Opening

Opening

The Cambridge Edition of the Poets

EDITED BY HORACE E. SCUDDER

BROWNING

BY

THE EDITOR

THE COMPLETE

POETIC AND DRAMATIC WORKS OF

ROBERT BROWNING

Cambridge Edition

BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY The Riverside Press, Cambridge

Copyright, 1895, BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.

All rights reserved.

The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company.

PUBLISHERS' NOTE

The Riverside Edition of the Poetic and Dramatic Works of Robert Browning was published first in 1887. It included all the writings which the American publishers had from time to time brought out by arrangement with Mr. Browning or his representatives. A year later the English publishers issued a new and revised edition, whereupon the Riverside Edition was carefully compared with the author's latest revision and made to agree with it. There had grown up, moreover, about the writings a considerable body of comment and interpretation, and to facilitate the study and enjoyment of the poems, the American publishers engaged Mr. George Willis Cooke to prepare a Guide-Book which served as a very desirable accompaniment to the Riverside Edition of the works. They added also to the series, by arrangement with the English publishers, the authorized Life of the poet by Mrs. Sutherland Orr.

The ten volumes thus brought together furnish a complete Browning collection, but it has long been apparent that students and lovers of Browning would find it very convenient to have the complete works of their author in a single portable volume, and the plan of the Cambridge Edition so successfully applied to the poems of Longfellow and Whittier was adopted for this purpose. By a careful study of condensation with every regard for legibility it has been found possible to bring the entire body of Browning's work into a single volume, and to equip the edition with the requisite apparatus. The order of arrangement is chronological, with one or two obvious divergences. As in the other volumes of the Cambridge Edition, a biographical sketch introduces the work, brief head-notes chiefly pertaining to the origin of the respective poems have been supplied, drawn largely from Mr. Cooke's admirable volume, and a small body of pertinent notes of an explanatory character added, though the reader will readily see that the exigencies of the volume have compelled the editor to be very frugal in this respect. The appendix also contains the one notable piece of Browning's prose, a chronological list of his writings, and indexes of titles and first lines.

BOSTON, 4 PARK STREET, August 1, 1895.

SONNET: "EYES, CALM BESIDE THEE, (LADY, COULDST THOU KNOW!)" 11

PARACELSUS. I. PARACELSUS ASPIRES 12 II. PARACELSUS ATTAINS 19 III. PARACELSUS 25 IV. PARACELSUS ASPIRES 34 V. PARACELSUS ATTAINS 40

STRAFFORD: A TRAGEDY 49

SORDELLO 74

PIPPA PASSES: A DRAMA 128

KING VICTOR AND KING CHARLES: A TRAGEDY 145

DRAMATIC LYRICS. CAVALIER TUNES. I. MARCHING ALONG 163 II. GIVE A ROUSE 163 III. BOOT AND SADDLE 163 THE LOST LEADER 164 "HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS FROM GHENT TO AIX" 164 THROUGH THE METIDJA TO ABD-EL-KADR 165 NATIONALITY IN DRINKS 166 GARDEN FANCIES. I. THE FLOWER'S NAME 166 II. SIBRANDUS SCHAFNABURGENSIS 167 SOLILOQUY OF THE SPANISH CLOISTER 167 THE LABORATORY 168 THE CONFESSIONAL 169 CRISTINA 169 THE LOST MISTRESS 170 EARTH'S IMMORTALITIES 170 MEETING AT NIGHT 170 PARTING AT MORNING 170 SONG: "NAY BUT YOU, WHO DO NOT LOVE HER" 170 A WOMAN'S LAST WORD 171 EVELYN HOPE 171 LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 171 A LOVERS' QUARREL 172 UP AT A VILLA--DOWN IN THE CITY 174 A TOCCATA OF GALUPPI'S 175 OLD PICTURES IN FLORENCE 176 "DE GUSTIBUS--" 178 HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM ABROAD 179 HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM THE SEA 179 SAUL 179 MY STAR 184 BY THE FIRESIDE 185 ANY WIFE TO ANY HUSBAND 187 TWO IN THE CAMPAGNA 189 MISCONCEPTIONS 189 A SERENADE AT THE VILLA 189 ONE WAY OF LOVE 190 ANOTHER WAY OF LOVE 190 A PRETTY WOMAN 190 RESPECTABILITY 191 LOVE IN A LIFE 191 LIFE IN A LOVE 191 IN THREE DAYS 192 IN A YEAR 192 WOMEN AND ROSES 193 BEFORE 193 AFTER 194 THE GUARDIAN-ANGEL 194 MEMORABILIA 195 POPULARITY 195 MASTER HUGUES OF SAXE-GOTHA 195

THE RETURN OF THE DRUSES 197

A BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON 216

COLOMBE'S BIRTHDAY 230

DRAMATIC ROMANCES. INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH CAMP 251 THE PATRIOT 251 MY LAST DUCHESS 252 COUNT GISMOND 252 THE BOY AND THE ANGEL 253 INSTANS TYRANNUS 254 MESMERISM 255 THE GLOVE 256 TIME'S REVENGES 258 THE ITALIAN IN ENGLAND 258 THE ENGLISHMAN IN ITALY 260 IN A GONDOLA 262 WARING 264 THE TWINS 266 A LIGHT WOMAN 267 THE LAST RIDE TOGETHER 267 THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN 268 THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS 271 A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL 279 THE HERETIC'S TRAGEDY 280 HOLY-CROSS DAY 281 PROTUS 283 THE STATUE AND THE BUST 283 PORPHYRIA'S LOVER 286 "CHILDE ROLAND TO THE DARK TOWER CAME" 287

A SOUL'S TRAGEDY 289

LURIA 299

CHRISTMAS-EVE AND EASTER-DAY.

CHRISTMAS-EVE 316 EASTER-DAY 327

MEN AND WOMEN. "TRANSCENDENTALISM: A POEM IN TWELVE BOOKS" 335 HOW IT STRIKES A CONTEMPORARY 336 ARTEMIS PROLOGIZES 337 AN EPISTLE, CONTAINING THE STRANGE MEDICAL EXPERIENCE OF KARSHISH, THE ARAB PHYSICIAN 338 JOHANNES AGRICOLA IN MEDITATION 341 PICTOR IGNOTUS 341 FRA LIPPO LIPPI 342 ANDREA DEL SARTO 346 THE BISHOP ORDERS HIS TOMB AT SAINT PRAXED'S CHURCH 348 BISHOP BLOUGRAM'S APOLOGY 349 CLEON 358 RUDEL TO THE LADY OF TRIPOLI 361 ONE WORD MORE 361

IN A BALCONY 364

BEN KARSHOOK'S WISDOM 372

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ. JAMES LEE'S WIFE. I. JAMES LEE'S WIFE SPEAKS AT THE WINDOW 373 II. BY THE FIRESIDE 373 III. IN THE DOORWAY 373 IV. ALONG THE BEACH 374 V. ON THE CLIFF 374 VI. READING A BOOK, UNDER THE CLIFF 374 VII. AMONG THE ROCKS 375 VIII. BESIDE THE DRAWING-BOARD 375 IX. ON DECK 376 GOLD HAIR: A STORY OF PORNIC 376 THE WORST OF IT 378 DÎS ALITER VISUM; OR, LE BYRON DE NOS JOURS 379 TOO LATE 380 ABT VOGLER, AFTER HE HAS BEEN EXTEMPORIZING UPON THE MUSICAL INSTRUMENT OF HIS INVENTION 382 RABBI BEN EZRA 383 A DEATH IN THE DESERT 385 CALIBAN UPON SETEBOS; OR, NATURAL THEOLOGY IN THE ISLAND 392 CONFESSIONS 394 MAY AND DEATH 395 DEAF AND DUMB: A GROUP BY WOOLNER 395 PROSPICE 395 EURYDICE TO ORPHEUS: A PICTURE BY LEIGHTON 395 YOUTH AND ART 396 A FACE 396 A LIKENESS 396 MR. SLUDGE, "THE MEDIUM" 397 APPARENT FAILURE 412 EPILOGUE 413

THE RING AND THE BOOK. I. THE RING AND THE BOOK 414 II. HALF-ROME 427 III. THE OTHER HALF-ROME 441 IV. TERTIUM QUID 456 V. COUNT GUIDO FRANCESCHINI 471 VI. GIUSEPPE CAPONSACCHI 489 VII. POMPILIA 508 VIII. Dominus Hyacinthus de Archangelis, Pauperum Procurator 525 IX. JURIS DOCTOR JOHANNES-BAPTISTA BOTTINIUS, FISCI ET REV. CAM. APOSTOL. ADVOCATUS 540 X. THE POPE 554 XI. GUIDO 572 XII. THE BOOK AND THE RING 594

HELEN'S TOWER 601

BALAUSTION'S ADVENTURE, INCLUDING A TRANSCRIPT FROM EURIPIDES, 602

ARISTOPHANES' APOLOGY, INCLUDING A TRANSCRIPT FROM EURIPIDES, BEING THE LAST ADVENTURE OF BALAUSTION 628

PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY 681

FIFINE AT THE FAIR. PROLOGUE 701 FIFINE AT THE FAIR 702 EPILOGUE 735

RED COTTON NIGHT-CAP COUNTRY; OR TURF AND TOWERS 736

THE INN ALBUM 773

PACCHIAROTTO, WITH OTHER POEMS. PROLOGUE 802 OF PACCHIAROTTO, AND HOW HE WORKED IN DISTEMPER 802 AT THE "MERMAID" 807 HOUSE 808 SHOP 809 PISGAH-SIGHTS 810 FEARS AND SCRUPLES 811 NATURAL MAGIC 811 MAGICAL NATURE 812 BIFURCATION 812 NUMPHOLEPTOS 812 APPEARANCES 814 ST. MARTIN'S SUMMER 814 HERVE RIEL 815 A FORGIVENESS 817 CENCIAJA 820 FILIPPO BALDINUCCI ON THE PRIVILEGE OF BURIAL 823 EPILOGUE 827

THE AGAMEMNON OF ÆSCHYLUS 830

LA SAISIAZ 849

THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC 859

OH LOVE! LOVE 874

DRAMATIC IDYLS: FIRST SERIES. MARTIN RELPH 875 PHEIDIPPIDES 877 HALBERT AND HOB 879 IVAN IVANOVITCH 880 TRAY 887 NED BRATTS 887

DRAMATIC IDYLS: SECOND SERIES. PROLOGUE 892 ECHETLOS 892 CLIVE 893 MULÉYKEH 897 PIETRO OF ABANO 899 DOCTOR ---- 906 PAN AND LUNA 909 TOUCH HIM NE'ER SO LIGHTLY 910 THE BLIND MAN TO THE MAIDEN 910 GOLDONI 910

JOCOSERIA. WANTING IS--WHAT? 911 DONALD 911 SOLOMON AND BALKIS 913 CRISTINA AND MONALDESCHI 914 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT AND FUSELI 916 ADAM, LILITH, AND EVE 916 IXION 916 JOCHANAN HAKKADOSH 918 NEVER THE TIME AND THE PLACE 928 PAMBO 928

FERISHTAH'S FANCIES. PROLOGUE 929 I. THE EAGLE 929 II. THE MELON-SELLER 930 III. SHAH ABBAS 930 IV. THE FAMILY 932 V. THE SUN 933 VI. MIHRAB SHAH 934 VII. A CAMEL-DRIVER 936 VIII. TWO CAMELS 937 IX. CHERRIES 938 X. PLOT-CULTURE 939 XI. A PILLAR AT SEBZEVAR 940 XII. A BEAN-STRIPE: ALSO APPLE-EATING 942 EPILOGUE 946 RAWDON BROWN 947 THE FOUNDER OF THE FEAST 947 THE NAMES 947 EPITAPH ON LEVI LINCOLN THAXTER 947 WHY I AM A LIBERAL 948

