I shall o'ertake the company, and ride Glittering as they! Fest. I think I apprehend What you would say: if you, in truth, design Par. My friend, my friend, I speak, you listen; I explain, perhaps You understand: there our communion ends. Have you learnt nothing from to-day's discourse? When we would thoroughly know the sick man's state My heart, hideous and beating, or tear up My vitals for your gaze, ere you will deem Enough made known? You! who are you, forsooth? By the arch-demonstrator-heaven the hall, you Secure good places-'twill be worth your while. You find me here, half stupid and half mad: Will you guess nothing? will you spare me nothing? Fest. Dear friend... Par. True: I am brutal-'tis a part of it; The plague's sign-you are not a lazar-haunter, How should you know? Well then, you think it strange I should profess to have failed utterly, And yet propose an ultimate return To courses void of hope; and this, because To stanch our wounds, secure from further harm— No; we are chased to life's extremest verge. It will be well indeed if I return, Fest. Another and what? Par. After all, Festus, you say well: I stand I would have been-something, I know not what ; There are worse portions than this one of mine ; Fest. Ah!... Par. And deeper degradation! If the mean stimulants of vulgar praise, And vanity, should become the chosen food Of a sunk mind; should stifle even the wish To find its early aspirations true; Should teach it to breathe falsehood like life-breath An atmosphere of craft, and trick, and lies; I had immortal feelings-such shall never My friend, you wear A melancholy face, and truth to speak, There's little cheer in all this dismal work; But 'twas not my desire to set abroach Such memories and forebodings. I foresaw Where they would drive; 'twere better you detailed Great Egypt's flaring sky, or Spain's cork-groves. away. I know you, and the lofty spirit you bear, And easily ravel out a clue to all. These are the trials meet for such as you, Look round! The obstacles which kept the rest Of men from your ambition, you have spurned : Their fears, their doubts, the chains that bind them best, From its own strength, its selfsame strength, disguised- The fawn his rustling bough, mortals their cares, At trammels of a weaker intellect. Measure your I know you. Par. mind's height by the shade it casts! And I know you, dearest Festus ! And how you love unworthily; and how Fest. That admiration blinds? Par. You hold Ay, and alas! Fest. Nought blinds you less than admiration will. In its degree; from love which blends with love— Preeminent mortal, some great soul of souls, Which ne'er will know how well it is adored : I say, such love is never blind; but rather Alive to every the minutest spot Which mars its object, and which hate (supposed Love broods on such: what then? When first perceived Is there no sweet strife to forget, to change, To overflush those blemishes with all The glow of general goodness they disturb? And, when all fails, is there no gallant stand It nearly reach the sacred place, and stand If there be fiends who seek to work our hurt, |