Scene.— Salzburg; a cell in the Hospital of St.
Sebastian. 1541.
Festus,
Paracelsus.
Festus.
No change!
The weary night is well-nigh spent,
The lamp burns low, and through the
Grey morning glimmers feebly: yet no change!
Another night, and still no sigh has
That fallen discoloured mouth, no pang
Those fixed eyes, quenched by the decaying body,
Like torch-flame choked in dust.
While all
Was breaking, to the last they held out bright,
As a stronghold where life intrenched itself;
But they are dead now—very blind and dead:
He will drowse into death without a groan.
My Aureole—my forgotten, ruined Aureole!
The days are gone, are gone!
How grand thou wast!
And now not one of those who struck thee down—Poor glorious spirit—concerns him even to
And satisfy himself his little
Could turn God's image to a livid thing.
Another night, and yet no change! 'T is
That I should sit by him, and bathe his brow,
And chafe his hands; 't is much: but he will
Know me, and look on me, and speak to
Once more—but only once!
His hollow
Looked all night long as though a creeping
At his own state were just about to
From the dying man: my brain swam, my throat swelled,
And yet I could not turn away.
In truth,
They told me how, when first brought here, he
Resolved to live, to lose no faculty;
Thus striving to keep up his shattered strength,
Until they bore him to this stifling cell:
When straight his features fell, an hour made
The flushed face, and relaxed the quivering limb,
Only the eye remained intense
As though it recognized the tomb-like place,
And then he lay as here he lies. Ay, here!
Here is earth's noblest, nobly garlanded—Her bravest champion with his well-won prize—Her best achievement, her sublime
For countless generations fleeting
And followed by no trace;—the
She instances when angels would
The title of her brood to rank with them.
Angels, this is our angel!
Those bright
We clothe with purple, crown and call to thrones,
Are human, but not his; those are but
Whom other men press round and kneel before;
Those palaces are dwelt in by mankind;
Higher provision is for him you
Amid our pomps and glories: see it here!
Behold earth's paragon!
Now, raise thee, clay!
God!
Thou art love!
I build my faith on
Even as I watch beside thy tortured
Unconscious whose hot tears fall fast by him,
So doth thy right hand guide us through the
Wherein we stumble.
God! what shall we say?
How has he sinned?
How else should he have done?
Surely he sought thy praise—thy praise, for
He might be busied by the task so
As half forget awhile its proper end.
Dost thou well,
Lord?
Thou canst not but
That I should range myself upon his side—How could he stop at every step to
Thy glory forth?
Hadst thou but granted
Success, thy honour would have crowned success,
A halo round a star.
Or, say he erred,—Save him, dear God; it will be like thee: bathe
In light and life!
Thou art not made like us;
We should be wroth in such a case; but
Forgivest—so, forgive these passionate
Which come unsought and will not pass away!
I know thee, who hast kept my path, and
Light for me in the darkness, tempering
So that it reached me like a solemn joy;
It were too strange that I should doubt thy love.
But what am I?
Thou madest him and
How he was fashioned.
I could never
That way: the quiet place beside thy feet,
Reserved for me, was ever in my thoughts:
But he—thou shouldst have favoured him as well!
Ah! he wakens!
Aureole,
I am here! 't is Festus!
I cast away all wishes save one wish—Let him but know me, only speak to me!
He mutters; louder and louder; any
Than I, with brain less laden, could
What he pours forth.
Dear Aureole, do but look!
Is it talking or singing, this he utters fast?
Misery that he should fix me with his eye,
Quick talking to some other all the while!
If he would husband this wild
Which frustrates its intent!—I heard,
I knowI heard my name amid those rapid words.
Oh, he will know me yet!
Could I
This current, lead it somehow gently
Into the channels of the past!—His
Brighter than ever!
It must recognize me!
I am Erasmus:
I am here to
That Paracelsus use his skill for me.
The schools of Paris and of Padua
These questions for your learning to resolve.
We are your students, noble master:
This wretched cell, what business have you here?
Our class awaits you; come to us once more!(O agony! the utmost I can
Touches him not; how else arrest his ear?)I am commissioned . . .
I shall craze like him.
Better be mute and see what God shall send.
Paracelsus.
Stay, stay with me!
Festus. I will;
I am come
To stay with you—Festus, you loved of old;
Festus, you know, you must know!
Paracelsus. Festus!
Aprile, then?
Has he not chanted
The melodies I heard all night?
I could
Get to him for a cold hand on my breast,
But I made out his music well enough,
O well enough!