PARLEYINGS WITH CERTAIN PEOPLE OF IMPORTANCE IN THEIR DAY. APOLLO AND THE FATES 948 WITH BERNARD DE MANDEVILLE 952 WITH DANIEL BARTOLI 955 WITH CHRISTOPHER SMART 959 WITH GEORGE BUBB DODINGTON 961 WITH FRANCIS FURINI 964 WITH GERARD DE LAIRESSE 970 WITH CHARLES AVISON 974 FUST AND HIS FRIENDS: AN EPILOGUE 979

ASOLANDO: FANCIES AND FACTS. PROLOGUE 987 ROSNY 987 DUBIETY 987 NOW 988 HUMILITY 988 POETICS 988 SUMMUM BONUM 988 A PEARL, A GIRL 988 SPECULATIVE 988 WHITE WITCHCRAFT 989 BAD DREAMS. I. 989 BAD DREAMS. II. 989 BAD DREAMS. III. 990 BAD DREAMS. IV. 990 INAPPREHENSIVENESS 991 WHICH? 991 THE CARDINAL AND THE DOG 991 THE POPE AND THE NET 992 THE BEAN-FEAST 992 MUCKLE-MOUTH MEG 993 ARCADES AMBO 993 THE LADY AND THE PAINTER 993 PONTE DELL' ANGELO, VENICE 994 BEATRICE SIGNORINI 996 FLUTE-MUSIC, WITH AN ACCOMPANIMENT 999 "IMPERANTE AUGUSTO NATUS EST--" 1001 DEVELOPMENT 1002 REPHAN 1003 REVERIE 1005 EPILOGUE 1007

APPENDIX. I. AN ESSAY ON SHELLEY 1008 II. NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS 1014 III. A List of Mr. Browning's Poems and Dramas, arranged in the order of first publication in book form 1023

INDEX OF FIRST LINES OF POEMS 1027

GENERAL INDEX OF TITLES 1031

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.[1]

If one sought to build any genealogical structure to account for Robert Browning's genius, he would find but slight foundation in fact, though what he found would be substantial so far as it went. Browning's father was a bank clerk in London; his father again was a bank clerk. Both of these Brownings were christened Robert. The father of the poet's grandfather was Thomas Browning, an innkeeper and small proprietor in Dorsetshire, and his stock apparently was west-country English. Browning himself liked to believe that an earlier ancestor was a certain Captain Micaiah Browning who raised the siege of Derry in 1689 by an act of personal bravery which cost him his life. It is most to the point that Browning was London born with two generations of city Londoners behind him. His mother was Sarah Anne--a name which became Sarianna in the poet's sister--Wiedemann, the Scottish daughter of a Hamburg German, a shipowner in Dundee.

The characters of the poet's parents are clearly defined. Robert Browning, senior, was a man of business who performed his business duties punctiliously, and by frugality acquired a tolerably comfortable fortune, but he was not a money-making man; his real life was in his books and in the gratification of literary and æsthetic tastes. He was a voracious reader, and in a prudent way a book and print collector. "It was his habit," says Mrs. Orr, "when he bought a book--which was generally an old one allowing of this addition--to have some pages of blank paper bound into it. These he filled with notes, chronological tables, or such other supplementary matter as would enhance the interest, or assist the mastering, of its contents: all written in a clear and firm, though by no means formal, handwriting." He had a talent for versifying which he used for his entertainment; he had a cheerful nature and that genuine sociability which made him a delightful companion in the small circle which satisfied his simple, ingenuous nature. He was born and bred in the Church of England, but in middle life became by choice a Dissenter, though never an exclusive one.

Mrs. Browning, the poet's mother, was once described by Carlyle as "the true type of a Scottish gentlewoman." She inherited from her father a love for music and drawing which in him was manifested in execution, in her in good taste and appreciation. She was a woman of serene, gentle and affectionate nature, and of simple, earnest religious belief. She was brought up in the kirk of Scotland, but, like her husband, connected herself in middle life with the Congregationalists. She communicated of her own religious conviction to her children; it is said that she handed down also a nervous organization.

Of these parents Robert Browning was born in the parish of St. Giles, Camberwell, London, May 7, 1812. He was the oldest of the small family, having two sisters, one, Clara, who died in childhood, and Sarianna, two years younger than himself, who outlived him. The country in which he was born and where he spent his childhood has been delightfully described by his great contemporary, Ruskin, whose Herne Hill was in the immediate neighborhood. Camberwell at that time was a suburb of London, with rural spaces and near access to the open country, though the stony foot of the metropolis was already stepping outward upon the pleasant lanes and fields. There was room for gardening and the keeping of pets, while the country gave opportunity for forays into nature's fastnesses. The boy kept owls and monkeys, magpies and hedgehogs, an eagle, snakes even, and was touched with the collector's pride, as when he started a collection of rare creatures with a couple of lady-birds brought home one winter day and placed in a box lined with cotton wool and labelled, "Animals found surviving in the depths of a severe winter." It is easy for a reader of his poems to detect the close, sympathetic observation which he disclosed for all lower life.

Indeed the characteristics of his mind as seen in his writings afterward were readily disclosed in the evidence which remains to us of his boyhood. He was insatiably curious and he was imaginatively dramatic, and he had from the first the sane and generous aid of his parents in both these particulars. His father was passionately fond of children, and gave his own that best of gifts, appreciative companionship. "He was fond," says Mr. Sharp in his Life of Browning, "of taking the little Robert in his arms and walking to and fro with him in the dusk in 'the library,' soothing the child to sleep by singing to him snatches of Anacreon in the original to a favorite old tune of his, 'A Cottage in a Wood;'" and again the same biographer says: "One of his own [Robert's] recollections was that of sitting on his father's knees in the library, and listening with enthralled attention to the Tale of Troy, with marvellous illustrations among the glowing coals in the fireplace; with, below all, the vaguely heard accompaniment--from the neighboring room, where Mrs. Browning sat 'in her chief happiness, her hour of darkness and solitude and music'--of a wild Gaelic lament, with its insistent falling cadences."

The boy had an indifferent experience of formal schooling in his youth. The more fertilizing influence of his intellectual taste was found in his father's books. As has been said, his father had an intelligent and cultivated love of books, and eagerly shared his knowledge and his treasures with his boy. A seventeenth century edition of Quarles's Emblems, the first edition of Robinson Crusoe, an early edition of Milton, bought for him by his father, old Bibles, a wide range of Elizabethan literature--these were pastures in which the boy browsed. Besides, he knew the eighteenth century writers, Walpole, Junius, and even Voltaire being included by the catholic minded father. The special acquaintance with Greek came later, but Latin he began early.

His attendance at school ceased when he was fourteen, then came four years of private tutors, and at eighteen he was matriculated at London University, where he spent two years. In this period of private and public tuition, his scope was widening with systematic intent. He learned dancing, riding, boxing and fencing. He became versed in French. He visited galleries, and made some progress in drawing, especially from casts. He studied music with able teachers. He had a strong interest in the stage, and displayed on occasions a good deal of histrionic ability himself.

It is said that in this growing, restless period, when indeed he had the wilfulness and aggressiveness of the young man who has the consciousness of inner power, but not yet the mastery either of art or of himself, it was an open question with him whether he should be poet, painter, sculptor or musician; an artist at any rate he knew he must be. To that all his being moved, and in his youth he manifested that temperament, by alternation dreamy and dramatic, which under favoring conditions is the background from which artistic possibilities are projected. From the vantage ground of a wooded spot near his home he could look out on the distant city lying on the western horizon, and fretting the evening sky with its spires and towers and ragged lines. The sight for him had a great fascination. Here would he lie for hours, looking and dreaming, and he has told how one night of his boyhood he stole out to these elms and saw the great city glimmering through the darkness. After all, the vision was more to him than that which brought woods and fields beneath his ken. It was the world of men and women, toward which his gaze was directed all his life.

In Browning's case, as in that of more than one recent poet, it is possible to see a very distinct passing of the torch into his hand from that of a great predecessor. He had versified from childhood. He would scarcely have been his father's child had he not. His sister remembers that when he was a very little child he would walk round and round the dining-room table, spanning the table with his palm as he marked off the scansion of the verses he had composed. Even before this rhyme had been put into his hands as an instrument, for his father had taught him words by their rhymes, and aided his memorizing of Latin declensions in the same way. So the boy lisped in numbers, for the numbers came, and by the time he was twelve had accumulated a formidable amount of matter, chiefly Byronic in manner. With the confidence of the very youthful poet, he tried to find a publisher who would venture on the issue. He could not find one who would put his verses into print, but he found one of another sort in his mother, who read them with pride and showed them to her friends. Thus they fell into the hands of Miss Flower, who showed them to her sister, Sarah Flower Adams, whose name is firmly held in hymnologies, and with her appreciation showed them also to the Rev. William Johnson Fox, who as preacher, editor, and man of letters had a tolerably distinct position which has not yet been forgotten. Mr. Fox read and was emphatic in his recognition of promise, but with good sense advised against any attempt to get the book into print. Book it was in manuscript, and this was the publication it received. Like other first ventures, its audience was fit though few, and as will be seen later, Browning gained the best thing that first ventures are likely to bring, a generous critic.

But shortly after this came the real fructifying of the poetic germ which lay in this youthful nature. "Passing a bookstall one day," says Mr. Sharp, "he saw, in a box of second-hand volumes, a little book advertised as 'Mr. Shelley's Atheistical Poem: very scarce.' He had never heard of Shelley, nor did he learn for a long time that the Dæmon of the World and the miscellaneous poems appended thereto constituted a literary piracy. Badly printed, shamefully mutilated, these discarded blossoms touched him to a new emotion. Pope became further removed than ever: Byron, even, lost his magnetic supremacy. From vague remarks in reply to his inquiries, and from one or two casual allusions, he learned that there really was a poet called Shelley; that he had written several volumes; that, he was dead." His mother set herself to search for more of Shelley for her son, and after recourse to Mr. Fox, made her way to the Olliers in Vere Street, and brought back not only a collection of Shelley's volumes, but of Keats's also, and thus these two poets fell into Browning's hands.

It was on a May night, Browning told a friend, he entered upon this hitherto unknown world. In a laburnum near by, and in a great copper beech not far away, two nightingales sang together. So he sat and listened to them, and read by turns from these two poets. It was his initiation into the same society. He did not at once join them, but when he made his first appearance in public, at the age of twenty, it was with a poem, Pauline, which not only held a glowing apostrophe to Shelley but was throughout colored by his ardent devotion to the poet. Twenty years later he wrote a prose apologia for Shelley in the form of an introduction to a collection of letters purporting to come from Shelley, but which were discovered to be spurious immediately upon publication. Both Pauline and an Essay on Percy Bysshe Shelley will be found in this volume, with introductions explaining the circumstances of publication, but the reader of Browning's poetry is likely to carry longest in his mind the short lyric Memorabilia, beginning:--

"Ah, did you once see Shelley plain,"

in which as in a parable one may read how the sudden acquaintance with this poet was to Browning the one memorable moment in his period of youthful dreaming.

The publication anonymously of Pauline, in January, 1833, was followed by a period of travel. He went to Russia nominally as secretary to the Russian consul-general, and became so enamored of diplomatic life that he essayed to enter it, but failed; so strong a hold did it take on him that he would have been glad in later life if his son had chosen this career.

