Informed and fearless from the first, but shrank

From aught which marked me out apart from men:
I would have lived their life, and died their death,
Lost in their ranks, eluding destiny:

But you first guided me through doubt and fear,
Taught me to know mankind and know myself;
And now that I am strong and full of hope,
That, from my soul, I can reject all aims

Save those your earnest words made plain to me ;
Now, that I touch the brink of my design,

When I would have a triumph in their eyes,
A glad cheer in their voices-Michal weeps,
And Festus ponders gravely!

Beforehand all this evening's conference!
'Tis this way, Michal, that he uses: first,
Or he declares, or I, the leading points

Of our best scheme of life, what is man's end,
And what God's will-no two faiths e'er agreed
As his with mine: next, each of us allows
Faith should be acted on as best we may :
Accordingly, I venture to submit

A plan, in lack of better, for pursuing
The path which God's will seems to authorize :
Well-he discerns much good in it, avows
This motive worthy, that hope plausible,
A danger here, to be avoided-there,

An oversight to be repaired: at last
Our two minds go together-all the good
Approved by him, I gladly recognize;
All he counts bad, I thankfully discard;
And nought forbids my looking up at last
For some stray comfort in his cautious brow-
When, lo! I learn that, spite of all, there lurks
Some innate and inexplicable germ

Of failure in my schemes; so that at last
It all amounts to this-the sovereign proof
That we devote ourselves to God, is seen
In living just as though there were no God;
A life which, prompted by the sad and blind
Lusts of the world, Festus abhors the most-
But which these tenets sanctify at once;
Though to less subtle wits it seems the same,
Consider it how they may.

Mich.

Is it so, Festus ?

He speaks so calmly and kindly-is it so?

Par. Reject those glorious visions of God's love And man's design; laugh loud that God should send Vast longings to direct us; say how soon

Power satiates these, or lust, or gold; I know

The world's cry well, and how to answer it!

But this ambiguous warfare

Fest.

Wearies so

That you will grant no last leave to your friend

То

urge it ?-for his sake, not yours? I wish To send my soul in good hopes after you;

Never to sorrow that uncertain words,
Erringly apprehended—a new creed,

Ill understood-begot rash trust in you,
And shared in your undoing.

Par.

Choose your

side:

Hold or renounce: but meanwhile blame me not

Because I dare to act on your own views,

Nor shrink when they point onward, nor espy

A peril where they most insure success.

Prove you abide

Fest. Prove that to me--but that!
Within their warrant, nor presumptuous boast
God's labour laid on you; prove, all you covet

A mortal may expect; and, most of all

Prove the strange course you now affect, will lead
To its attainment-and I bid you speed,

Nay, count the minutes till you venture forth!
You smile; but I had gathered from slow thought-
Much musing on the fortunes of my friend-
Matter I deemed could not be urged in vain:
But it all leaves me at my need: in shreds
And fragments I must venture what remains.
Mich. Ask at once, Festus, wherefore he should

scorn...

Fest. Stay, Michal: Aureole, I speak guardedly
And gravely, knowing well, whate'er your error,
This is no ill-considered choice of yours-
No sudden fancy of an ardent boy.
Not from your own confiding words alone
Am I aware your passionate heart long since

Gave birth to, nourished, and at length matures
This scheme. I will not speak of Einsiedeln,
Where I was born your elder by some years
Only to watch you fully from the first:

In all beside, our mutual tasks were fixed
Even then-'twas mine to have you in my view
As you had your own soul and those intents
Which filled it when, to crown your dearest wish,
With a tumultuous heart, you left with me
Our childhood's home to join the favoured few
Whom, here at Würzburg, Tritheim deigns to teach
A portion of his lore and not the best

Of those so favoured, whom you now despise,
Came earnest as you came; resolved, like you,
To grasp all, and retain all, and deserve
By patient toil a wide renown like his.
And this new ardour which supplants the old,
I watched, too; 'twas significant and strange,
In one matched to his soul's content at length
With rivals in the search for Wisdom's prize,
To see the sudden pause, the total change;
From contest, the transition to repose-
From pressing onward as his fellows pressed,
To a blank idleness; yet most unlike
The dull stagnation of a soul, content,
Once foiled, to leave betimes a thriveless quest.
That careless bearing, free from all pretence
Even of contempt for what it ceased to seek—
Smiling humility, praising much, yet waiving

What it professed to praise-though not so well
Maintained but that rare outbreaks, fierce as brief,
Revealed the hidden scorn, as quickly curbed—
That ostentatious show of past defeat,
That ready acquiescence in contempt,
I deemed no other than the letting go
His shivered sword, of one about to spring
Upon his foe's throat; but it was not thus:
Not that way looked your brooding purpose then.
For after-signs disclosed, what you confirmed,
That you prepared to task to the uttermost
Your strength, in furtherance of a certain aim,
Which—while it bore the name your rivals gave
Their own most puny efforts-was so vast
In scope that it included their best flights,
Combined them, and desired to gain one prize
In place of many,—the secret of the world,
Of man, and man's true purpose, path, and fate:
-That you, not nursing as a mere vague dream
This purpose, with the sages of the Past,
Have struck upon a way to this, if all

You trust be true, which following, heart and soul,
You, if a man may, dare aspire to KNOW:
And that this aim shall differ from a host

Of aims alike in character and kind,
Mostly in this,-to seek its own reward

In itself only, not an alien end

To blend therewith; no hope, nor fear, nor joy,
Nor woe, to elsewhere move you, but this pure