If they have filled him
With magical music, as they freight a
With light, and have remitted all his sin,
They will forgive me too,
I too shall know!
Festus.
Festus, your Festus!
Paracelsus. Ask him if
Knows as he Loves—if I shall Love and Know?
I try; but that cold hand, like lead—so cold!
Festus.
My hand, see!
Paracelsus. Ah, the curse,
Aprile,
Aprile!
We get so near—so very, very near!'T is an old tale:
Jove strikes the Titans down,
Not when they set about their
But when another rock would crown the work.
And Phaeton—doubtless his first radiant
Astonished mortals, though the gods were calm,
And Jove prepared his thunder: all old tales!
Festus.
And what are these to you?
Paracelsus. Ay, fiends must
So cruelly, so well! most like I
Could tread a single pleasure underfoot,
But they were grinning by my side, were
To see me toil and drop away by flakes!
Hell-spawn!
I am glad, most glad, that thus I fail!
Your cunning has o'ershot its aim.
One year,
One month, perhaps, and I had served your turn!
You should have curbed your spite awhile.
But now,
Who will believe 't was you that held me back?
Listen: there's shame and hissing and contempt,
And none but laughs who names me, none but
Measureless scorn upon me, me alone,
The quack, the cheat, the liar,—all on me!
And thus your famous plan to sink
In silence and despair, by teaching
One of their race had probed the inmost truth,
Had done all man could do, yet failed no less—Your wise plan proves abortive.
Men despair?
Ha, ha! why, they are hooting the empiric,
The ignorant and incapable fool who
Madly upon a work beyond his wits;
Nor doubt they but the simplest of
Could bring the matter to triumphant issue.
So, pick and choose among them all, accursed!
Try now, persuade some other to slave for you,
To ruin body and soul to work your ends!
No, no;
I am the first and last,
I think.
Festus.
Dear friend, who are accursed? who has done…Paracelsus.
What have I done?
Fiends dare ask that? or you,
Brave men?
Oh, you can chime in boldly,
By the others!
What had you to do, sage peers?
Here stand my rivals;
Latin,
Arab,
Jew,
Greek, join dead hands against me: all I
Is, that the world enrol my name with theirs,
And even this poor privilege, it seems,
They range themselves, prepared to disallow.
Only observe! why, fiends may learn from them!
How they talk calmly of my throes, my
Aspirings, terrible watchings, each one
Its price of blood and brain; how they
And sneeringly disparage the few
Got at a life's cost; they too hanging the
About my neck, their lies misleading
And their dead names browbeating me!
Grey crew,
Yet steeped in fresh malevolence from hell,
Is there a reason for your hate?
My
Have shaken a little the palm about each prince?
Just think,
Aprile, all these leering
Were bent on nothing less than to be
As we!
That yellow blear-eyed wretch in
To whom the rest cringe low with feigned respect,
Galen of Pergamos and hell—nay
The tale, old man!
We met there face to face:
I said the crown should fall from thee.
Once
We meet as in that ghastly vestibule:
Look to my brow!
Have I redeemed my pledge?
Festus.
Peace, peace; ah, see!
Paracelsus. Oh, emptiness of fame!
Oh Persic Zoroaster, lord of stars!—Who said these old renowns, dead long ago,
Could make me overlook the living
To gaze through gloom at where they stood, indeed,
But stand no longer?
What a warm light
After the shade!
In truth, my delicate witch,
My serpent-queen, you did but well to
The juggles I had else detected.
May well run harmless o'er a breast like yours!
The cave was not so darkened by the
But that your white limbs dazzled me: oh, white,
And panting as they twinkled, wildly dancing!
I cared not for your passionate gestures then,
But now I have forgotten the charm of charms,
The foolish knowledge which I came to seek,
While I remember that quaint dance; and thusI am come back, not for those mummeries,
But to love you, and to kiss your little
Soft as an ermine's winter coat!
Festus. A
Will struggle through these thronging words at last.
As in the angry and tumultuous WestA soft star trembles through the drifting clouds.
These are the strivings of a spirit which
So sad a vault should coop it, and calls
The past to stand between it and its fate.
Were he at Einsiedeln—or Michal here!
Paracelsus.
Cruel!
I seek her now—I kneel—I shriek—I clasp her vesture—but she fades, still fades;
And she is gone; sweet human love is gone!'T is only when they spring to heaven that
Reveal themselves to you; they sit all
Beside you, and lie down at night by
Who care not for their presence, muse or sleep,
And all at once they leave you, and you know them!
