Of course they are for swaggering forth at once explains
Graced with Ulysses' bow, Achilles' shield-
Flash on us, all in armour, thou Achilles !
Make our hearts dance to thy resounding step!
A proper sight to scare the crows away!
Festus. Pity you choose not then some
Of coming at your point. The marvellous art
At length established in the world bids fair
To remedy all hindrances like these:
Trust to Frobenius' press the precious lore
Obscured by uncouth manner, or unfit
For raw beginners; let his types secure
A deathless monument to after-time;
Meanwhile wait confidently and enjoy
The ultimate effect: sooner or later
You shall be all-revealed.
Paracelsus.
The old dull question
In a new form; no more. Thus: I possess
Two sorts of knowledge; one-vast, shadowy,
Hints of the unbounded aim I once pursued:
The other consists of many secrets, caught
While bent on nobler prize,-perhaps a few
Prime principles which may conduct to much :
These last I offer to my followers here.
Now, bid me chronicle the first of these,
My ancient study, and in effect you bid
Revert to the wild courses just abjured:
I must go find them scattered through the
Then, for the principles, they are so simple
(Being chiefly of the overturning sort),
That one time is as proper to propound them
any other-to-morrow at my class,
and Or half a century hence embalmed in print. defends For if mankind intend to learn at all,
his They must begin by giving faith to them lecturing And acting on them: and I do not see
But that my lectures serve indifferent well:
No doubt these dogmas fall not to the earth,
For all their novelty and rugged setting.
I think my class will not forget the day
I let them know the gods of Israel,
Aëtius, Oribasius, Galen, Rhasis,
Serapion, Avicenna, Averroes,
Were blocks!
And that reminds me, I heard
About your waywardness: you burned their
It seems, instead of answering those sages.
Paracelsus. And who said that?
Of this short stay at Basil was to learn
His pleasure touching certain missives sent
For our Zuinglius and himself.
Apprised me that the famous teacher here
Was my old friend.
Paracelsus. Ah, I forgot: you went.
Festus. From Zurich with advices for the ear
Of Luther, now at Wittenberg-(you know,
I make no doubt, the differences of late
With Carolostadius)—and returning sought
Basil and ..
Paracelsus. I remember. Here's a case, now, Will teach you why I answer not, but burn
The books you mention. Pray, does Luther and of
His arguments convince by their own force instancing
The crowds that own his doctrine? No, indeed! Luther His plain denial of established points
Ages had sanctified and men supposed
Could never be oppugned while earth was under And heaven above them-points which chance or time
Affected not-did more than the array
Of argument which followed. Boldly deny!
There is much breath-stopping, hair-stiffening
Awhile; then, amazed glances, mute awaiting
The thunderbolt which does not come: and next,
Reproachful wonder and inquiry: those
Who else had never stirred, are able now
To find the rest out for themselves, perhaps
To outstrip him who set the whole at work,
-As never will my wise class its instructor. 980
And you saw Luther?
'Tis a wondrous soul! Paracelsus. True: the so-heavy chain which galled mankind
Is shattered, and the noblest of us all
Must bow to the deliverer-nay, the worker
Of our own project-we who long before
Had burst our trammels, but forgot the crowd,
We should have taught, still groaned beneath
their load:
This he has done and nobly. Speed that may!
Whatever be my chance or my mischance,
What benefits mankind must glad me too;
And men seem made, though not as I believed,
For something better than the times produce.
Festus Witness these gangs of peasants your new lights speaks of From Suabia have possessed, whom Münzer leads,
And whom the duke, the landgrave and the elector
Will calm in blood! Well, well; 'tis not my world!
Paracelsus. 'Tis the melancholy wind astir Within the trees; the embers too are grey: Morn must be near.
Best ope the casement: see,
The night, late strewn with clouds and flying
Is blank and motionless: how peaceful sleep
The tree-tops altogether!
Like an asp,
The wind slips whispering from bough to bough.
Paracelsus. Ay; you would gaze on a 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 angels' food, forsooth; and some few traces Para-
Of a diviner nature which look out
Through his corporeal baseness, warrant him
In a supreme contempt of all provision
For his inferior tastes-some straggling marks
Which constitute his essence, just as truly 1020
As here and there a gem would constitute
The rock, their barren bed, one 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 for
Like a dead friend safe from unkindness more!
See, morn at length.
Diluted, grey
The heavy darkness seems
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, 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 glittering with diamond dew. 1041
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.
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