                                The past, then,

Aureole,

Proves nothing?

Is our interchange of

Yet to begin?

Have I to swear I

No flattery in this speech or that?

For you,

Whate'er you say, there is no degradation;

These low thoughts are no inmates of your mind,

Or wherefore this disorder?

You are

As much by the intrusion of base views,

Familiar to your adversaries, as

Were troubled should your qualities

Amid their murky souls; not otherwise,

A stray wolf which the winter forces

From our bleak hills, suffices to affrightA village in the vales—while

Sleep calm, though all night long the famished

Snuff round and scratch against their crazy huts.

These evil thoughts are monsters, and will flee.

Paracelsus.

May you be happy,

Festus, my own friend!

Festus.

Nay, further; the delights you fain would

The superseders of your nobler aims,

Though ordinary and harmless stimulants,

Will ne'er content you. . . .

Paracelsus.                                Hush!

I once despised them,

But that soon passes.

We are high at

In our demand, nor will abate a

Of toil's strict value; but time passes o'er,

And humbler spirits accept what we refuse:

In short, when some such comfort is doled

As these delights, we cannot long

Bitter contempt which urges us at

To hurl it back, but hug it to our

And thankfully retire.

This life of

Must be lived out and a grave thoroughly earned:

I am just fit for that and nought beside.

I told you once,

I cannot now enjoy,

Unless I deem my knowledge gains through joy;

Nor can I know, but straight warm tears

My need of linking also joy to knowledge:

So, on I drive, enjoying all I can,

And knowing all I can.

I speak, of course,

Confusedly; this will better explain—feel here!

Quick beating, is it not?—a fire of the

To work off some way, this as well as any.

So,

Festus sees me fairly launched; his

Compassionate look might have disturbed me once,

But now, far from rejecting,

I

What bids me press the closer, lay

Open before him, and be soothed with pity;

I hope, if he command hope, and

As he directs me—satiating

With his enduring love.

And Festus quits

To give place to some credulous

Who holds that God is wise, but

Has his peculiar merits:

I suck

That homage, chuckle o'er that admiration,

And then dismiss the fool; for night is come.

And I betake myself to study again,

Till patient searchings after hidden

Half wring some bright truth from its prison; my

Trembles, my forehead's veins swell out, my

Tingles for triumph.

Slow and sure the

Shall break on my pent room and dwindling

And furnace dead, and scattered earths and ores;

When, with a failing heart and throbbing brow,

I must review my captured truth, sum

Its value, trace what ends to what begins,

Its present power with its eventual bearings,

Latent affinities, the views it opens,

And its full length in perfecting my scheme.

I view it sternly circumscribed, cast

From the high place my fond hopes yielded it,

Proved worthless—which, in getting, yet had

Another wrench to this fast-falling frame.

Then, quick, the cup to quaff, that chases sorrow!

I lapse back into youth, and take

My fluttering pulse for evidence that

Means good to me, will make my cause his own.

See!

I have cast off this remorseless

Which clogged a spirit born to soar so free,

And my dim chamber has become a tent,

Festus is sitting by me, and his Michal . . .

Why do you start?

I say, she listening here,(For yonder—Würzburg through the orchard-bough!)Motions as though such ardent words should

No echo in a maiden's quiet soul,

But her pure bosom heaves, her eyes fill

With tears, her sweet lips tremble all the while!

Ha, ha!

Festus.        It seems, then, you expect to

No unreal joy from this your present course,

But rather . . .

Paracelsus.                  Death!

To die!

I owe that

To what, at least,

I was.

I should be

To live contented after such a fall,

To thrive and fatten after such reverse!

The whole plan is a makeshift, but will

My time.

Festus.         And you have never mused and said,"I had a noble purpose, and the strength"To compass it; but I have stopped half-way,"And wrongly given the first-fruits of my toil"To objects little worthy of the gift."Why linger round them still? why clench my fault?"Why seek for consolation in defeat,"In vain endeavours to derive a beauty"From ugliness? why seek to make the most"Of what no power can change, nor strive instead"With mighty effort to redeem the past"And, gathering up the treasures thus cast down,"To hold a steadfast course till I arrive"At their fit destination and my own?"You have never pondered thus?

Paracelsus.                                Have I, you ask?

Often at midnight, when most fancies come,

Would some such airy project visit me:

But ever at the end . . . or will you

The same thing in a tale, a parable?

You and I, wandering over the world wide,

Chance to set foot upon a desert coast.

Just as we cry, "No human voice before"Broke the inveterate silence of these rocks!"—Their querulous echo startles us; we turn:

What ravaged structure still looks o'er the sea?

Some characters remain, too!

While we read,

The sharp salt wind, impatient for the

Of even this record, wistfully comes and goes,

Or sings what we recover, mocking it.