We are so fooled, so cheated!
Why, even nowI am not too secure against foul play;
The shadows deepen and the walls contract:
No doubt some treachery is going on.'T is very dusk.
Where are we put,
Aprile?
Have they left us in the lurch?
This murky
Death-trap, this slaughter-house, is not the
In the golden city!
Keep by me,
Aprile!
There is a hand groping amid the
To catch us.
Have the spider-fingers got you,
Poet?
Hold on me for your life!
If
They pull you!—Hold! 'Tis but a dream—no more!
I have you still; the sun comes out again;
Let us be happy: all will yet go well!
Let us confer: is it not like,
Aprile,
That spite of trouble, this ordeal passed,
The value of my labours ascertained,
Just as some stream foams long among the
But after glideth glassy to the sea,
So, full content shall henceforth be my lot?
What think you, poet?
Louder!
Your clear
Vibrates too like a harp-string.
Do you
How could I still remain on earth, should
Grant me the great approval which I seek?
I, you, and God can comprehend each other,
But men would murmur, and with cause enough;
For when they saw me, stainless of all sin,
Preserved and sanctified by inward light,
They would complain that comfort, shut from them,
I drank thus unespied; that they live on,
Nor taste the quiet of a constant joy,
For ache and care and doubt and weariness,
While I am calm; help being vouchsafed to me,
And hid from them.—'T were best consider that!
You reason well,
Aprile; but at
Let me know this, and die!
Is this too much?
I will learn this, if God so please, and die!
If thou shalt please, dear God, if thou shalt please!
We are so weak, we know our motives
In their confused beginning.
If at firstI sought . . . but wherefore bare my heart to thee?
I know thy mercy; and already
Flock fast about my soul to comfort it,
And intimate I cannot wholly fail,
For love and praise would clasp me
Could I resolve to seek them.
Thou art good,
And I should be content.
Yet—yet first showI have done wrong in daring!
Rather
The supernatural consciousness of
Which fed my youth!
Only one hour of
With thee to help—O what should bar me then!
Lost, lost!
Thus things are ordered here!
God's creatures,
And yet he takes no pride in us!—none, none!
Truly there needs another life to come!
If this be all—(I must tell Festus that)And other life await us not—for one,
I say 't is a poor cheat, a stupid bungle,
A wretched failure.
I, for one,
Against it, and I hurl it back with scorn.
Well, onward though alone!
Small time remains,
And much to do:
I must have fruit, must
Some profit from my toils.
I doubt my
Will hardly serve me through; while I have
It has decayed; and now that I
Its best assistance, it will crumble fast:
A sad thought, a sad fate!
How very
Of wormwood 't is, that just at altar-service,
The rapt hymn rising with the rolling smoke,
When glory dawns and all is at the best,
The sacred fire may flicker and grow
And die for want of a wood-piler's help!
Thus fades the flagging body, and the
Is pulled down in the overthrow.
Well, well —Let men catch every word, let them lose
Of what I say; something may yet be done.
They are ruins!
Trust me who am one of you!
All ruins, glorious once, but lonely now.
It makes my heart sick to behold you
Beside your desolate fane: the arches dim,
The crumbling columns grand against the moon,
Could I but rear them up once more—but
May never be, so leave them!
Trust me, friends,
Why should you linger here when I have builtA far resplendent temple, all your own?
Trust me, they are but ruins!
See,
Aprile,
Men will not heed!
Yet were I not
With better refuge for them, tongue of
Should ne'er reveal how blank their dwelling is:
I would sit down in silence with the rest.
Ha, what? you spit at me, you grin and
Contempt into my ear—my ear which
God's accents once? you curse me?
Why men, men,
I am not formed for it!
Those hideous
Will be before me sleeping, waking, praying,
They will not let me even die.
Spare, spare me,
Sinning or no, forget that, only spare
The horrible scorn!
You thought I could support it.
But now you see what silly fragile
Cowers thus.
I am not good nor bad enough,
Not Christ nor Cain, yet even Cain was
From Hate like this.
Let me but totter back!
Perhaps I shall elude those jeers which
Into my very brain, and shut these
Eyelids and keep those mocking faces out.
Listen,
Aprile!
I am very calm:
Be not deceived, there is no passion
Where the blood leaps like an imprisoned thing:
I am calm:
I will exterminate the race!
Enough of that: 't is said and it shall be.
And now be merry: safe and sound am
Who broke through their best ranks to get at you.
