No whit from projects where repose nor love
Paracelsus. Once more? Alas! As I foretold. Festus. A solitary briar the bank puts forth
To save our swan's nest floating out to sea. Paracelsus. Dear Festus, hear me.
That I should lay aside my heart's pursuit, Abandon the sole ends for which I live, Reject God's great commission, and so die! You bid me listen for your true love's sake: Yet how has grown that love? Even in a long And patient cherishing of the self-same spirit It now would quell; as though a mother hoped To stay the lusty manhood of the child Once weak upon her knees. I was not born 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! 'T is 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
My 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: in fine 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 scheme; 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 no God there were ; A life which, prompted by the sad and blind Folly of man, 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.
He speaks so calmly and kindly: is it so?
Paracelsus. 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
That you will grant no last leave to your friend To 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, Had share in your undoing.
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 ensure success.
Festus. Prove that to me-but that! Prove you abide 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.
Michal. Ask at once, Festus, wherefore he should
Festus. 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-'t was 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, Trithemius condescends to teach A portion of his lore: and not one youth 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. Now, this new ardour which supplants the old I watched, too; 't was 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
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