We have been brothers, and henceforth the world Will rise between us : - all my freest mind?
'Tis the last night, dear Aureole !
Devise some test of love, some arduous feat To be performed for you: say on!
Be spent the while, the better ! Recall how oft My wondrous plans and dreams and hopes and fears Have never wearied you, oh no! Recall, and never vividly as now, Your true affection, born when Einsiedeln And its green hills were all the world to us; And still increasing to this night which ends My further stay at Würzburg. Oh, one day You shall be very proud! Say on, dear friends! Fest. In truth? "Tis for my proper peace, indeed, Rather than yours; for vain all projects seem To stay your course: I said my latest hope Is fading even now. A story tells
Of some far embassy dispatched to win The favor of an eastern king, and how
The gifts they offered proved but dazzling dust Shed from the ore-beds native to his clime. Just so, the value of repose and love,
I meant should tempt you, better far than I You seem to comprehend; and yet desist No whit from projects where repose nor love Have part.
Once more? Alas! As I foretold. Fest. A solitary brier the bank puts forth To save our swan's nest floating out to sea.
Par. Dear Festus, hear me. What is it 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:
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
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.
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
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.
Fest. Prove that to me but that! Prove Within their warrant, nor presumptuous boast God's labor 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 '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 favored few Whom, here, Trithemius condescends to teach
A portion of his lore and not one youth Of those so favored, 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 ardor 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 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 and 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
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,
Shall its reward be, not an alien end
Blending therewith; no hope nor fear nor joy
Nor woe, to elsewhere move you, but this pure Devotion to sustain you or betray : Thus you aspire.
Par. You shall not state it thus:
I should not differ from the dreamy crew You speak of. I profess no other share In the selection of my lot, than this My ready answer to the will of God Who summons me to be his organ. All
Whose innate strength supports them shall succeed No better than the sages.
Fest. Such the aim, then, God sets before you; and 't is doubtless need That he appoint no less the way of praise Than the desire to praise; for, though I hold, With you, the setting forth such praise to be The natural end and service of a man, And hold such praise is best attained when man Attains the general welfare of his kind Yet this, the end, is not the instrument. Presume not to serve God apart from such Appointed channel as he wills shall gather Imperfect tributes, for that sole obedience Valued perchance. He seeks not that his altars Blaze, careless how, so that they do but blaze. Suppose this, then; that God selected you TO KNOW (heed well your answers, for my faith Shall meet implicitly what they affirm),
I cannot think you dare annex to such Selection aught beyond a steadfast will, An intense hope; nor let your gifts create Scorn or neglect of ordinary means Conducive to success, make destiny Dispense with man's endeavor. Now, dare Your inmost heart, and candidly avow Whether you have not rather wild desire For this distinction than security Of its existence? whether you discern The path to the fulfilment of your purpose Clear as that purpose
and again, that purpose
Clear as your yearning to be singled out
For its pursuer. Dare you answer this?
Par. (after a pause). No, I have nought to fear! Who
The secret'st workings of my soul. What though
if indeed the strong desire
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