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Festus.

Best ope the casement: see,

The night, late strewn with clouds and flying stars,

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-shaken tree

By the hour, nor count time lost.

[blocks in formation]

Those pleasant times! Does not the moaning wind

Seem to bewail that we have gained such gains

And bartered sleep for them?

Festus.

It is our trust

That there is yet another world to mend

All error and mischance.

Paracelsus.

Another world!

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
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

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 ever,
Like a dead friend safe from unkindness more!

See, morn at length. The heavy darkness seems
Diluted, grey 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 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.

Festus.

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 that man
Should trust on his support,, (as I must think
You trusted) is obscured and dim through you:
For you are thus, and this is no reward.

Will you not call me to your side, dear Aureole ?

III

PART IV.

PARACELSUS ASPIRES.

SCENE.-Colmar in Alsatia: an Inn. 1528.

PARACELSUS, FESTUS.

Paracelsus [to JOHANNES OPORINUS, his Secretary].
Sic itur ad astra! Dear Von Visenburg

Is scandalized, and poor Torinus paralysed,
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 Nuremberg, as we drink speedy scathe
To Basil in this mantling wine, suffused

A delicate blush, no fainter tinge is born

I' the shut heart of a bud. Pledge me, good John"Basil; a hot plague ravage it, and Pütter

"Oppose the plague!" Even so? Do you too share

Their panic, the reptiles? Ha, ha; faint through these,
Desist for these! They manage matters so

At Basil, 't is like: but others may find means
To bring the stoutest braggart of the tribe
Once more to crouch in 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 henceforth flattery shall not pucker it

Out of the furrow; there that stamp shall stay
To show the next they fawn on, what they are,
This Basil with its magnates,-fill my cup,-
Whom I curse soul and limb. And now despatch,
Despatch, 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 Nuremberg! 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 dogs my heels
As a gaunt crow a gasping sheep; at last
May give a loose to my delight. How kind,

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