And such a havoc, such a rout,
Aprile!
Festus.
Have you no thought, no memory for me,
Aureole?
I am so wretched—my pure
Is gone, and you alone are left me now,
And even you forget me.
Take my hand—Lean on me thus.
Do you not know me,
Aureole?
Paracelsus.
Festus, my own friend, you are come at last?
As you say, 't is an awful enterprise;
But you believe I shall go through with it:'T is like you, and I thank you.
Thank him for me,
Dear Michal!
See how bright St.
Saviour's
Flames in the sunset; all its figures
Gay in the glancing light: you might conceive themA troop of yellow-vested white-haired
Bound for their own land where redemption dawns.
Festus.
Not that blest time—not our youth's time, dear God!
Paracelsus.
Ha—stay! true,
I forget—all is done since,
And he is come to judge me.
How he speaks,
How calm, how well! yes, it is true, all true;
All quackery; all deceit; myself can
The first at it, if you desire: but
You know the obstacles which taught me
So foreign to my nature—envy and hate,
Blind opposition, brutal prejudice,
Bald ignorance—what wonder if I
To humour men the way they most approved?
My cheats were never palmed on such as you,
Dear Festus!
I will kneel if you require me,
Impart the meagre knowledge I possess,
Explain its bounded nature, and
My insufficiency—whate'er you will:
I give the fight up: let there be an end,
A privacy, an obscure nook for me.
I want to be forgotten even by God.
But if that cannot be, dear Festus, lay me,
When I shall die, within some narrow grave,
Not by itself—for that would be too proud—But where such graves are thickest; let it
Nowise distinguished from the hillocks round,
So that the peasant at his brother's
May tread upon my own and know it not;
And we shall all be equal at the last,
Or classed according to life's natural ranks,
Fathers, sons, brothers, friends—not rich, nor wise,
Nor gifted: lay me thus, then say, "He lived"Too much advanced before his brother men;"They kept him still in front: 't was for their good"But yet a dangerous station.
It were strange"That he should tell God he had never ranked"With men: so, here at least he is a man."Festus.
That God shall take thee to his breast, dear spirit,
Unto his breast, be sure! and here on
Shall splendour sit upon thy name for ever.
Sun! all the heaven is glad for thee: what
If lower mountains light their snowy
At thine effulgence, yet acknowledge
The source of day?
Their theft shall be their bale:
For after-ages shall retrack thy beams,
And put aside the crowd of busy
And worship thee alone—the master-mind,
The thinker, the explorer, the creator!
Then, who should sneer at the convulsive
With which thy deeds were born, would scorn as
The sheet of winding subterraneous
Which, pent and writhing, sends no less at
Huge islands up amid the simmering sea.
Behold thy might in me! thou hast
Thy soul in mine; and I am grand as thou,
Seeing I comprehend thee—I so simple,
Thou so august.
I recognize thee first;
I saw thee rise,
I watched thee early and late,
And though no glance reveal thou dost
My homage—thus no less I proffer it,
And bid thee enter gloriously thy rest.
Paracelsus.
Festus!
Festus. I am for noble Aureole,
God!
I am upon his side, come weal or woe.
His portion shall be mine.
He has done well.
I would have sinned, had I been strong enough,
As he has sinned.
Reward him or I
Reward!
If thou canst find no place for him,
He shall be king elsewhere, and I will
His slave for ever.
There are two of us.
Paracelsus.
Dear Festus!
Festus. Here, dear Aureole! ever by you!
Paracelsus.
Nay, speak on, or I dream again.
Speak on!
Some story, anything—only your voice.
I shall dream else.
Speak on! ay, leaning so!
Festus. Thus the Mayne
Where my Love abideth.
Sleep's no softer: it
On through lawns, on through meads,
On and on, whate'er befall,
Meandering and musical,
Though the niggard
Bears not on its shaven
Aught but weeds and waving
To view the river as it passes,
Save here and there a scanty
Of primroses too faint to catchA weary bee.
Paracelsus.
More, more; say on!
Festus. And scarce it
Its gentle way through strangling
Where the glossy
Flutters when noon-heats are near,
Glad the shelving banks to shun,
Red and steaming in the sun,
Where the shrew-mouse with pale
Burrows, and the speckled stoat;
Where the quick sandpipers
In and out the marl and
That seems to breed them, brown as they:
Nought disturbs its quiet way,
Save some lazy stork that springs,
Trailing it with legs and wings,
Whom the shy fox from the
Rouses, creep he ne'er so still.