The life of a poet who is not also a man of action is told mainly in the succession of his writings. Two or three sonnets followed Pauline, but the first poem to which Browning attached his name was Paracelsus, the dedication to which is dated March 15, 1835. The dedication--and the succession of these graceful compliments discloses many of Browning's friendships--was to Count de Ripert-Monclar, a young French royalist, who was a private agent of the royal family, and had become intimate with the poet, who was four years his junior. The count suggested the life of Paracelsus to his friend as a subject for a poem, but on second thought advised against it as offering insufficient materials for the treatment of love. A young poet, however, who would prefix a quotation from Cornelius Agrippa to his first publication was one easily to be enticed by such a subject, and Browning fell upon the literature relating to Paracelsus which he found in the British Museum, and quickly mastered the facts, which became fused by his ardent imagination and eager speculation into a consistent whole. But though he sought his material among hooks, as he needs must, he found his constructive power in the silence of nature in the night. He had a great love for walking in the dark. "There was in particular," says Mr. Sharp, "a wood near Dulwich, whither he was wont to go. There he would walk swiftly and eagerly along the solitary and lightless byways, finding a potent stimulus to imaginative thought in the happy isolation thus enjoyed.... At this time, too, he composed much in the open air. This he rarely, if ever, did in later life. Not only many portions of Paracelsus but several scenes in Strafford were enacted first in these midnight silences of the Dulwich woodland. Here, too, as the poet once declared, he came to know the serene beauty of dawn: for every now and again, after having read late, or written long, he would steal quietly from the house, and walk till the morning twilight graded to the pearl and amber of the new day."

Poetry, it may be, more than any other form of literature, clears the way for friendship. At any rate, Paracelsus introduced Browning to John Forster, and it was at this time also that Dickens, Talfourd and Macready, Leigh Hunt, Barry Cornwall, Wordsworth and Landor were more than names to the young poet. There was doubtless something in the man as well as in his work which won him recognition. Macready says he looked more the poet than any man he had ever met. His head was crowned with wavy dark brown hair. He had singularly expressive eyes, a sensitive, mobile mouth, a musical voice, and an alertness of manner, so that he was like a quivering, high bred animal. How marked he was by his companions, and singled out to be, as Macready says, "a leading spirit of his time," is instanced by a notable occurrence at Talfourd's house after the first performance of Ion, when Talfourd included Browning with Wordsworth and Landor, who were present, in a toast to the poets of England.

It was on this occasion that Macready, whom Browning already knew well, proposed to the poet that he should write him a play as narrated in the Introduction to Strafford. The play was produced at the Covent Garden Theatre in May, 1837, and Macready and Miss Helen Faucit, afterward Lady Martin, gave distinction to its representation. It came, however, at an unfortunate time in the management, and though it gave promise of a long run, certain difficulties in the theatre compelled its withdrawal. It was published at once by Longmans, but like Browning's former book, was a failure with the public.

The monologue of Pauline had been succeeded by what may be called the conversational drama of Paracelsus, and that by the dramatic Strafford. The form now experimented with was to be the dominant one for the next ten years, though his next attempt was in form almost a reversion to Pauline. During the remainder of 1837 and until Easter, 1838, Browning was engaged on Sordello, but interrupted this poem for a couple of years which have a special interest as the years when he first visited Italy, and when he entered upon an order of production which was to be very significant of his poetic choice of subject and treatment. Browning himself recognized the importance to him of his acquaintance with Italy. "It was my university," he was wont to say, when asked if he had been a student at Oxford or Cambridge. The companion poems, The Englishman in Italy and The Italian in England, illustrate that double nationality in Browning's mind by which the two countries were, so to speak, married for him. The latter of these two poems was one which Mazzini used to read to his countrymen when he would demonstrate how generously an Englishman could enter into the Italian's patriotic aspirations. The journey was a rapid one. "I went," Browning says, "to Trieste, then Venice--then through Treviso and Bassano to the mountains, delicious Asolo, all my places and castles, you will see. Then to Vicenza, Padua, and Venice again. Then to Verona, Trent, Innspruck, Munich, Salzburg in Franconia, Frankfort and Mayence; down the Rhine to Cologne, then to Aix-la-Chapelle, Siège and Antwerp; then home."

It would seem as if he had begun Sordello with a bookish knowledge only of Italy, and later charged it with a more informing spirit of love for that country and embroidered it with descriptive scenes drawn from his personal observation. The poem was published in 1840, but the result of the journey in Italy and of the poet's more complete finding of himself--a process by the bye which may almost be taken as having its analogue in Sordello--were made most evident by the next publication, the story of which is told in the Introduction to Pippa Passes. The very form chosen for Bells and Pomegranates was a challenge to the public not so fantastically arrogant as Horne's famous publication of Orion at a farthing, but noticeable as an earnest of Browning's appeal to his generation and not to a select circle of admiring friends. In this series of writings, extending from 1841 through 1846, Browning struck the note again and again, in drama, lyric, and romance, which was to be the dominant note of his poetry, that disclosure of the soul of man in all manner of circumstances, as if the world were to the poet a great laboratory of souls, and he was forever to be engaged in solving, dissolving, and resolving the elements.

It is noticeable also that with this series closed Browning's serious attempts at dramatic composition for the stage. It would almost seem as if he finally parted company with theatrical managers, partly because of the constant difficulty he had in making them subordinate to his purpose, partly and no doubt more profoundly because his own genius, bent as it was upon the interpretation of spiritual phenomena, could ill brook the demands of the acted drama that all this interpretation should stop with visible, intelligible, and satisfactory action, capable of histrionic expression. Browning's eager penetration of the arcana of life was too absorbing to permit him to call a halt when the actor on the stage could go no farther.

An example of the practical difficulties he encountered with managers will be found in the vicissitudes of A Blot in the 'Scutcheon, which was put on the stage in 1843 and formed the fifth in the series of Bells and Pomegranates. Browning has himself told the story of his misfortunes so fully and so graphically in a letter to Mr. Frank Hill, editor of the London Daily News, forty years after the event, that it seems worth while to introduce it here. The letter, from which the following passage is taken, was dated 19, Warwick Crescent, December 15, 1884; and was written in consequence of a paragraph concerning the revival of the play, which Mr. Hill had sent in proof to Browning, from a doubt he felt of its accuracy:--

"Macready received and accepted the play, while he was engaged at the Haymarket, and retained it for Drury Lane, of which I was ignorant that he was about to become the manager; he accepted it 'at the instigation' of nobody,--and Charles Dickens was not in England when he did so: it was read to him after his return by Forster--and the glowing letter which contains his opinion of it, although directed by him to be shown to myself, was never heard of nor seen by me till printed in Forster's book some thirty years after. When the Drury Lane season began, Macready informed me that he should act the play when he had brought out two others--The Patrician's Daughter, and Plighted Troth. Having done so, he wrote to me that the former had been unsuccessful in money-drawing, and the latter had 'smashed his arrangements altogether,' but he would still produce my play. I had--in my ignorance of certain symptoms better understood by Macready's professional acquaintances--no notion that it was a proper thing, in such a case, to 'release him from his promise;' on the contrary, I should have fancied that such a proposal was offensive. Soon after, Macready begged that I would call on him; he said the play had been read to the actors the day before, and 'laughed at from beginning to end;' on my speaking my mind about this, he explained that the reading had been done by the prompter, a grotesque person with a red nose and wooden leg, ill at ease in the love scenes, and that he would himself make amends by reading the play next morning--which he did, and very adequately--but apprised me that, in consequence of the state of his mind, harassed by business and various trouble, the principal character must be taken by Mr. Phelps; and again I failed to understand--what Forster subsequently assured me was plain as the sun at noonday--that to allow at Macready's theatre any other than Macready to play the principal part in a new piece was suicidal,--and really believed I was meeting his exigencies by accepting the substitution. At the rehearsal, Macready announced that Mr. Phelps was ill, and that he himself would read the part; on the third rehearsal, Mr. Phelps appeared for the first time, and sat in a chair while Macready more than read--rehearsed the part. The next morning Mr. Phelps waylaid me at the stage-floor to say, with much emotion, that it never was intended that he should be instrumental in the success of a new tragedy, and that Macready would play Tresham on the ground that himself, Phelps, was unable to do so. He added that he could not expect me to waive such an advantage, but that, if I were prepared to waive it, 'he would take ether, sit up all night, and have the words in his memory by next day.' I bade him follow me to the green-room, and hear what I decided upon--which was that as Macready had given him the part, he should keep it: this was on a Thursday; he rehearsed on Friday and Saturday,--the play being acted the same evening,--of the fifth day after the 'reading' by Macready. Macready at once wished to reduce the importance of the 'play'--as he styled it in the bills,--tried to leave out so much of the text that I baffled him by getting it printed in four-and-twenty hours, by Moxon's assistance. He wanted me to call it The Sister! and I have before me, while I write, the stage-acting copy, with two lines of his own insertion to avoid the tragical ending--Tresham was to announce his intention of going into a monastery! all this, to keep up the belief that Macready, and Macready alone, could produce a veritable 'tragedy,' unproduced before. Not a shilling was spent on scenery or dresses, and a striking scene which had been used for The Patrician's Daughter did duty a second time. If your critic considers this treatment of the play an instance of 'the failure of powerful and experienced actors' to ensure its success, I can only say that my own opinion was shown by at once breaking off a friendship of many years--a friendship which had a right to be plainly and simply told that the play I had contributed as a proof of it would, through a change of circumstances, no longer be to my friend's advantage--all I could possibly care for. Only recently, when by the publication of Macready's journals the extent of his pecuniary embarrassments at that time was made known, could I in a measure understand his motives for such conduct, and less than ever understand why he so strangely disguised and disfigured them. If 'applause' meant success, the play thus maimed and maltreated was successful enough; it 'made way' for Macready's own Benefit, and the theatre closed a fortnight after."

Of the more profound separation between Browning and the theatre, due to the inherent impossibility of his arresting his thought before it got beyond the actor's use, Luria and The Return of the Druses afford good examples, and an illustration might fairly be taken from Colombe's Birthday, which was put on the stage in 1853, but scarcely held its own, though Helen Faucit took the heroine's part, and, when revived forty years after, was so cut and slashed that though the splendid idea of Valence was retained in situation, the delicate, subtle shadows which passed and repassed before the reader's mind were wanting.

The period when Browning was writing his dramas was one of spendthrift enjoyment of life. For it was a time not only of work in the British Museum and of excursions into all sorts of remote fields of literature, but of long rambles, half gypsy experiences, hours when, stretched at full length beneath the sky, he made familiar and minute acquaintance with bird and leaf, insect and snail, the wind in the trees, the search for the northwest passage of argosies of clouds. He pursued all manner of interests which absorbed him for the moment; he was living, in short, that abundant life which was reflected later in multitudinous dramatic assumptions.

Then all at once there came a concentration of his passion and a sudden revelation to him which never lost its wondrous light. Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning, knowing each other through their writings, then by a common service to a common friend, then by an intermittent correspondence, finally were brought together by John Kenyon, already a dear friend of each. The fragile creature, scarce able to leave her couch, and the robust, exuberantly vital man, were as far separate in external, superficial agreement as could well be, but each knew the other with an instantaneousness of knowledge and need. Again and again, not only in verses directed openly to his wife, but in those which like By the Fireside thinly veil personal feeling, the passionate constancy of this experimenting, daringly inquisitive poet towards his poet wife is splendidly disclosed, with a certain glory of frank confession which is the vehement sincerity of one who is in this one feeling genuine poet and genuine man.

Miss Barrett was an invalid, guarded with the greatest care, and Browning, in urging marriage upon her, met with all the obstacles which the circumstances raised. He confronted indeed the indomitable refusal of Miss Barrett's father. A physician had held out hopes that a removal to Italy would give the invalid a chance to regain some degree of health, but Mr. Barrett, for some not very clear reason, refused his consent to her taking the journey with her brother. It was then that Browning, who can readily be conceived of as a masterful man, won Miss Barrett's consent to a sudden and clandestine marriage, and a journey to Italy as his wife. "When she had finally assented to this course," writes Mrs. Orr, "she took a preparatory step which, in so far as it was known, must itself have been sufficiently startling to those about her; she drove to Regent's Park, and when there, stepped out of the carriage and on to the grass. I do not know how long she stood--probably only for a moment; but I well remember hearing that when, after so long an interval, she felt earth under her feet and air about her, the sensation was almost bewilderingly strange."

