Par. Ay; you would gaze on a wind-shaken tree

By the hour, nor count time lost.

Those pleasant times! Does not the moaning wind

Seem to bewail that we have gain'd such gains

And barter'd sleep for them?

Fest.

It is our trust

That there is yet another world to mend

All error and mischance. ...

Par.

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 angel's food, forsooth; and some few traces
Of a diviner nature which look out

Through his corporeal baseness warrant him
In a supreme contempt for 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, a diamond.

But were it so—were man all mind—the station

He gains is 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;
And these I have lost! gone; shut from me for ever,
Like a dead friend, safe from unkindness more!
See morn at length. The heavy darkness seems
Diluted; grey and clear without the stars;
The shrubs bestir and rouse themselves, as though
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,
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.

Fest.

One favour,

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
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 ?

IV.—PARACELSUS ASPIRES.

Scene. A House at Colmar, in Alsatia. 1528.

Paracelsus, Festus.

Par. (To John 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 frown'd us dumb.
We live; and shall as surely start to-morrow
For Nuremburg as we drink speedy scathe

To Basil in this mantling wine, suffused

A delicate blush—no fainter tinge is born

I' th' 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 share

Their panic—the reptiles? Ha, ha; faint through them,

Desist for them! 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—means to breed

A stupid wonder in each fool again,

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-sure, so ineffaceably,

That thenceforth flattery shall not pucker it

So well but there the hideous stamp shall stay,
To teach the man they fawn on who they are
Whom I curse soul and limb. And now dispatch,
Dispatch, my trusty John; and what remains
To do, whate'er arrangements for our trip

Are yet to be completed, see you hasten

This night; we 'll weather the storm at least: to-morrow For Nuremburg! Now leave

us; this grave clerk

Has divers weighty matters for my ear, (Oporinus goes out)

And spare my lungs. At last, my gallant Festus,