Paracelsus.
My heart! they loose my heart, those simple words;
Its darkness passes, which nought else could touch:
Like some dark snake that force may not expel,
Which glideth out to music sweet and low.
What were you doing when your voice broke throughA chaos of ugly images?
You, indeed!
Are you alone here?
Festus. All alone: you know me?
This cell?
Paracelsus. An unexceptionable vault:
Good brick and stone: the bats kept out, the
Kept in: a snug nook: how should I mistake it?
Festus.
But wherefore am I here?
Paracelsus. Ah, well remembered!
Why, for a purpose—for a purpose,
Festus!'T is like me: here I trifle while time fleets,
And this occasion, lost, will ne'er return.
You are here to be instructed.
I will
God's message; but I have so much to say,
I fear to leave half out.
All is
No doubt; but doubtless you will learn in time.
He would not else have brought you here: no doubtI shall see clearer soon.
Festus. Tell me but this—You are not in despair?
Paracelsus. I? and for what?
Festus.
Alas, alas! he knows not, as I feared!
Paracelsus.
What is it you would ask me with that
Dear searching face?
Festus. How feel you,
Aureole?
Paracelsus. Well:
Well. 'T is a strange thing:
I am dying,
Festus,
And now that fast the storm of life subsides,
I first perceive how great the whirl has been.
I was calm then, who am so dizzy now—Calm in the thick of the tempest, but no lessA partner of its motion and mixed
With its career.
The hurricane is spent,
And the good boat speeds through the brightening weather;
But is it earth or sea that heaves below?
The gulf rolls like a meadow-swell,
With ravaged boughs and remnants of the shore;
And now some slet, loosened from the land,
Swims past with all its trees, sailing to ocean;
And now the air is full of uptorn canes,
Light strippings from the fan-trees,
Unrooted, with their birds still clinging to them,
All high in the wind.
Even so my varied
Drifts by me;
I am young, old, happy, sad,
Hoping, desponding, acting, taking rest,
And all at once: that is, those past
Float back at once on me.
If I
Some special epoch from the crowd, 't is
To will, and straight the rest dissolve away,
And only that particular state is
With all its long-forgotten
Distinct and vivid as at first—myselfA careless looker-on and nothing more,
Indifferent and amused, but nothing more.
And this is death:
I understand it all.
New being waits me; new perceptions
Be born in me before I plunge therein;
Which last is Death's affair; and while I speak,
Minute by minute he is filling
With power; and while my foot is on the
Of boundless life—the doors unopened yet,
All preparations not complete within—I turn new knowledge upon old events,
And the effect is . . . but I must not tell;
It is not lawful.
Your own turn will
One day.
Wait,
Festus!
You will die like me.
Festus.'T is of that past life that I burn to hear.
Paracelsus.
You wonder it engages me just now?
In truth,
I wonder too.
What 's life to me?
Where'er I look is fire, where'er I
Music, and where I tend bliss evermore.
Yet how can I refrain? 'T is a
Delight to view those chances,—one last view.
I am so near the perils I escape,
That I must play with them and turn them over,
To feel how fully they are past and gone.
Still, it is like, some further cause
For this peculiar mood—some hidden purpose;
Did I not tell you something of it,
Festus?
I had it fast, but it has somehow
Away from me; it will return anon.
Festus.(Indeed his cheek seems young again, his
Complete with its old tones: that little
Concluding every phrase, with upturned eye,
As though one stooped above his head to
He looked for confirmation and approval,
Where was it gone so long, so well preserved?
Then, the fore-finger pointing as he speaks,
Like one who traces in an open
The matter he declares; 't is many a
Since I remarked it last: and this in him,
But now a ghastly wreck!) And can it be,
Dear Aureole, you have then found out at
That worldly things are utter vanity?
That man is made for weakness, and should
In patient ignorance, till God appoint . . .
Paracelsus.
Ha, the purpose: the true purpose: that is it!
How could I fail to apprehend!
You here,
I thus!
But no more trifling:
I see all,
I know all: my last mission shall be
If strength suffice.
No trifling!
Stay; this
Hardly befits one thus about to speak:
I will arise.
Festus. Nay,
Aureole, are you wild?
You cannot leave your couch.
Paracelsus. No help; no help;
Not even your hand.
So! there,
I stand once more!
Speak from a couch?
I never lectured thus.
My gown—the scarlet lined with fur; now
The chain about my neck; my
Is still upon my hand,
I think—even so;
Last, my good sword; ah, trusty Azoth,
Beneath thy master's grasp for the last time?