They were married September 12, 1846. She would not entangle Mr. Kenyon or any of her friends by announcing even her engagement; she preferred marrying without her father's knowledge, to marrying against his prohibition. For a week the husband and wife did not see each other. Then they met by agreement and went to Paris. Mr. Barrett never forgave his daughter, but the consternation with which the Browning family heard of the event quickly turned to affectionate regard for the frail wife. So far as Mrs. Browning's physical well-being was concerned, it is clear that the marriage gave her a new lease of life; and what seemed at the moment an audacious taking of fate into their own hands proved to be a case where nature obtained her best of both.

From Paris, by slow stages, they passed through France into Italy, and made their first long halt in Pisa. It was here, we are told, that Mrs. Browning showed to her husband in manuscript those Sonnets from the Portuguese which were her offering to him out of the darkness of her chamber. From Pisa they went to Florence, to Ancona, and again back to Florence, where at last they obtained a foothold in the old palace called Casa Guidi, a name to be endeared to the readers of Mrs. Browning's poetry. Mr. George S. Hillard, in his Six Months in Italy, gives a pleasant account of the Brownings when he met them in Florence in 1847.

"It is well for the traveller to be chary of names. It is an ungrateful return for hospitable attentions to print the conversation of your host, or describe his person, or give an inventory of his furniture, or proclaim how his wife and daughters were dressed. But I trust I may be pardoned if I state that one of my most delightful associations with Florence arises from the fact that here I made the acquaintance of Robert and Elizabeth Browning. These are even more familiar names in America than in England, and their poetry is probably more read, and better understood with us than among their own countrymen. A happier home and a more perfect union than theirs it is not easy to imagine; and this completeness arises not only from the rare qualities which each possesses, but from their adaptation to each other. Browning's conversation is like the poetry of Chaucer, or like his own, simplified and made transparent. His countenance is so full of vigor, freshness, and refined power, that it seems impossible to think that he can ever grow old. His poetry is subtle, passionate, and profound; but he himself is simple, natural, and playful. He has the repose of a man who has lived much in the open air; with no nervous uneasiness and no unhealthy self-consciousness. Mrs. Browning is in many respects the correlative of her husband. As he is full of manly power, so she is a type of the most sensitive and delicate womanhood. She has been a great sufferer from ill-health, and the marks of pain are stamped upon her person and manner. Her figure is slight, her countenance expressive of genius and sensibility, shaded by a veil of long brown locks; and her tremulous voice often flutters over her words, like the flame of a dying candle over the wick. I have never seen a human frame which seemed so nearly a transparent veil for a celestial and immortal spirit. She is a soul of fire enclosed in a shell of pearl. Her rare and fine genius needs no setting forth at my hands. She is also, what is not so generally known, a woman of uncommon, nay, profound learning, even measured by a masculine standard. Nor is she more remarkable for genius and learning, than for sweetness of temper, tenderness of heart, depth of feeling, and purity of spirit. It is a privilege to know such beings singly and separately, but to see their powers quickened, and their happiness rounded, by the sacred tie of marriage, is a cause for peculiar and lasting gratitude. A union so complete as theirs--in which the mind has nothing to crave nor the heart to sigh for--is cordial to behold and something to remember."

During the fifteen years of their married life the Brownings lived for the most part in Italy, with occasional summers in England and long sojourns in Paris. The record of Browning's productions during this period is meagre, if one regards the fulness of his poetic activity both before and after. The explanation is made that these new responsibilities,--for two sons were born to them, one of whom died,--carried also great anxieties, for the frailty of Mrs. Browning's health was a constant factor in the movements of the household. But though the record is meagre as to quantity, lovers of Browning's poetry would be likely to regard this as not only a central period, chronologically, but the period when he reached his highest expression. The first collected edition of his poems appeared in 1849, to be followed the next year by Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day, and then, five years after that, in 1855, by Men and Women, a group of poems which still remains the flower of Browning's genius.

The great range taken by these poems is a witness to the fecundity and versatility of Browning's genius. It is possible, also, that to the circumstances of his life, especially its beautiful distractions, we owe the fact of a multitude of short poems rather than longer-sustained efforts. While Mrs. Browning, sheltered by the constant care exerted by her husband and stimulated by his companionship, composed her longest work, Aurora Leigh, he, never long freed from anxious thought, broke into more fragmentary production. A very good illustration of the alacrity of his mind and the instantaneous power of seizing upon opportunity is given in a passage in Mr. Gosse's Personalia:--

"In recounting a story of some Tuscan noblemen who had shown him two exquisite miniature-paintings, the work of a young artist who should have received for them the prize in some local contest, and who, being unjustly defrauded, broke his ivories, burned his brushes, and indignantly foreswore the thankless art forever, Mr. Browning suddenly reflected that there was, as he said, 'stuff for a poem' in that story, and immediately with extreme vivacity began to sketch the form it should take, the suppression of what features and the substitution of what others were needful; and finally suggested the non-obvious or inverted moral of the whole, in which the act of spirited defiance was shown to be, really, an act of tame renunciation, the poverty of the artist's spirit being proved in his eagerness to snatch, even though it was by honest merit, a benefit simply material. The poet said, distinctly, that he had never before reflected on this incident as one proper to be versified; the speed, therefore, with which the creative architect laid the foundations, built the main fabric, and even put on the domes and pinnacles of his poem was, no doubt, of uncommon interest. He left it, in five minutes, needing nothing but the mere outward crust of the versification."

It was an incident in Browning's life that when he was producing his most glorious work and receiving the admiration and intelligent appreciation of his poetical wife, he was a very insignificant figure in English literature of the day. Mrs. Browning was indignant over the neglect her husband suffered, and in her letters drew sharp comparison between the attention paid Browning in America and the neglect he received in England. Meanwhile, whether living in Florence or sojourning in Paris or London, a choice company was always to be found welcoming and honoring the two poets. Mr. and Mrs. Story, the Hawthornes, Cardinal Manning, Massimo d'Azeglio, Sir Frederick Leighton, Mr. Odo Russell, Rossetti, Val Prinsep, Forster, Landor, Fanny Kemble,--these are some of the names closely associated with that of the Brownings in this period.

The death of Mrs. Browning, June 29, 1861, closed this most beautiful human companionship. It made also a great change in Browning's habit of life, and no doubt affected in important ways his poetical productiveness. He left Italy for England. He became absorbed, so far as personal responsibilities went, in the education of his son. By some strange caprice, he chose to make his home in an ugly part of London, and he approached it through a region of disorder and squalor. But he also, with his robust nature, denied himself the luxury of a persistent solitariness, and little by little returned to society, especially grateful for the friendship of women like Miss Isa Blagden, who stepped in at the moment of his descent into the valley of grief with their gentle ministrations.

The months that followed Mrs. Browning's death were in a way given to taking up again dropped threads of work, and to intellectual occupations, which both satisfied and stimulated his nature. He read Euripides again, perhaps in part because of the association in his mind with his wife's scholarly interests. He resumed the poems on which he had been engaged in the last months at Casa Guidi, and he pondered over his magnum opus, the germ of which had been in his mind for many months. But first, in 1863, he saw through the press a new and complete collection of his poetical works in three volumes. Then, the year following, he gathered the poems which immediately preceded and followed Mrs. Browning's death into the volume of Dramatis Personæ. The reissue of his older poems and this new accession were accompanied by a clear re-enforcement of his position as an English poet. He had come, too, to the point where volumes of selections from his work were in demand, a pretty good sign of a widening of his audience. Other signs followed. In 1867 he received the honorary degree of M. A. from the University of Oxford, and a few months later was made honorary fellow of Balliol College. In the year following he was asked to stand for the Lord Rectorship of the University of St. Andrews, rendered vacant by the death of J. S. Mill.

His mother had died in 1849, and in 1866 his father, who had been one of his most constant companions since his wife's death, died also. Thereafter, he and his sister Sarianna, who had passed a life of devotion to their parents, became inseparable. Though England was their home, they spent many summers in Brittany, as his poems indicate, and now and then returned to Italy, where his son was established finally as a painter.

In 1868 appeared the six volume uniform edition of his poems, and immediately afterward began the publication, to be completed in four volumes, of The Ring and the Book. Mrs. Orr traces, in an ingenious manner, the influence which Mrs. Browning's personality had in the conception of Pompilia in this poem. However much a single character may have been affected, it is easy to believe that this elaborate construction building in Browning's mind during the closing years of his wife's life and actually brought into existence in the years immediately following was, more than any single work, a great monument which the poet raised to the memory of that companion whose own poetic achievement always seemed to him of a higher worth than his own. "The simple truth is," he wrote to a common friend, "that she was the poet and I the clever person by comparison: remember her limited experience of all kinds, and what she made of it. Remember, on the other hand, how my uninterrupted health and strength and practice with the world have helped me."

After The Ring and the Book the only new departure, so to speak, of Browning's genius was in the group of poems which were built upon the foundation of Greek poetry. In 1871 appeared Balaustion's Adventure, in 1875 Aristophanes' Apology, and in 1877 The Agamemnon of Æschylus. They have their value as expressive of Browning's catholicity, and more particularly as his one great literary feat. With all his interest in Italy, and his delving in Renaissance literature, there can scarcely be said to be any criticism of Italian literature in the form of his own poetry. In like manner his dramatic works are not, except in a very remote or general sense, criticism of the Elizabethan drama. But his three poems above named do represent the thought and criticism of a Gothic mind confronting and admiring the Greek art and thought. Browning in these works is not a reproducer in his own terms of Greek life; he is a poet of varied experience, who, coming in contact with a great and distinct manifestation of human life, is moved to strike in here also with his thought and fancy, and because of the very elemental nature of the material, to find the keenest delight in exercising his genius upon it.

Meanwhile the facility which his long and varied practice with the English language had brought him made every new subject that appealed to him a plaything for his fertile imagination; and the speculative temper which grew upon him as the maturity of experience enlarged and enriched his material for thought, led him into long and tortuous ways. The Ring and the Book stands about midway in the bulk of his work, but whereas all the poetry and drama before that work represent thirty-five years of his life, that which follows, nearly as great in amount, represents but twenty years.

In these last years of his life, when fame had come to him and his versatility made him a ready companion, he led a semi-public life. He was in demand in all directions. As Mr. Sharp has rapidly summed it up: "Everybody wished him to come and dine; and he did his utmost to gratify everybody. He said everything; read all the notable books; kept himself acquainted with the leading contents of the journals and magazines; conducted a large correspondence; read new French, German, and Italian books of mark; read and translated Euripides and Æschylus; knew all the gossip of the literary clubs, salons, and the studios; was a frequenter of afternoon-tea parties; and then, over and above it, he was Browning: the most profoundly subtle mind that has exercised itself in poetry since Shakespeare."

In 1881 was founded the English Browning Society, one of the most singular testimonials to the interest awakened by a contemporaneous poet known in literary history. The great mass of his writings, the recondite nature of some of the material which he had used, but more than all, the astounding variety of problems in human life and character which he had presented and either solved or opened the way to solve, made Browning an object of the greatest interest to the curious, the sympathetic, and the restless of his day. Any such movement has on its edge a frayed sort of membership, but no one can note the names of members or read the communications which appear in the society's proceedings without recognizing the intellectual ability that carried the movement along. Browning's own attitude toward the society is pretty clearly expressed in the following words which he wrote to Mr. Edmund Yates at the time of the society's foundation:--

"The Browning Society, I need not say, as well as Browning himself, are fair game for criticism. I had no more to do with the founding it than the babe unborn; and, as Wilkes was no Wilkesite, I am quite other than a Browningite. But I cannot wish harm to a society of, with a few exceptions, names unknown to me, who are busied about my books so disinterestedly. The exaggerations probably come of the fifty-years'-long charge of unintelligibility against my books; such reactions are possible, though I never looked for the beginning of one so soon. That there is a grotesque side to the thing is certain; but I have been surprised and touched by what cannot but have been well intentioned, I think. Anyhow, as I never felt inconvenienced by hard words, you will not expect me to wax bumptious because of undue compliment: so enough of 'Browning'--except that he is yours very truly 'while the machine is to him.'"

