Or ever dream that common men can live
On objects you prize lightly, but which make
Their heart's sole treasure: the affections seem
Beauteous at most to you, which we must taste
Or die and this strange quality accords,
I know not how, with you; sits well upon
That luminous brow, though in another it scowls
An eating brand-a shame. I dare not judge you:
The rules of right and wrong thus set aside,
'There's no alternative-I own you one
Of higher order, under other laws
Than bind us, therefore, curb not one bold glance!
'Tis best aspire. Once mingled with us all
Mich. Stay with us, Aureole! cast those hopes away,
And stay with us! An angel warns me, too,
Man should be humble; you are very proud:
And God, dethroned, has doleful plagues for such!
He warns me not to dread a quick repulse,
Nor slow defeat, but a complete success!
You will find all you seek, and perish so!
Par. (After a pause.) Are these the barren first fruits
Is love like this the natural lot of all?
How many years of pain might one such hour
O'erbalance? Dearest Michal, dearest Festus,
What shall I say, if not that I desire
To merit this your love; and will, dear friends,
In swerving nothing from my first resolves.
See, the great moon! and ere the mottled owls
Were wide awake, I was to go.
It seems
You acquiesce at last in all save this—
If I am like to compass what I seek
"By the untried career I choose: and then,
If that career, making but small account
Of much of life's delight, will yet retain
Sufficient to sustain my soul-for thus
I understand these fond fears just expressed.
And first; the lore you praise and I neglect,
The labours and the precepts of old time,
I have not slightly disesteemed. But, friends,
Truth is within ourselves; it takes no rise
From outward things, whate'er you may believe:
There is an inmost centre in us all,
Where truth abides in fulness; and around
Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in,
This perfect, clear perception-which is truth;
A baffling and perverting carnal mesh
Blinds it, and makes all error: and, “to know”
Rather consists in opening out a way
Whence the imprisoned splendour may escape,
Than in effecting entry for a light
Supposed to be without. Watch narrowly
The demonstration of a truth, its birth,
And you trace back the effluence to its spring
And source within us, where broods radiance vast,
To be elicited ray by ray, as chance
Shall favour: chance-for hitherto, your sage Even as he knows not how those beams are born,
As little knows he what unlocks their fount;
And men have oft grown old among their books
To die, case-hardened in their ignorance,
Whose careless youth had promised what long years
Of unremitted labour ne'er performed:
While, contrary, it has chanced some idle day,
That autumn loiterers just as fancy-free
As the midges in the sun, have oft given vent
To truth-produced mysteriously as cape
Of cloud grown out of the invisible air.
Hence, may not truth be lodged alike in all,
The lowest as the highest? some slight film
The interposing bar which binds it
up,
And makes the idiot, just as makes the sage
Some film removed, the happy outlet whence
Truth issues proudly? See this soul of ours!
How it strives weakly in the child, is loosed
In manhood, clogged by sickness, back compelled
By age and waste, set free at last by death:
Why is it, flesh enthralls it or enthrones?
What is this flesh we have to penetrate?
Oh, not alone when life flows still do truth
And power emerge, but also when strange chance
Ruffles its current; in unused conjuncture,
When sickness breaks the body-hunger, watching,
Excess, or languor-oftenest death's approach-
Peril, deep joy, or woe. One man shall crawl
Through life, surrounded with all stirring things,
Unmoved-and he goes mad; and from the wreck
Of what he was, by his wild talk alore,
You first collect how great a spirit he hid.
Therefore, set free the soul alike in all,
Discovering the true laws by which the flesh
Bars in the spirit! We may not be doomed
Το cope with seraphs, but at least the rest
Shall cope with us. Make no more giants, God!
But elevate the race at once!
To put forth just our strength, our human strength,
All starting fairly, all equipped alike,
Gifted alike, all eagle-eyed, true-hearted-
See if we cannot beat thy angels yet!
Such is my task. I go to gather this
The sacred knowledge, here and there dispersed
About the world, long lost or never found.
And why should I be sad, or lorn of hope?
Why ever make man's good distinct from God's?
Or, finding they are one, why dare mistrust?
Who shall succeed if not one pledged like me?
Mine is no mad attempt to build a world
Apart from His, like those who set themselves
To find the nature of the spirit they bore,
And, taught betimes that all their gorgeous dreams
Were only born to vanish in this life,
Refused to fit them to this narrow sphere,
But chose to figure forth another world
And other frames meet for their vast desires,-
Still, all a dream! Thus was life scorned; but life
be crowned: twine amaranth! I am priest!
And all for yielding with a lively spirit
A poor existence-parting with a youth
Like theirs who squander every energy
Convertible to good, on painted toys,
Breath-bubbles, gilded dust! And though I spurn
All adventitious aims, from empty praise
To love's award, yet whoso deems such helps
Important, and concerns himself for me,
May know even these will follow with the rest-
As in the steady rolling Mayne, asleep.
Yonder, is mixed its mass of schistous ore.
My own affections, laid to rest awhile,
Will waken purified, subdued alone
By all I have achieved; till then-till then . . .
Ah! the time-wiling loitering of a page
Through bower and over lawn, till eve shall bring
The stately lady's presence whom he loves-
The broken sleep of the fisher whose rough coat
Enwraps the queenly pearl-these are faint types!
See how they look on me-I triumph now!
But one thing, Festus, Michal!—I have told
All I shall e'er disclose to mortal: say-
Do you believe I shall accomplish this?
Fest. I do believe!
Par. Those words shall never fade from out my brain
This earnest of the end shall never fade!
Are there not, Festus, are there not, dear Michal.
Two points in the adventure of the diver:
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