This couch shall be my throne:
I bid these
Be consecrate, this wretched cell becomeA shrine, for here God speaks to men through me.
Now,
Festus,
I am ready to begin.
Festus.
I am dumb with wonder.
Paracelsus. Listen, therefore,
Festus!
There will be time enough, but none to spare.
I must content myself with telling
The most important points.
You doubtless
That I am happy,
Festus; very happy.
Festus.'T is no delusion which uplifts him thus!
Then you are pardoned,
Aureole, all your sin?
Paracelsus.
Ay, pardoned: yet why pardoned?
Festus. 'T is God's
That man is bound to seek, and you . . .
Paracelsus. Have lived!
We have to live alone to set forth
God's praise. 'T is true,
I sinned much, as I thought,
And in effect need mercy, for I
To do that very thing; but, do your
Or worst, praise rises, and will rise for
Pardon from him, because of praise denied—Who calls me to himself to exalt himself?
He might laugh as I laugh!
Festus. But all
To the same thing. 'T is fruitless for
To fret themselves with what concerns them not;
They are no use that way: they should lie
Content as God has made them, nor go
In thriveless cares to better what is ill.
Paracelsus.
No, no; mistake me not; let me not
More harm than I have worked!
This is my case:
If I go joyous back to God, yet
No offering, if I render up my
Without the fruits it was ordained to bear,
If I appear the better to love
For sin, as one who has no claim on him,-Be not deceived!
It may be surely
With me, while higher prizes still
The mortal persevering to the end.
Beside I am not all so valueless:
I have been something, though too soon I
Following the instincts of that happy time.
Festus.
What happy time?
For God's sake, for man's sake,
What time was happy?
All I hope to
That answer will decide.
What happy time?
Paracelsus.
When but the time I vowed myself to man?
Festus.
Great God, thy judgments are inscrutable!
Paracelsus.
Yes, it was in me;
I was born for it—I,
Paracelsus: it was mine by right.
Doubtless a searching and impetuous
Might learn from its own motions that some
Like this awaited it about the world;
Might seek somewhere in this blank life of
For fit delights to stay its longings vast;
And, grappling Nature, so prevail on
To fill the creature full she dared thus
Hungry for joy; and, bravely tyrannous,
Grow in demand, still craving more and more,
And make each joy conceded prove a
Of other joy to follow—bating
Of its desires, still seizing fresh
To turn the knowledge and the rapture
As an extreme, last boon, from destiny,
Into occasion for new coyetings,
New strifes, new triumphs:—doubtless a strong soul,
Alone, unaided might attain to this,
So glorious is our nature, so
Man's inborn uninstructed impulses,
His naked spirit so majestical!
But this was born in me;
I was made so;
Thus much time saved: the feverish appeties,
The tumult of unproved desire, the
Uncertain yearnings, aspirations blind,
Distrust, mistake, and all that ends in
Were saved me; thus I entered on my course.
You may be sure I was not all
From human trouble; just so much of
As bade me plant a surer foot
The sun-road, kept my eye unruined
The fierce and flashing splendour, set my
Trembling so much as warned me I stood
On sufferance—not to idly gaze, but
Light on a darkling race; save for that doubt,
I stood at first where all aspire at
To stand: the secret of the world was mine.
I knew,
I felt, (perception unexpressed,
Uncomprehended by our narrow thought,
But somehow felt and known in every
And change in the spirit,—nay, in every
Of the body, even,)—what God is, what we are,
What life is—how God tastes an infinite
In infinite ways—one everlasting bliss,
From whom all being emanates, all
Proceeds; in whom is life for evermore,
Yet whom existence in its lowest
Includes; where dwells enjoyment there is he;
With still a flying point of bliss remote,
A happiness in store afar, a
Of distant glory in full view; thus
Pleasure its heights for ever and for ever.
The centre-fire heaves underneath the earth,
And the earth changes like a human face;
The molten ore bursts up among the rocks,
Winds into the stone's heart, outbranches
In hidden mines, spots barren river-beds,
Crumbles into fine sand where sunbeams bask—God joys therein.
The wroth sea's waves are
With foam, white as the bitten lip of hate,
When, in the solitary waste, strange
Of young volcanos come up, cyclops-like,
Staring together with their eyes on flame—God tastes a pleasure in their uncouth pride.