In 1887 Browning removed to a more agreeable quarter in De Vere Gardens in the west end of London, and with his affection for Asolo, he set about purchasing a residence there in 1889, and it was while engaged in negotiations for the purchase that he was taken ill with bronchial troubles, and died at his son's home in Venice, December 12, 1889. He was buried in Poet's Corner, Westminster Abbey, on the last day of the year. Italy rightly divided honors with England, and on the outer wall of the Rezzonico Palace in Venice is a memorial tablet with the inscription:--

A ROBERTO BROWNING morto in questo palazzo il 12 Dicembre 1889 Venezia pose

Below, in the corner, are placed two lines from his poem, De Gustibus:--

"Open my heart and you will see Graved inside of it, 'Italy.'" H. E. S.

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 1: The materials for this sketch are drawn from Mrs. Sutherland Orr's Life and Letters of Robert Browning, Mr. William Sharp's Life of Robert Browning, and Mr. Edmund Gosse's Robert Browning: Personalia.]

PAULINE: THE FRAGMENT OF A CONFESSION

The history of the earliest printed of Browning's writings is so curious that it seems worth while to give it at greater length than its intrinsic merit would require. As a boy Browning wrote an inordinate amount of verse, imitative largely of Byron, and some of it written when he was twelve struck his father as good enough to deserve printing, but no publisher could be found ready to confirm this faith. Then Browning fell into a Shelleyan mood, and when he was twenty projected a great work of which the introduction only was written. This introduction was Pauline, which to be precise was completed October 22, 1832. Browning's aunt volunteered to pay the expenses of publication, and it was published anonymously early in 1833 by Saunders & Otley. The most authoritative person on literary matters in the young poet's circle of friends was the Rev. William Johnson Fox, a Unitarian clergyman and editor of the Monthly Repository. He had a few years before given emphatic commendation to the boy's verse, and now reviewed the poem with great warmth in his own magazine, so winning the poet's gratitude as to draw from him the extravagant expression: "I shall never write a line without thinking of the source of my first praise, be assured." The poem missed what would have been from its writer a more notable review. Mr. John Stuart Mill, six years Browning's senior, was so delighted with Pauline that he wrote to the editor of Tait's Magazine, the only periodical in which he could write freely, asking leave to review the poem. The editor replied that he had just printed a curt, contemptuous notice, and could not at once take the other track. When Mill died his copy of Pauline, crowded with annotations, fell into Browning's hands and may now be seen in the South Kensington Museum.

In spite of such hopeful promise the poem was still-born from the press. Five years later, Browning wrote in a copy "the only remaining crab of the shapely Tree of Life in my Fool's Paradise." He appears never to have spoken of it until a striking circumstance brought it again into light. Many years after it was printed Dante Gabriel Rossetti was browsing among the volumes of forgotten poetry in the British Museum. He came upon a book in which a number of pamphlet poems were bound in a heterogeneous collection. Among these was Pauline. He read it, and from its internal evidence was convinced that it was an unacknowledged poem of Browning's. The book was wholly out of print, and he made a copy of it. He wrote to Browning afterwards taxing the poet with the production, and Browning, greatly surprised at Rossetti's discovery, acknowledged the authorship. In 1865, the editor of this Cambridge edition, meeting Rossetti in London, mentioned the fact that he had been copying at the British Museum Browning's prose introduction to the suppressed spurious collection of Shelley's Letters, whereupon Rossetti told him of this other rare book. Afterwards on learning that he had copied Pauline also he said: "I suppose you will print it when you go back to America." "By no means," replied the editor; "that would be a breach of faith. I copied it as a student of Browning. I never would make it public without Browning's consent." A year or two later therefore when a new edition of the collected poems was published, he thought himself not unlikely the unwitting occasion of the inclusion of Pauline, for in the introduction Browning wrote as follows:

"The first piece in the series (Pauline), I acknowledge and retain with extreme repugnance, indeed purely of necessity; for not long ago I inspected one, and am certified of the existence of other transcripts, intended sooner or later to be published abroad: by forestalling these, I can at least correct some misprints (no syllable is changed) and introduce a boyish work by an exculpatory word. The thing was my earliest attempt at "poetry always dramatic in principle, and so many utterances of so many imaginary persons, not mine," which I have since written according to a scheme less extravagant and scale less impracticable than were ventured upon in this crude preliminary sketch,--a sketch that, on reviewal, appears not altogether wide of some hint of the characteristic features of that particular dramatis persona it would fain have reproduced: good draughtsmanship, however, and right handling were far beyond the artist at that time.

LONDON, December 25, 1867. "R. B."

Twenty years later, upon sending out his final collective edition, Browning added to the preface just quoted the following sentences:--

"I preserve, in order to supplement it, the foregoing preface. I had thought, when compelled to include in my collected works the poem to which it refers, that the honest course would be to reprint, and leave mere literary errors unaltered. Twenty years' endurance of an eyesore seems more than sufficient: my faults remain duly recorded against me, and I claim permission to somewhat diminish these, so far as style is concerned, in the present and final edition, where Pauline must needs, first of my performances, confront the reader. I have simply removed solecisms, mended the metre a little and endeavored to strengthen the phraseology--experience helping, in some degree, the helplessness of juvenile haste and heat in their untried adventure long ago."

LONDON, February 27, 1888.

The text here given, as throughout this volume, is that of Mr. Browning's latest revision. The text of the first revision, i. e. 1867, may be found at the close of volume i. of the Riverside edition.

The quotations from Marot and Cornelius Agrippa which follow were prefixed to the original edition of the poem. The note enclosed in brackets was Browning's comment on reprinting the poem the last time.

PAULINE

_Plus ne suis ce que j'ai été, Et ne le sçaurois jamais être._ Marot.

Non dubito, quin titulus libri nostri raritate sua quamplurimos alliciat ad legendum: inter quos nonnulli obliquæ opinionis, mente languidi, multi etiam maligni, et in ingenium nostrum ingrati accedent, qui temeraria sua ignorantia, vix conspecto titulo clamabunt. Nos vetita docere, hæresium semina jacere: piis auribus offendiculo, præclaris ingeniis scandalo esse: ... adeo conscientiæ suæ consulentes, ut nec Apollo, nec Musæ omnes, neque Angelus de cœlo me ab illorum execratione vindicare queant: quibus et ego nunc consulo, ne scripta nostra legant, nec intelligant, nec meminerint: nam noxia sunt, venenosa sunt: Acherontis ostium est in hoc libro, lapides loquitur, caveant, ne cerebrum illis excutiat. Vos autem, qui æqua mente ad legendum venitis, si tantam prudentiæ discretionem adhibueritis, quantam in melle legendo apes, jam securi legite. Puto namque vos et utilitatis haud parum et voluptatis plurimum accepturos. Quod si qua repereritis, quæ vobis non placeant, mittite illa, nec utimini. NAM ET EGO VOBIS ILLA NON PROBO, SED NARRO. Cætera tamen propterea non respuite ... Ideo, si quid liberius dictum sit, ignoscite adolescentiæ nostræ, qui minor quam adolescens hoc opus composui.--Hen. Corn. Agrippa, De Occult. Philosoph. in Præfat.

LONDON: January, 1833. V. A. XX.

[This introduction would appear less absurdly pretentious did it apply, as was intended, to a completed structure of which the poem was meant for only a beginning and remains a fragment.]

Pauline, mine own, bend o'er me--thy soft breast Shall pant to mine--bend o'er me--thy sweet eyes, And loosened hair and breathing lips, and arms Drawing me to thee--these build up a screen To shut me in with thee, and from all fear; So that I might unlock the sleepless brood Of fancies from my soul, their lurking-place, Nor doubt that each would pass, ne'er to return To one so watched, so loved and so secured. But what can guard thee but thy naked love? Ah dearest, whoso sucks a poisoned wound Envenoms his own veins! Thou art so good, So calm--if thou shouldst wear a brow less light For some wild thought which, but for me, were kept From out thy soul as from a sacred star! Yet till I have unlocked them it were vain To hope to sing; some woe would light on me; Nature would point at one whose quivering lip Was bathed in her enchantments, whose brow burned Beneath the crown to which her secrets knelt, Who learned the spell which can call up the dead, And then departed smiling like a fiend Who has deceived God,--if such one should seek Again her altars and stand robed and crowned Amid the faithful! Sad confession first, Remorse and pardon and old claims renewed, Ere I can be--as I shall be no more. I had been spared this shame if I had sat By thee forever from the first, in place Of my wild dreams of beauty and of good, Or with them, as an earnest of their truth: No thought nor hope having been shut from thee, No vague wish unexplained, no wandering aim Sent back to bind on fancy's wings and seek Some strange fair world where it might be a law; But, doubting nothing, had been led by thee, Through youth, and saved, as one at length awaked Who has slept through a peril. Ah vain, vain!

Thou lovest me; the past is in its grave Though its ghost haunts us; still this much is ours, To cast away restraint, lest a worse thing Wait for us in the dark. Thou lovest me; And thou art to receive not love but faith, For which thou wilt be mine, and smile and take All shapes and shames, and veil without a fear That form which music follows like a slave: And I look to thee and I trust in thee, As in a Northern night one looks alway Unto the East for morn and spring and joy. Thou seest then my aimless, hopeless state, And, resting on some few old feelings won Back by thy beauty, wouldst that I essay The task which was to me what now thou art: And why should I conceal one weakness more?

Thou wilt remember one warm morn when winter Crept aged from the earth, and spring's first breath Blew soft from the moist hills; the black-thorn boughs, So dark in the bare wood, when glistening In the sunshine were white with coming buds, Like the bright side of a sorrow, and the banks Had violets opening from sleep like eyes. I walked with thee who knew'st not a deep shame Lurked beneath smiles and careless words which sought To hide it till they wandered and were mute, As we stood listening on a sunny mound To the wind murmuring in the damp copse, Like heavy breathings of some hidden thing Betrayed by sleep; until the feeling rushed That I was low indeed, yet not so low As to endure the calmness of thine eyes. And so I told thee all, while the cool breast I leaned on altered not its quiet beating: And long ere words like a hurt bird's complaint Bade me look up and be what I had been, I felt despair could never live by thee: Thou wilt remember. Thou art not more dear Than song was once to me; and I ne'er sung But as one entering bright halls where all Will rise and shout for him: sure I must own That I am fallen, having chosen gifts Distinct from theirs--that I am sad and fain Would give up all to be but where I was, Not high as I had been if faithful found, But low and weak yet full of hope, and sure Of goodness as of life--that I would lose All this gay mastery of mind, to sit Once more with them, trusting in truth and love And with an aim--not being what I am.

O Pauline, I am ruined who believed That though my soul had floated from its sphere Of wild dominion into the dim orb Of self--that it was strong and free as ever! It has conformed itself to that dim orb, Reflecting all its shades and shapes, and now Must stay where it alone can be adored. I have felt this in dreams--in dreams in which I seemed the fate from which I fled; I felt A strange delight in causing my decay. I was a fiend in darkness chained forever Within some ocean-cave; and ages rolled, Till through the cleft rock, like a moonbeam, came A white swan to remain with me; and ages Rolled, yet I tired not of my first free joy In gazing on the peace of its pure wings: And then I said, "It is most fair to me, Yet its soft wings must sure have suffered change From the thick darkness, sure its eyes are dim. Its silver pinions must be cramped and numbed With sleeping ages here; it cannot leave me, For it would seem, in light beside its kind, Withered, though here to me most beautiful." And then I was a young witch whose blue eyes, As she stood naked by the river springs, Drew down a god: I watched his radiant form Growing less radiant, and it gladdened me; Till one morn, as he sat in the sunshine Upon my knees, singing to me of heaven, He turned to look at me, ere I could lose The grin with which I viewed his perishing: And he shrieked and departed and sat long By his deserted throne, but sunk at last Murmuring, as I kissed his lips and curled Around him, "I am still a god--to thee."