This is the record; and my voice, the wind's.[He sings.  Over the sea our galleys went,

With cleaving prows in order

To a speeding wind and a bounding wave,  A gallant armament:

Each bark built out of a forest-tree  Left leafy and rough as first it grew,

And nailed all over the gaping sides,

Within and without, with black bull-hides,

Seethed in fat and suppled in flame,

To bear the playful billows' game:

So, each good ship was rude to see,

Rude and bare to the outward view,  But each upbore a stately

Where cedar pales in scented

Kept out the flakes of the dancing brine,

And an awning drooped the mast below,

In fold on fold of the purple fine,

That neither noontide nor

Nor moonlight cold which maketh mad,  Might pierce the regal tenement.

When the sun dawned, oh, gay and

We set the sail and plied the oar;

But when the night-wind blew like breath,

For joy of one day's voyage more,

We sang together on the wide sea,

Like men at peace on a peaceful shore;

Each sail was loosed to the wind so free,

Each helm made sure by the twilight star,

And in a sleep as calm as death,

We, the voyagers from afar,  Lay stretched along, each weary

In a circle round its wondrous

Whence gleamed soft light and curled rich scent,  And with light and perfume, music too:

So the stars wheeled round, and the darkness past,

And at morn we started beside the mast,

And still each ship was sailing fast.

Now, one morn, land appeared—a

Dim trembling betwixt sea and sky:"Avoid it," cried our pilot, "check  "The shout, restrain the eager eye!"But the heaving sea was black

For many a night and many a day,

And land, though but a rock, drew nigh;

So, we broke the cedar pales away,

Let the purple awning flap in the wind,  And a statute bright was on every deck!

We shouted, every man of us,

And steered right into the harbour thus,

With pomp and pæan glorious.

A hundred shapes of lucid stone!  All day we built its shrine for each,

A shrine of rock for every one,

Nor paused till in the westering sun  We sat together on the

To sing because our task was done.

When lo! what shouts and merry songs!

What laughter all the distance stirs!

A loaded raft with happy

Of gentle islanders!"Our isles are just at hand," they cried,  "Like cloudlets faint in even sleeping"Our temple-gates are opened wide,  "Our olive-groves thick shade are keeping"For these majestic forms"—they cried.

Oh, then we awoke with sudden

From our deep dream, and knew, too late,

How bare the rock, how desolate,

Which had received our precious freight:  Yet we called out—"Depart!"Our gifts, once given, must here abide.  "Our work is done; we have no heart"To mar our work,"—we cried.

Festus.

In truth?

Paracelsus.          Nay, wait: all this in tracings

On rugged stones strewn here and there, but

In order once: then follows—mark what follows!"The sad rhyme of the men who proudly clung"To their first fault, and withered in their pride."Festus.

Come back then,

Aureole; as you fear God, come!

This is foul sin; come back!

Renounce the past,

Forswear the future; look for joy no more,

But wait death's summons amid holy sights,

And trust me for the event—peace, if not joy.

Return with me to Einsiedeln, dear Aureole!

Paracelsus.

No way, no way! it would not turn to good.

A spotless child sleeps on the flowering moss—'T is well for him; but when a sinful man,

Envying such slumber, may desire to

His guilt away, shall he return at

To rest by lying there?

Our sires knew well(Spite of the grave discoveries of their sons)The fitting course for such: dark cells, dim lamps,

A stone floor one may writhe on like a worm:

No mossy pillow blue with violets!

Festus.

I see no symptom of these

And tyrannous passions.

You are calmer now.

This verse-making can purge you well

Without the terrible penance you describe.

You love me still: the lusts you fear will

Outrage your friend.

To Einsiedeln, once more!

Say but the word!

Paracelsus.                   No, no; those lusts forbid:

They crouch,

I know, cowering with half-shut

Beside you; 't is their nature.

Thrust

Between them and their prey; let some fool style

Or king or quack, it matters not—then

Your wisdom, urge them to forego their treat!

No, no; learn better and look deeper,

Festus!

If you knew how a devil sneers within

While you are talking now of this, now that,

As though we differed scarcely save in trifles!

Festus.

Do we so differ?

True, change must proceed,

Whether for good or ill; keep from me, which!

Do not confide all secrets:

I was

To hope, and you . . .

Paracelsus.                        To trust: you know the fruits!

Festus.

Listen:

I do believe, what you call

Was self-delusion at the best: for, see!

So long as God would kindly pioneerA path for you, and screen you from the world,

Procure you full exemption from man's lot,

Man's common hopes and fears, on the mere

Of your engagement in his service—yield youA limitless licence, make you God, in fact,

And turn your slave—you were content to

Most courtly praises!

What is it, at last,

But selfishness without example?

Could trace God's will so plain as you, while

Remained implied in it; but now you fail,

And we, who prate about that will, are fools!

