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With Carolostadius) —and returning sought
Basil and . . .
Paracelsus.

I remember. Here's a case, now, Will teach you why I answer not, but burn

The books you mention. Pray, does Luther dream His arguments convince by their own force

The crowds that own his doctrine?

His plain denial of established points

Ages had sanctified and men supposed

No, indeed!

Could never be oppugned while earth was under 969 And heaven above them — points which chance or time Affected not I did more than the array

-

Of argument which followed.

Boldly deny!

There is much breath-stopping, hair-stiffening
Awhile; then, amazed glances, mute awaiting
The thunderbolt which does not come and next,
Reproachful wonder and inquiry: those
Who else had never stirred, are able now
To find the rest out for themselves, perhaps
To outstrip him who set the whole at work,
As never will my wise class its instructor.
And you saw Luther?

Festus.

980

'Tis a wondrous soul! Paracelsus. True: the so-heavy chain which galled mankind

Is shattered, and the noblest of us all

Must bow to the deliverer - nay, the worker

Of our own project

we who long before

Had burst our trammels, but forgot the crowd,

We should have taught, still groaned beneath their load:

This he has done and nobly. Speed that may !

Whatever be my chance or my mischance,
What benefits mankind must glad me too;

990

And men seem made, though not as I believed,
For something better than the times produce.
Witness these gangs of peasants your new lights
From Suabia have possessed, whom Münzer leads,
And whom the duke, the landgrave and the elector
Will calm in blood! Well, well; 't is not my world!
Festus. Hark!

Paracelsus.

Within the trees; the embers too are gray :

Morn must be near.

Festus.

'Tis the melancholy wind astir

Best ope the casement: see,

The night, late strewn with clouds and flying stars, Is blank and motionless: how peaceful sleep

The tree-tops altogether! Like an asp,

1001

The wind slips whispering from bough to bough. Paracelsus. Ay; you would gaze on a wind. shaken tree

By the hour, nor count time lost.

Festus.

Those happy times will come again.

Paracelsus.

So you shall gaze:

Gone, gone,

Those pleasant times! Does not the moaning wind Seem to bewail that we have gained such gains

And bartered sleep for them?

Festus.

It is our trust

1010

That there is yet another world to mend
All error and mischance.

Paracelsus.

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Another world!

And why this world, this common world, to be
A make-shift, a mere foil, how fair soever,
To some fine life to come? Man must be fed
With angels' food, forsooth; and some few traces
Of a diviner nature which look out

Through his corporeal baseness, warrant him

In a supreme contempt of all provision
For his inferior tastes some straggling marks
Which constitute his essence, just as truly
As here and there a gem would constitute
The rock, their barren bed, one diamond.
But were it so were man all mind — he gains
A station little enviable. From God
Down to the lowest spirit ministrant,
Intelligence exists which casts our mind
Into immeasurable shade. No, no:

Love, hope, fear, faith these make humanity;
These are its sign and note and character,

1020

1029

And these I have lost! gone, shut from me forever,
Like a dead friend safe from unkindness more!

See, morn at length. The heavy darkness seems
Diluted, gray and clear without the stars;

The shrubs bestir and rouse themselves as if
Some snake, that weighed them down all night, let go.
His hold; and from the East, fuller and fuller,
Day, like a mighty river, flowing in;

But clouded, wintry, desolate and cold.

Yet see how that broad prickly star-shaped plant, 1039
Half-down in the crevice, spreads its woolly leaves
All thick and glistering with diamond dew.
And you depart for Einsiedeln this day,

And we have spent all night in talk like this!
If
you would have me better for your love,
Revert no more to these sad themes.

One favor,

Festus.
And I have done. I leave you, deeply moved;
Unwilling to have fared so well, the while
My friend has changed so sorely. If this mood
Shall pass away, if light once more arise
Where all is darkness now, if you see fit

1050

To hope and trust again, and strive again,
You will remember - not our love alone
But that my faith in God's desire that man
Should trust on his support, (as I must think
You trusted) is obscured and dim through you:
For you are thus, and this is no reward.
Will you not call me to your side, dear Aureole?

SCENE.

IV. - PARACELSUS ASPIRES.

Colmar in Alsatia: an Inn. 1528.
PARACELSUS, FESTUS.

Paracelsus [to JOHANNES OPORINUS, his Secretary]
Sic itur ad astra! Dear Von Visenburg

Is scandalized, and poor Torinus paralyzed,
And every honest soul that Basil holds
Aghast; and yet we live, as one may say,
Just as though Liechtenfels had never set
So true a value on his sorry carcass,
And learned Pütter had not frowned us dumb.
We live; and shall as surely start to-morrow
For Nuremberg, as we drink speedy scathe
To Basil in this mantling wine, suffused
A delicate blush, no fainter tinge is born

I' the shut heart of a bud. Pledge me, good John "Basil; a hot plague ravage it, and Pütter

10

Oppose the plague !' Even so? Do you too share Their panic, the reptiles? Ha, ha; faint through

these,

Desist for these!

They manage matters so
At Basil, 't is like: but others may find means

To bring the stoutest braggart of the tribe

Once more to crouch in silence

A stupid wonder in each fool again,

means to breed

20

Now big with admiration at the skill

Which stript a vain pretender of his plumes:

And, that done, means to brand each slavish brow

So deeply, surely, ineffaceably,

That henceforth flattery shall not pucker it

Out of the furrow; there that stamp shall stay

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 remains
To do, whate'er arrangements for our trip
Are yet to be completed, see you hasten

30

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

morrow

For Nuremberg!

Now leave us ; this grave clerk

Has divers weighty matters for my ear:

40

[OPORINUS goes out. And spare my lungs. At last, my gallant Festus, I am rid of this arch-knave that dogs my heels As a gaunt crow a gasping sheep; at last 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 live Till I am worth your love; you shall be proud, And I but let time show! Did you not wonder? I sent to you because our compact weighed Upon my conscience (you recall the night. At Basil, which the gods confound !)

because

Once more I aspire. I call you to my side:
You come. You thought my message strange ?

Festus.

So strange

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