Still I can lay my soul bare in its fall, Since all the wandering and all the weakness Will be a saddest comment on the song: And if, that done, I can be young again, I will give up all gained, as willingly As one gives up a charm which shuts him out From hope or part or care in human kind. As life wanes, all its care and strife and toil Seem strangely valueless, while the old trees Which grew by our youth's home, the waving mass Of climbing plants heavy with bloom and dew, The morning swallows with their songs like words, All these seem clear and only worth our thoughts: So, aught connected with my early life, My rude songs or my wild imaginings, How I look on them--most distinct amid The fever and the stir of after years!

I ne'er had ventured e'en to hope for this, Had not the glow I felt at His award, Assured me all was not extinct within:

His whom all honor, whose renown springs up Like sunlight which will visit all the world, So that e'en they who sneered at him at first, Come out to it, as some dark spider crawls From his foul nets which some lit torch invades, Yet spinning still new films for his retreat. Thou didst smile, poet, but can we forgive?

Sun-treader, life and light be thine forever! Thou art gone from us; years go by and spring Gladdens and the young earth is beautiful, Yet thy songs come not, other bards arise, But none like thee: they stand, thy majesties, Like mighty works which tell some spirit there Hath sat regardless of neglect and scorn, Till, its long task completed, it hath risen And left us, never to return, and all Rush in to peer and praise when all in vain. The air seems bright with thy past presence yet, But thou art still for me as thou hast been When I have stood with thee as on a throne With all thy dim creations gathered round Like mountains, and I felt of mould like them, And with them creatures of my own were mixed, Like things half-lived, catching and giving life. But thou art still for me who have adored Though single, panting but to hear thy name Which I believed a spell to me alone, Scarce deeming thou wast as a star to men! As one should worship long a sacred spring Scarce worth a moth's flitting, which long grasses cross, And one small tree embowers droopingly-- Joying to see some wandering insect won To live in its few rushes, or some locust To pasture on its boughs, or some wild bird Stoop for its freshness from the trackless air: And then should find it but the fountain-head, Long lost, of some great river washing towns And towers, and seeing old woods which will live But by its banks untrod of human foot, Which, when the great sun sinks, lie quivering In light as some thing lieth half of life Before God's foot, waiting a wondrous change; Then girt with rocks which seek to turn or stay Its course in vain, for it does ever spread Like a sea's arm as it goes rolling on, Being the pulse of some great country--so Wast thou to me, and art thou to the world! And I, perchance, half feel a strange regret That I am not what I have been to thee: Like a girl one has silently loved long In her first loneliness in some retreat, When, late emerged, all gaze and glow to view Her fresh eyes and soft hair and lips which bloom Like a mountain berry: doubtless it is sweet To see her thus adored, but there have been Moments when all the world was in our praise, Sweeter than any pride of after hours. Yet, sun-treader, all hail! From my heart's heart I bid thee hail! E'en in my wildest dreams, I proudly feel I would have thrown to dust The wreaths of fame which seemed o'erhanging me, To see thee for a moment as thou art. And if thou livest, if thou lovest, spirit! Remember me who set this final seal To wandering thought--that one so pure as thou Could never die. Remember me who flung All honor from my soul, yet paused and said, "There is one spark of love remaining yet, For I have naught in common with him, shapes Which followed him avoid me, and foul forms Seek me, which ne'er could fasten on his mind; And though I feel how low I am to him, Yet I aim not even to catch a tone Of harmonies he called profusely up; So, one gleam still remains, although the last." Remember me who praise thee e'en with tears, For never more shall I walk calm with thee; Thy sweet imaginings are as an air, A melody some wondrous singer sings, Which, though it haunt men oft in the still eve, They dream not to essay; yet it no less But more is honored. I was thine in shame, And now when all thy proud renown is out, I am a watcher whose eyes have grown dim With looking for some star which breaks on him Altered and worn and weak and full of tears.

Autumn has come like spring returned to us, Won from her girlishness; like one returned A friend that was a lover, nor forgets The first warm love, but full of sober thoughts Of fading years; whose soft mouth quivers yet With the old smile, but yet so changed and still! And here am I the scoffer, who have probed Life's vanity, won by a word again Into my own life--by one little word Of this sweet friend who lives in loving me, Lives strangely on my thoughts and looks and words, As fathoms down some nameless ocean thing Its silent course of quietness and joy. O dearest, if indeed I tell the past, May'st thou forget it as a sad sick dream! Or if it linger--my lost soul too soon Sinks to itself and whispers we shall be But closer linked, two creatures whom the earth Bears singly, with strange feelings unrevealed Save to each other; or two lonely things Created by some power whose reign is done, Having no part in God or his bright world. I am to sing whilst ebbing day dies soft, As a lean scholar dies worn o'er his book, And in the heaven stars steal out one by one As hunted men steal to their mountain watch. I must not think, lest this new impulse die In which I trust; I have no confidence: So, I will sing on fast as fancies come; Rudely, the verse being as the mood it paints.

I strip my mind bare, whose first elements I shall unveil--not as they struggle forth In infancy, nor as they now exist, When I am grown above them and can rule-- But in that middle stage when they were full Yet ere I had disposed them to my will; And then I shall show how these elements Produced my present state, and what it is.

I am made up of an intensest life, Of a most clear idea of consciousness Of self, distinct from all its qualities, From all affections, passions, feelings, powers; And thus far it exists, if tracked, in all: But linked, in me, to self-supremacy, Existing as a centre to all things, Most potent to create and rule and call Upon all things to minister to it; And to a principle of restlessness Which would be all, have, see, know, taste, feel, all-- This is myself; and I should thus have been Though gifted lower than the meanest soul.

And of my powers, one springs up to save From utter death a soul with such desire Confined to clay--of powers the only one Which marks me--an imagination which Has been a very angel, coming not In fitful visions, but beside me ever And never failing me; so, though my mind Forgets not, not a shred of life forgets, Yet I can take a secret pride in calling The dark past up to quell it regally.

A mind like this must dissipate itself, But I have always had one lode-star; now, As I look back, I see that I have halted Or hastened as I looked towards that star-- A need, a trust, a yearning after God: A feeling I have analyzed but late, But it existed, and was reconciled With a neglect of all I deemed his laws, Which yet, when seen in others, I abhorred. I felt as one beloved, and so shut in From fear: and thence I date my trust in signs And omens, for I saw God everywhere; And I can only lay it to the fruit Of a sad after-time that I could doubt Even his being--e'en the while I felt His presence, never acted from myself, Still trusted in a hand to lead me through All danger; and this feeling ever fought Against my weakest reason and resolve.

And I can love nothing--and this dull truth Has come the last: but sense supplies a love Encircling me and mingling with my life.

These make myself: I have long sought in vain To trace how they were formed by circumstance, Yet ever found them mould my wildest youth Where they alone displayed themselves, converted All objects to their use: now see their course!

They came to me in my first dawn of life Which passed alone with wisest ancient books All halo-girt with fancies of my own; And I myself went with the tale--a god Wandering after beauty, or a giant Standing vast in the sunset--an old hunter Talking with gods, or a high-crested chief Sailing with troops of friends to Tenedos. I tell you, naught has ever been so clear As the place, the time, the fashion of those lives: I had not seen a work of lofty art, Nor woman's beauty nor sweet nature's face, Yet, I say, never morn broke clear as those On the dim clustered isles in the blue sea, The deep groves and white temples and wet caves: And nothing ever will surprise me now-- Who stood beside the naked Swift-footed, Who bound my forehead with Proserpine's hair.

And strange it is that I who could so dream Should e'er have stooped to aim at aught beneath-- Aught low or painful; but I never doubted: So, as I grew, I rudely shaped my life To my immediate wants; yet strong beneath Was a vague sense of power though folded up-- A sense that, though those shades and times were past, Their spirit dwelt in me, with them should rule.

Then came a pause, and long restraint chained down My soul till it was changed. I lost myself, And were it not that I so loathe that loss, I could recall how first I learned to turn My mind against itself; and the effects In deeds for which remorse were vain as for The wanderings of delirious dream; yet thence Came cunning, envy, falsehood, all world's wrong That spotted me: at length I cleansed my soul. Yet long world's influence remained; and naught But the still life I led, apart once more, Which left me free to seek soul's old delights, Could e'er have brought me thus far back to peace.

As peace returned, I sought out some pursuit; And song rose, no new impulse but the one With which all others best could be combined. My life has not been that of those whose heaven Was lampless save where poesy shone out; But as a clime where glittering mountain-tops And glancing sea and forests steeped in light Give back reflected the far-flashing sun; For music (which is earnest of a heaven, Seeing we know emotions strange by it, Not else to be revealed,) is like a voice, A low voice calling fancy, as a friend, To the green woods in the gay summer time: And she fills all the way with dancing shapes Which have made painters pale, and they go on Till stars look at them and winds call to them As they leave life's path for the twilight world Where the dead gather. This was not at first, For I scarce knew what I would do. I had An impulse but no yearning--only sang.

And first I sang as I in dream have seen Music wait on a lyrist for some thought, Yet singing to herself until it came. I turned to those old times and scenes where all That's beautiful had birth for me, and made Rude verses on them all; and then I paused-- I had done nothing, so I sought to know What other minds achieved. No fear outbroke As on the works of mighty bards I gazed, In the first joy at finding my own thoughts Recorded, my own fancies justified, And their aspirings but my very own. With them I first explored passion and mind,-- All to begin afresh! I rather sought To rival what I wondered at than form Creations of my own; if much was light Lent by the others, much was yet my own.

I paused again: a change was coming--came: I was no more a boy, the past was breaking Before the future and like fever worked. I thought on my new self, and all my powers Burst out. I dreamed not of restraint, but gazed On all things: schemes and systems went and came, And I was proud (being vainest of the weak) In wandering o'er thought's world to seek some one To be my prize, as if you wandered o'er The White Way for a star.

And my choice fell Not so much on a system as a man-- On one, whom praise of mine shall not offend, Who was as calm as beauty, being such Unto mankind as thou to me, Pauline,-- Believing in them and devoting all His soul's strength to their winning back to peace; Who sent forth hopes and longings for their sake, Clothed in all passion's melodies: such first Caught me and set me, slave of a sweet task, To disentangle, gather sense from song: Since, song-inwoven, lurked there words which seemed A key to a new world, the muttering Of angels, something yet unguessed by man. How my heart leapt as still I sought and found Much there, I felt my own soul had conceived, But there living and burning! Soon the orb Of his conceptions dawned on me; its praise Lives in the tongues of men, men's brows are high When his name means a triumph and a pride, So, my weak voice may well forbear to shame What seemed decreed my fate: I threw myself To meet it, I was vowed to liberty, Men were to be as gods and earth as heaven, And I--ah, what a life was mine to prove! My whole soul rose to meet it. Now, Pauline, I shall go mad, if I recall that time!

Oh let me look back ere I leave forever The time which was an hour one fondly waits For a fair girl that comes a withered hag! And I was lonely, far from woods and fields, And amid dullest sights, who should be loose As a stag; yet I was full of bliss, who lived With Plato and who had the key to life; And I had dimly shaped my first attempt, And many a thought did I build up on thought, As the wild bee hangs cell to cell; in vain, For I must still advance, no rest for mind.