In short,

God's service is established

As he determines fit, and not your way,

And this you cannot brook.

Such

Is weak.

Renounce all creatureship at once!

Affirm an absolute right to have and

Your energies; as though the rivers should say—"We rush to the ocean; what have we to do"With feeding streamlets, lingering in the vales,"Sleeping in lazy pools?" Set up that plea,

That will be bold at least!

Paracelsus.                              'T is like enough.

The serviceable spirits are those, no doubt,

The East produces: lo, the master bids,—They wake, raise terraces and

In one night's space; and, this done, straight

Another century's sleep, to the great

Of him that framed them wise and beautiful,

Till a lamp's rubbing, or some chance akin,

Wake them again.

I am of different mould.

I would have soothed my lord, and slaved for

And done him service past my narrow bond,

And thus I get rewarded for my pains!

Beside, 't is vain to talk of

God's glory otherwise; this is

The sphere of its increase, as far as

Increase it; why, then, look beyond this sphere?

We are his glory; and if we be glorious,

Is not the thing achieved?

Festus.                             Shall one like

Judge hearts like yours?

Though years have changed you much,

And you have left your first love, and

Its empty shade to veil your crooked ways,

Yet I still hold that you have honoured God.

And who shall call your course without reward?

For, wherefore this repining at

Had triumph ne'er inured you to high hopes?

I urge you to forsake the life you curse,

And what success attends me?—simply

Of passion, weakness and remorse; in short,

Anything but the naked truth—you

This so-despised career, and cheaply

My happiness, or rather other men's.

Once more, return!

Paracelsus.                    And quickly.

John the

Has pilfered half my secrets by this time:

And we depart by daybreak.

I am weary,

I know not how; not even the wine-cup

My brain to-night . . .

Do you not thoroughly despise me,

Festus?

No flattery!

One like you needs not be

We live and breathe deceiving and deceived.

Do you not scorn me from your heart of hearts,

Me and my cant, each petty subterfuge,

My rhymes and all this frothy shower of words,

My glozing self-deceit, my outward

Of lies which wrap, as tetter, morphew,

Wrapt the sound flesh?—so, see you flatter not!

Even God flatters: but my friend, at least,

Is true.

I would depart, secure

Against all further insult, hate and

From puny foes; my one friend's scorn shall brand me:

No fear of sinking deeper!

Festus.                             No, dear Aureole!

No, no;

I came to counsel faithfully.

There are old rules, made long ere we were born,

By which I judge you.

I, so fallible,

So infinitely low beside your

Majestic spirit!—even I can

You own some higher law than ours which

Sin, what is no sin—weakness, what is strength.

But I have only these, such as they are,

To guide me; and I blame you where they bid,

Only so long as blaming

To win peace for your soul: the more, that

Has fallen on me of late, and they have helped

So that I faint not under my distress.

But wherefore should I scruple to

In spite of all, as brother judging brother,

Your fate is most inexplicable to me?

And should you perish without

And satisfaction yet—too hastilyI have relied on love: you may have sinned,

But you have loved.

As a mere human matter—As I would have God deal with fragile

In the end—I say that you will triumph yet!

Paracelsus.

Have you felt sorrow,

Festus?—'t is

You love me.

Sorrow, and sweet Michal yours!

Well thought on: never let her know this

Dull winding-up of all: these miscreants

Insult me—me she loved:—so, grieve her not!

Festus.

Your ill success can little grieve her now.

Paracelsus.

Michal is dead! pray Christ we do not craze!

Festus.

Aureole, dear Aureole, look not on me thus!

Fool, fool! this is the heart grown sorrow-proof—I cannot bear those eyes.

Paracelsus.                            Nay, really dead?

Festus.'T is scarce a month.

Paracelsus.                       Stone dead!—then you have laid

Among the flowers ere this.

Now, do you know,

I can reveal a secret which shall

Even you.

I have no julep, as men think,

To cheat the grave; but a far better secret.

Know, then, you did not ill to trust your

To the cold earth:

I have thought much of it:

For I believe we do not wholly die.

Festus.

Aureole!

Paracelsus.         Nay, do not laugh; there is a

For what I say:

I think the soul can

Taste death.

I am, just now, as you may see,

Very unfit to put so strange a

In an intelligible dress of words;

But take it as my trust, she is not dead.

Festus.

But not on this account alone? you surely,—Aureole, you have believed this all along?

Paracelsus.

And Michal sleeps among the roots and dews,

While I am moved at Basil, and full of

For Nuremberg, and hoping and despairing,

As though it mattered how the farce plays out,

So it be quickly played.

Away, away!

Have your will, rabble! while we fight the prize,

Troop you in safety to the snug

And leave a clear arena for the

About to perish for your sport!—Behold!