What benefits mankind must glad me too :
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 Munzer leads,
And whom the duke, the landgrave, and the elector
Will calm in blood! Well, well-'tis not my world!
Fest. Hark!
'Tis the melancholy wind astir Within the trees; the embers too are gray,
The night, late strewn with clouds and flying stars,
Is blank and motionless: how peaceful sleep
The tree-tops all together! Like an asp,
The wind slips whispering from bough to bough.
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 gained such gains
And bartered sleep for them?
That there is yet another world to mend
All error and mischance.
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—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;
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, is 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.
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 for man
To trust on his support, (as I must think
You trusted,) is obscured and dim through you:
For
r you are thus, and this is no reward.
Will you not call me to your side, dear friend?
IV.-PARACELSUS ASPIRES.
SCENE.-A House at Colmar, in Alsatia. 1528.
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 frowned 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
With 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, with Pütter
"To stop the plague!" Even so? Do you too share Their panic-the reptiles? Ha, ha; faint through them, Desist for them!—while means enough exist
To bow the stoutest braggart of the tribe
Once more in crouching 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, surely, ineffaceably,
That thenceforth flattery shall not pucker it
Out of the furrow of that hideous stamp
Which shows the next they fawn on, what they are,
This Basil, with its magnates one and all,
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,
I am rid of this arch-knave that follows me
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.
Not a hair silvered yet!
Till I am worth your love;
And I-but let time show.
Embrace me:
Right: you shall live
you shall be proud,
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?
That I must hope, indeed, your messenger
Has mingled his own fancies with the words
Purporting to be yours.
'Tis probable, than the precious folks I leave
Said fifty-fold more roughly. Well-a-day,
'Tis true; poor Paracelsus is exposed
At last; a most egregious quack he proves,
And those he overreached must spit their hate
On one who, utterly beneath contempt,
Could yet deceive their toppling wits. You heard
Bare truth; and at my bidding you come here
To speed me on my enterprise, as once
Your lavished wishes sped me, my own friend?
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