'T was in my plan to look on real life, The life all new to me; my theories Were firm, so them I left, to look and learn Mankind, its cares, hopes, fears, its woes and joys; And, as I pondered on their ways, I sought How best life's end might be attained--an end Comprising every joy. I deeply mused.

And suddenly without heart-wreck I awoke As from a dream: I said, "'T was beautiful, Yet but a dream, and so adieu to it!" As some world-wanderer sees in a far meadow Strange towers and high-walled gardens thick with trees, Where song takes shelter and delicious mirth From laughing fairy creatures peeping over, And on the morrow when he comes to lie Forever 'neath those garden-trees fruit-flushed Sung round by fairies, all his search is vain. First went my hopes of perfecting mankind, Next--faith in them, and then in freedom's self And virtue's self, then my own motives, ends And aims and loves, and human love went last. I felt this no decay, because new powers Rose as old feelings left--wit, mockery, Light-heartedness; for I had oft been sad, Mistrusting my resolves, but now I cast Hope joyously away: I laughed and said, "No more of this!" I must not think: at length I looked again to see if all went well.

My powers were greater: as some temple seemed My soul, where naught is changed and incense rolls Around the altar, only God is gone And some dark spirit sitteth in his seat. So, I passed through the temple and to me Knelt troops of shadows, and they cried, "Hail, king! We serve thee now and thou shalt serve no more! Call on us, prove us, let us worship thee!" And I said, "Are ye strong? Let fancy bear me Far from the past!" And I was borne away, As Arab birds float sleeping in the wind, O'er deserts, towers and forests, I being calm. And I said, "I have nursed up energies, They will prey on me." And a band knelt low And cried, "Lord, we are here and we will make Safe way for thee in thine appointed life! But look on us!" And I said, "Ye will worship Me; should my heart not worship too?" They shouted, "Thyself, thou art our king!" So, I stood there Smiling--oh, vanity of vanities! For buoyant and rejoicing was the spirit With which I looked out how to end my course; I felt once more myself, my powers--all mine; I knew while youth and health so lifted me That, spite of all life's nothingness, no grief Came nigh me, I must ever be light-hearted; And that this knowledge was the only veil Betwixt joy and despair: so, if age came, I should be left--a wreck linked to a soul Yet fluttering, or mind-broken and aware Of my decay. So a long summer morn Found me; and ere noon came, I had resolved No age should come on me ere youth was spent, For I would wear myself out, like that morn Which wasted not a sunbeam; every hour I would make mine, and die.

And thus I sought To chain my spirit down which erst I freed For flights to fame: I said, "The troubled life Of genius, seen so gay when working forth Some trusted end, grows sad when all proves vain-- How sad when men have parted with truth's peace For falsest fancy's sake, which waited first As an obedient spirit when delight Came without fancy's call: but alters soon, Comes darkened, seldom, hastens to depart, Leaving a heavy darkness and warm tears. But I shall never lose her; she will live Dearer for such seclusion. I but catch A hue, a glance of what I sing: so, pain Is linked with pleasure, for I ne'er may tell Half the bright sights which dazzle me; but now Mine shall be all the radiance: let them fade Untold--others shall rise as fair, as fast! And when all's done, the few dim gleams transferred,"-- (For a new thought sprang up how well it were, Discarding shadowy hope, to weave such lays As straight encircle men with praise and love, So, I should not die utterly,--should bring One branch from the gold forest, like the knight Of old tales, witnessing I had been there)-- "And when all's done, how vain seems e'en success-- The vaunted influence poets have o'er men! 'Tis a fine thing that one weak as myself Should sit in his lone room, knowing the words He utters in his solitude shall move Men like a swift wind--that though dead and gone, New eyes shall glisten when his beauteous dreams Of love come true in happier frames than his. Ay, the still night brings thoughts like these, but morn Comes and the mockery again laughs out At hollow praises, smiles allied to sneers; And my soul's idol ever whispers me To dwell with him and his unhonored song: And I foreknow my spirit, that would press First in the struggle, fail again to make All bow enslaved, and I again should sink.

"And then know that this curse will come on us, To see our idols perish; we may wither, No marvel, we are clay, but our low fate Should not extend to those whom trustingly We sent before into time's yawning gulf To face what dread may lurk in darkness there. To find the painter's glory pass, and feel Music can move us not as once, or, worst, To weep decaying wits ere the frail body Decays! Naught makes me trust some love is true, But the delight of the contented lowness With which I gaze on him I keep forever Above me; I to rise and rival him? Feed his fame rather from my heart's best blood, Wither unseen that he may flourish still."

Pauline, my soul's friend, thou dost pity yet How this mood swayed me when that soul found thine, When I had set myself to live this life, Defying all past glory. Ere thou camest I seemed defiant, sweet, for old delights Had flocked like birds again; music, my life, Nourished me more than ever; then the lore Loved for itself and all it shows--that king Treading the purple calmly to his death, While round him, like the clouds of eve, all dusk, The giant shades of fate, silently flitting, Pile the dim outline of the coming doom; And him sitting alone in blood while friends Are hunting far in the sunshine; and the boy With his white breast and brow and clustering curls Streaked with his mother's blood, but striving hard To tell his story ere his reason goes. And when I loved thee as love seemed so oft, Thou lovedst me indeed: I wondering searched My heart to find some feeling like such love, Believing I was still much I had been. Too soon I found all faith had gone from me, And the late glow of life, like change on clouds, Proved not the morn-blush widening into day, But eve faint-colored by the dying sun While darkness hastens quickly. I will tell My state as though 't were none of mine--despair Cannot come near us--this it is, my state.

Souls alter not, and mine must still advance; Strange that I knew not, when I flung away My youth's chief aims, their loss might lead to loss Of what few I retained, and no resource Be left me: for behold how changed is all! I cannot chain my soul: it will not rest In its clay prison, this most narrow sphere: It has strange impulse, tendency, desire, Which nowise I account for nor explain, But cannot stifle, being bound to trust All feelings equally, to hear all sides: How can my life indulge them? yet they live, Referring to some state of life unknown.

My selfishness is satiated not, It wears me like a flame; my hunger for All pleasure, howsoe'er minute, grows pain; I envy--how I envy him whose soul Turns its whole energies to some one end, To elevate an aim, pursue success However mean! So, my still baffled hope Seeks out abstractions; I would have one joy, But one in life, so it were wholly mine, One rapture all my soul could fill: and this Wild feeling places me in dream afar In some vast country where the eye can see No end to the far hills and dales bestrewn With shining towers and towns, till I grow mad Well-nigh, to know not one abode but holds Some pleasure, while my soul could grasp the world, But must remain this vile form's slave. I look With hope to age at last, which quenching much, May let me concentrate what sparks it spares.

This restlessness of passion meets in me A craving after knowledge: the sole proof Of yet commanding will is in that power Repressed; for I beheld it in its dawn, The sleepless harpy with just-budding wings, And I considered whether to forego All happy ignorant hopes and fears, to live, Finding a recompense in its wild eyes. And when I found that I should perish so, I bade its wild eyes close from me forever, And I am left alone with old delights; See! it lies in me a chained thing, still prompt To serve me if I loose its slightest bond: I cannot but be proud of my bright slave.

How should this earth's life prove my only sphere? Can I so narrow sense but that in life Soul still exceeds it? In their elements My love outsoars my reason; but since love Perforce receives its object from this earth While reason wanders chainless, the few truths Caught from its wanderings have sufficed to quell Love chained below; then what were love, set free, Which, with the object it demands, would pass Reason companioning the seraphim? No, what I feel may pass all human love Yet fall far short of what my love should be. And yet I seem more warped in this than aught, Myself stands out more hideously: of old I could forget myself in friendship, fame, Liberty, nay, in love of mightier souls; But I begin to know what thing hate is-- To sicken and to quiver and grow white-- And I myself have furnished its first prey. Hate of the weak and ever-wavering will, The selfishness, the still-decaying frame ... But I must never grieve whom wing can waft Far from such thoughts--as now. Andromeda! And she is with me: years roll, I shall change, But change can touch her not--so beautiful With her fixed eyes, earnest and still, and hair Lifted and spread by the salt-sweeping breeze, And one red beam, all the storm leaves in heaven, Resting upon her eyes and hair, such hair, As she awaits the snake on the wet beach By the dark rock and the white wave just breaking At her feet; quite naked and alone; a thing I doubt not, nor fear for, secure some god To save will come in thunder from the stars. Let it pass! Soul requires another change. I will be gifted with a wondrous mind, Yet sunk by error to men's sympathy, And in the wane of life, yet only so As to call up their fears; and there shall come A time requiring youth's best energies; And lo, I fling age, sorrow, sickness off, And rise triumphant, triumph through decay. And thus it is that I supply the chasm 'Twixt what I am and all I fain would be: But then to know nothing, to hope for nothing, To seize on life's dull joys from a strange fear Lest, losing them, all's lost and naught remains!

There 's some vile juggle with my reason here; I feel I but explain to my own loss These impulses: they live no less the same. Liberty! what though I despair? my blood Rose never at a slave's name proud as now. Oh sympathies, obscured by sophistries!-- Why else have I sought refuge in myself, But from the woes I saw and could not stay? Love! is not this to love thee, my Pauline? I cherish prejudice, lest I be left Utterly loveless? witness my belief In poets, though sad change has come there too; No more I leave myself to follow them-- Unconsciously I measure me by them-- Let me forget it: and I cherish most My love of England--how her name, a word Of hers in a strange tongue makes my heart beat!

Pauline, could I but break the spell! Not now-- All's fever--but when calm shall come again, I am prepared: I have made life my own. I would not be content with all the change One frame should feel, but I have gone in thought Through all conjuncture, I have lived all life When it is most alive, where strangest fate New-shapes it past surmise--the throes of men Bit by some curse or in the grasps of doom Half-visible and still-increasing round, Or crowning their wide being's general aim.

These are wild fancies, but I feel, sweet friend, As one breathing his weakness to the ear Of pitying angel--dear as a winter flower, A slight flower growing alone, and offering Its frail cup of three leaves to the cold sun, Yet joyous and confiding like the triumph Of a child: and why am I not worthy thee? I can live all the life of plants, and gaze Drowsily on the bees that flit and play, Or bare my breast for sunbeams which will kill, Or open in the night of sounds, to look For the dim stars; I can mount with the bird Leaping airily his pyramid of leaves And twisted boughs of some tall mountain tree, Or rise cheerfully springing to the heavens; Or like a fish breathe deep the morning air In the misty sun-warm water; or with flower And tree can smile in light at the sinking sun Just as the storm comes, as a girl would look On a departing lover--most serene.

Pauline, come with me, see how I could build A home for us, out of the world, in thought! I am uplifted: fly with me, Pauline!

Night, and one single ridge of narrow path Between the sullen river and the woods Waving and muttering, for the moonless night Has shaped them into images of life, Like the uprising of the giant-ghosts, Looking on earth to know how their sons fare: Thou art so close by me, the roughest swell Of wind in the tree-tops hides not the panting Of thy soft breasts. No, we will pass to morning-- Morning, the rocks and valleys and old woods. How the sun brightens in the mist, and here, Half in the air, like creatures of the place, Trusting the element, living on high boughs That swing in the wind--look at the silver spray Flung from the foam-sheet of the cataract Amid the broken rocks! Shall we stay here With the wild hawks? No, ere the hot noon come, Dive we down--safe! See this our new retreat Walled in with a sloped mound of matted shrubs, Dark, tangled, old and green, still sloping down To a small pool whose waters lie asleep Amid the trailing boughs turned water-plants: And tall trees overarch to keep us in, Breaking the sunbeams into emerald shafts, And in the dreamy water one small group Of two or three strange trees are got together Wondering at all around, as strange beasts herd Together far from their own land: all wildness, No turf nor moss, for boughs and plants pave all, And tongues of bank go shelving in the lymph, Where the pale-throated snake reclines his head, And old gray stones lie making eddies there, The wild-mice cross them dry-shod. Deeper in! Shut thy soft eyes--now look--still deeper in! This is the very heart of the woods all round Mountain-like heaped above us; yet even here One pond of water gleams; far off the river Sweeps like a sea, barred out from land; but one-- One thin clear sheet has overleaped and wound Into this silent depth, which gained, it lies Still, as but let by sufferance; the trees bend O'er it as wild men watch a sleeping girl, And through their roots long creeping plants out-stretch Their twined hair, steeped and sparkling; farther on, Tall rushes and thick flag-knots have combined To narrow it; so, at length, a silver thread, It winds, all noiselessly through the deep wood Till through a cleft-way, through the moss and stone, It joins its parent-river with a shout.