Then all is still; earth is a wintry clod:
But spring-wind, like a dancing psaltress,
Over its breast to waken it, rare
Buds tenderly upon rough banks,
The withered tree-roots and the cracks of frost,
Like a smile striving with a wrinkled face;
The grass grows bright, the boughs are swoln with
Like chrysalids impatient for the air,
The shining dorrs are busy, beetles
Along the furrows, ants make their ado;
Above, birds fly in merry flocks, the
Soars up and up, shivering for very joy;
Afar the ocean sleeps; white
Flit where the strand is purple with its
Of nested limpets; savage creatures
Their loves in wood and plain—and God
His ancient rapture.
Thus he dwells in all,
From life's minute beginnings, up at
To man—the consummation of this
Of being, the completion of this
Of life: whose attributes had here and
Been scattered o'er the visible world before,
Asking to be combined, dim fragments
To be united in some wondrous whole,
Imperfect qualities throughout creation,
Suggesting some one creature yet to make,
Some point where all those scattered rays should
Convergent in the faculties of man.
Power—neither put forth blindly, nor
Calmly by perfect knowledge; to be
At risk, inspired or checked by hope and fear:
Knowledge—not intuition, but the
Uncertain fruit of an enhancing toil,
Strengthened by love: love—not serenely pure,
But strong from weakness, like a chance-sown
Which, cast on stubborn soil, puts forth changed
And softer stains, unknown in happier climes;
Love which endures and doubts and is
And cherished, suffering much and much sustained,
And blind, oft-failing, yet believing love,
A half-enlightened, often-chequered trust:—Hints and previsions of which faculties,
Are strewn confusedly everywhere
The inferior natures, and all lead up higher,
All shape out dimly the superior race,
The heir of hopes too fair to turn out false,
And man appears at last.
So far the
Is put on life; one stage of being complete,
One scheme wound up: and from the grand resultA supplementary reflux of light,
Illustrates all the inferior grades,
Each back step in the circle.
Not
For their possessor dawn those qualities,
But the new glory mixes with the
And earth; man, once descried, imprints for
His presence on all lifeless things: the
Are henceforth voices, wailing or a shout,
A querulous mutter or a quick gay laugh,
Never a senseless gust now man is born.
The herded pines commune and have deep thoughtsA secret they assemble to
When the sun drops behind their trunks which
Like grates of hell: the peerless cup
Of the lake-lily is an urn, some
Swims bearing high above her head: no
Whistles unseen, but through the gaps
That let light in upon the gloomy woods,
A shape peeps from the breezy forest-top,
Arch with small puckered mouth and mocking eye.
The morn has enterprise, deep quiet
With evening, triumph takes the sunset hour,
Voluptuous transport ripens with the
Beneath a warm moon like a happy face:—And this to fill us with regard for man.
With apprehension of his passing worth,
Desire to work his proper nature out,
And ascertain his rank and final place,
For these things tend still upward, progress
The law of life, man is not Man as yet.
Nor shall I deem his object served, his
Attained, his genuine strength put fairly forth,
While only here and there a star
The darkness, here and there a towering mindO'erlooks its prostrate fellows: when the
Is out at once to the despair of night,
When all mankind alike is perfected,
Equal in full-blown powers—then, not till then,
I say, begins man's general infancy.
For wherefore make account of feverish
Of restless members of a dormant whole,
Impatient nerves which quiver while the
Slumbers as in a grave?
Oh long
The brow was twitched, the tremulous lids astir,
The peaceful mouth disturbed; half-uttered
Ruffled the lip, and then the teeth were set,
The breath drawn sharp, the strong right-hand clenched stronger,
As it would pluck a lion by the jaw;
The glorious creature laughed out even in sleep!
But when full roused, each giant-limb awake,
Each sinew strung, the great heart pulsing fast,
He shall start up and stand on his own earth,
Then shall his long triumphant march begin,
Thence shall his being date,—thus wholly roused,
What he achieves shall be set down to him.
When all the race is perfected
As man, that is; all tended to mankind,
And, man produced, all has its end thus far:
But in completed man begins anewA tendency to God.
Prognostics
Man's near approach; so in man's self
August anticipations, symbols,
Of a dim splendour ever on
In that eternal circle life pursues.
For men begin to pass their nature's bound,
And find new hopes and cares which fast
Their proper joys and griefs; they grow too
For narrow creeds of right and wrong, which
Before the unmeasured thirst for good: while
Rises within them ever more and more.
Such men are even now upon the earth,
Serene amid the half-formed creatures
Who should be saved by them and joined with them.
