We have been brothers, and henceforth the world
Will rise between us : - all my freest mind?

'Tis the last night, dear Aureole !

Par.

Oh, say on!

Devise some test of love, some arduous feat
To be performed for you: say on!

If night

as I

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.

Par.

Once more? Alas! As I foretold.
Fest. A solitary brier the bank puts forth
To save our swan's nest floating out to sea.

you

wish?

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:

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!

When you deign

Hear it?

I can say

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.

Mich.

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

Fest.

Wearies so

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.

Par.

Choose your side,

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,

you

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.

abide

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

was so vast

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

you

and again, that purpose

Clear as your yearning to be singled out

For its pursuer. Dare you answer this?

search

Par. (after a pause). No, I have nought to fear! Who

will may know

The secret'st workings of my soul. What though

It be so?

if indeed the strong desire