Such was my task, and I was born to it—Free, as I said but now, from much that
Spirits, high-dowered but limited and
By a divided and delusive aim,
A shadow mocking a
Whose truth avails not wholly to
The flitting mimic called up by itself,
And so remains perplexed and nigh put
By its fantastic fellow's wavering gleam.
I, from the first, was never cheated thus;
I never fashioned out a fancied
Distinct from man's; a service to be done,
A glory to be ministered
With powers put forth at man's expense,
From labouring in his behalf; a
Denied that might avail him.
I cared
Lest his success ran counter to
Elsewhere: for God is glorified in man,
And to man's glory vowed I soul and limb.
Yet, constituted thus, and thus endowed,
I failed:
I gazed on power till I grew blind.
Power;
I could not take my eyes from that:
That only,
I thought, should be preserved,
At any risk, displayed, struck out at once-The sign and note and character of man.
I saw no use in the past: only a
Of degradation, ugliness and tears,
The record of disgraces best forgotten,
A sullen page in human
Fit to erase.
I saw no cause why
Should not stand all-sufficient even now,
Or why his annals should be forced to
That once the tide of light, about to
Upon the world, was sealed within its spring:
I would have had one day, one moment's space,
Change man's condition, push each slumbering
Of mastery o'er the elemental
At once to full maturity, then
Oblivion o'er the work, and hide from
What night had ushered morn.
Not so, dear
Of after-days, wilt thou reject the
Big with deep warnings of the proper
By which thou hast the earth: for thee the
Shall have distinct and trembling beauty,
Beside that past's own shade when, in relief,
Its brightness shall stand out: nor yet on
Shall burst the future, as successive
Of several wonder open on some
Flying secure and glad from heaven to heaven:
But thou shalt painfully attain to joy,
While hope and fear and love shall keep thee man!
All this was hid from me: as one by
My dreams grew dim, my wide aims circumscribed,
As actual good within my reach decreased,
While obstacles sprung up this way and
To keep me from effecting half the sum,
Small as it proved; as objects, mean
The primal aggregate, seemed, even the least,
Itself a match for my concentred strength—What wonder if I saw no way to
Despair?
The power I sought for man, seemed God's.
In this conjuncture, as I prayed to die,
A strange adventure made me know, one
Had spotted my career from its uprise;
I saw Aprile—my Aprile there!
And as the poor melodious wretch
His heart, and moaned his weakness in my ear,
I learned my own deep error; love's
Taught me the worth of love in man's estate,
And what proportion love should hold with
In his right constitution; love
Power, and with much power, always much more love;
Love still too straitened in his present means,
And earnest for new power to set love free.
I learned this, and supposed the whole was learned:
And thus, when men received with stupid
My first revealings, would have worshipped me,
And I despised and loathed their proffered praise—When, with awakened eyes, they took
For past credulity in casting
On my real knowledge, and I hated them—It was not strange I saw no good in man,
To overbalance all the wear and
Of faculties, displayed in vain, but
To prosper in some better sphere: and why?
In my own heart love had not been made
To trace love's faint beginnings in mankind,
To know even hate is but a mask of love's,
To see a good in evil, and a
In ill-success; to sympathize, be
Of their half-reasons, faint aspirings,
Struggles for truth, their poorest fallacies,
Their prejudice and fears and cares and doubts;
All with a touch of nobleness,
Their error, upward tending all though weak,
Like plants in mines which never saw the sun,
But dream of him, and guess where he may be,
And do their best to climb and get to him.
All this I knew not, and I failed.
Let
Regard me, and the poet dead long
Who loved too rashly; and shape forth a
And better-tempered spirit, warned by both:
As from the over-radiant star too
To drink the life-springs, beamless thence itself—And the dark orb which borders the abyss,
Ingulfed in icy night,—might have its courseA temperate and equidistant world.
Meanwhile,
I have done well, though not all well.
As yet men cannot do without contempt;'T is for their good, and therefore fit
That they reject the weak, and scorn the false,
Rather than praise the strong and true, in me:
But after, they will know me.
If I
Into a dark tremendous sea of cloud,
It is but for a time;
I press God's
Close to my breast; its splendour, soon or late,
Will pierce the gloom:
I shall emerge one day.
You understand me?
I have said enough?
Festus.
Now die, dear Aureole!
Paracelsus. Festus, let my hand—This hand, lie in your own, my own true friend!
Aprile!
Hand in hand with you,
Aprile!
Festus.
And this was Paracelsus!