Up for the glowing day, leave the old woods! See, they part like a ruined arch: the sky! Nothing but sky appears, so close the roots And grass of the hill-top level with the air-- Blue sunny air, where a great cloud floats laden With light, like a dead whale that white birds pick, Floating away in the sun in some north sea. Air, air, fresh life-blood, thin and searching air, The clear, dear breath of God that loveth us, Where small birds reel and winds take their delight! Water is beautiful, but not like air: See, where the solid azure waters lie Made as of thickened air, and down below, The fern-ranks like a forest spread themselves As though each pore could feel the element; Where the quick glancing serpent winds his way, Float with me there, Pauline!--but not like air.

Down the hill! Stop--a clump of trees, see, set On a heap of rock, which look o'er the far plain: So, envious climbing shrubs would mount to rest And peer from their spread boughs; wide they wave, looking At the muleteers who whistle on their way, To the merry chime of morning bells, past all The little smoking cots, mid fields and banks And copses bright in the sun. My spirit wanders: Hedgerows for me--those living hedgerows where The bushes close and clasp above and keep Thought in--I am concentrated--I feel; But my soul saddens when it looks beyond: I cannot be immortal, taste all joy.

O God, where do they tend--these struggling aims? What would I have? What is this "sleep" which seems To bound all? can there be a "waking" point Of crowning life? The soul would never rule; It would be first in all things, it would have Its utmost pleasure filled, but, that complete, Commanding, for commanding, sickens it. The last point I can trace is--rest beneath Some better essence than itself, in weakness; This is "myself," not what I think should be: And what is that I hunger for but God?

My God, my God, let me for once look on thee As though naught else existed, we alone! And as creation crumbles, my soul's spark Expands till I can say,--Even from myself I need thee and I feel thee and I love thee. I do not plead my rapture in thy works For love of thee, nor that I feel as one Who cannot die: but there is that in me Which turns to thee, which loves or which should love.

Why have I girt myself with this hell-dress? Why have I labored to put out my life? Is it not in my nature to adore, And e'en for all my reason do I not Feel him, and thank him, and pray to him--now? Can I forego the trust that he loves me? Do I not feel a love which only ONE... O thou pale form, so dimly seen, deep-eyed! I have denied thee calmly--do I not Pant when I read of thy consummate power. And burn to see thy calm pure truths out-flash The brightest gleams of earth's philosophy? Do I not shake to hear aught question thee? If I am erring save me, madden me, Take from me powers and pleasures, let me die Ages, so I see thee! I am knit round As with a charm by sin and lust and pride. Yet though my wandering dreams have seen all shapes Of strange delight, oft have I stood by thee-- Have I been keeping lonely watch with thee In the damp night by weeping Olivet, Or leaning on thy bosom, proudly less, Or dying with thee on the lonely cross, Or witnessing thine outburst from the tomb.

A mortal, sin's familiar friend, doth here Avow that he will give all earth's reward, But to believe and humbly teach the faith, In suffering and poverty and shame, Only believing he is not unloved.

And now, my Pauline, I am thine forever! I feel the spirit which has buoyed me up Desert me, and old shades are gathering fast; Yet while the last light waits, I would say much, This chiefly, it is gain that I have said Somewhat of love I ever felt for thee But seldom told; our hearts so beat together That speech seemed mockery; but when dark hours come, And joy departs, and thou, sweet, deem'st it strange A sorrow moves me, thou canst not remove, Look on this lay I dedicate to thee, Which through thee I began, which thus I end, Collecting the last gleams to strive to tell How I am thine, and more than ever now That I sink fast: yet though I deeplier sink, No less song proves one word has brought me bliss, Another still may win bliss surely back. Thou knowest, dear, I could not think all calm, For fancies followed thought and bore me off, And left all indistinct; ere one was caught Another glanced; so, dazzled by my wealth, I knew not which to leave nor which to choose, For all so floated, naught was fixed and firm. And then thou said'st a perfect bard was one Who chronicled the stages of all life, And so thou bad'st me shadow this first stage. 'T is done, and even now I recognize The shift, the change from last to past--discern Faintly how life is truth and truth is good. And why thou must be mine is, that e'en now In the dim hush of night, that I have done, Despite the sad forebodings, love looks through-- Whispers,--E'en at the last I have her still, With her delicious eyes as clear as heaven When rain in a quick shower has beat down mist, And clouds float white above like broods of swans. How the blood lies upon her cheek, outspread As thinned by kisses! only in her lips It wells and pulses like a living thing, And her neck looks like marble misted o'er With love-breath,--a Pauline from heights above, Stooping beneath me, looking up--one look As I might kill her and be loved the more.

So, love me--me, Pauline, and naught but me, Never leave loving! Words are wild and weak, Believe them not, Pauline! I stained myself But to behold thee purer by my side, To show thou art my breath, my life, a last Resource, an extreme want: never believe Aught better could so look on thee; nor seek Again the world of good thoughts left for mine! There were bright troops of undiscovered suns, Each equal in their radiant course; there were Clusters of far fair isles which ocean kept For his own joy, and his waves broke on them Without a choice; and there was a dim crowd Of visions, each a part of some grand whole: And one star left his peers and came with peace Upon a storm, and all eyes pined for him; And one isle harbored a sea-beaten ship, And the crew wandered in its bowers and plucked Its fruits and gave up all their hopes of home; And one dream came to a pale poet's sleep, And he said, "I am singled out by God, No sin must touch me." Words are wild and weak, But what they would express is,--Leave me not, Still sit by me with beating breast and hair Loosened, be watching earnest by my side, Turning my books or kissing me when I Look up--like summer wind! Be still to me A help to music's mystery which mind fails To fathom, its solution, no mere clue! O reason's pedantry, life's rule prescribed! I hopeless, I the loveless, hope and love. Wiser and better, know me now, not when You loved me as I was. Smile not! I have Much yet to dawn on you, to gladden you. No more of the past! I'll look within no more, I have too trusted my own lawless wants, Too trusted my vain self, vague intuition-- Draining soul's wine alone in the still night, And seeing how, as gathering films arose, As by an inspiration life seemed bare And grinning in its vanity, while ends Foul to be dreamed of, smiled at me as fixed And fair, while others changed from fair to foul As a young witch turns an old hag at night. No more of this! We will go hand in hand, I with thee, even as a child--love's slave, Looking no farther than his liege commands.

And thou hast chosen where this life shall be: The land which gave me thee shall be our home, Where nature lies all wild amid her lakes And snow-swathed mountains and vast pines begirt With ropes of snow--where nature lies all bare, Suffering none to view her but a race Or stinted or deformed, like the mute dwarfs Which wait upon a naked Indian queen. And there (the time being when the heavens are thick With storm) I'll sit with thee while thou dost sing Thy native songs, gay as a desert bird Which crieth as it flies for perfect joy, Or telling me old stories of dead knights; Or I will read great lays to thee--how she, The fair pale sister, went to her chill grave With power to love and to be loved and live: Or we will go together, like twin gods Of the infernal world, with scented lamp Over the dead, to call and to awake, Over the unshaped images which lie Within my mind's cave: only leaving all, That tells of the past doubt. So, when spring comes With sunshine back again like an old smile, And the fresh waters and awakened birds And budding woods await us, I shall be Prepared, and we will question life once more, Till its old sense shall come renewed by change, Like some clear thought which harsh words veiled before; Feeling God loves us, and that all which errs Is but a dream which death will dissipate. And then what need of longer exile? Seek My England, and, again there, calm approach All I once fled from, calmly look on those The works of my past weakness, as one views Some scene where danger met him long before. Ah that such pleasant life should be but dreamed!

But whate'er come of it, and though it fade, And though ere the cold morning all be gone, As it may be;--though music wait to wile, And strange eyes and bright wine lure, laugh like sin Which steals back softly on a soul half saved, And I the first deny, decry, despise, With this avowal, these intents so fair,-- Still be it all my own, this moment's pride! No less I make an end in perfect joy. E'en in my brightest time, a lurking fear Possessed me: I well knew my weak resolves, I felt the witchery that makes mind sleep Over its treasure, as one half afraid To make his riches definite: but now These feelings shall not utterly be lost, I shall not know again that nameless care Lest, leaving all undone in youth, some new And undreamed end reveal itself too late: For this song shall remain to tell forever That when I lost all hope of such a change, Suddenly beauty rose on me again. No less I make an end in perfect joy, For I, who thus again was visited, Shall doubt not many another bliss awaits, And, though this weak soul sink and darkness whelm, Some little word shall light it, raise aloft, To where I clearlier see and better love, As I again go o'er the tracts of thought Like one who has a right, and I shall live With poets, calmer, purer still each time, And beauteous shapes will come for me to seize, And unknown secrets will be trusted me Which were denied the waverer once; but now I shall be priest and prophet as of old.

Sun-treader, I believe in God and truth And love; and as one just escaped from death Would bind himself in bands of friends to feel He lives indeed, so, I would lean on thee! Thou must be ever with me, most in gloom If such must come, but chiefly when I die, For I seem, dying, as one going in the dark To fight a giant: but live thou forever, And be to all what thou hast been to me! All in whom this wakes pleasant thoughts of me Know my last state is happy, free from doubt Or touch of fear. Love me and wish me well.

SONNET.

Mr. Gosse in his Personalia copies from the Monthly Repository the following sonnet. Three other pieces first printed in the same periodical will be found as afterward grouped in Bells and Pomegranates.

Eyes, calm beside thee (Lady, couldst thou know!) May turn away thick with fast gathering tears: I glance not where all gaze: thrilling and low Their passionate praises reach thee--my cheek wears Alone no wonder when thou passest by; Thy tremulous lids, bent and suffused, reply To the irrepressible homage which doth glow On every lip but mine: if in thine ears Their accents linger--and thou dost recall Me as I stood, still, guarded, very pale, Beside each votarist whose lighted brow Wore worship like an aureole, "O'er them all My beauty," thou wilt murmur, "did prevail Save that one only:"--Lady, couldst thou know!

August 17, 1834.

PARACELSUS

INSCRIBED TO

AMÉDÉE DE RIPERT-MONCLAR

BY HIS AFFECTIONATE FRIEND

LONDON, March 15, 1835. R. B.

The dedication of Paracelsus was, in a degree, the payment of a debt, for it was the young count, four years older than Browning, and at the time a private agent in England between the Duchesse de Berri and her royalist friends in France, who suggested the subject to the poet. When first published Paracelsus had the following Preface: "I am anxious that the reader should not, at the very outset,--mistaking my performance for one of a class with which it has nothing in common,--judge it by principles on which it was never moulded, and subject it to a standard to which it was never meant to conform. I therefore anticipate his discovery, that it is an attempt, probably more novel than happy, to reverse the method usually adopted by writers whose aim it is to set forth any phenomena of the mind or the passions, by the operation of persons and events; and that, instead of having recourse to an external machinery of incidents to create and evolve the crisis I desire to produce, I have ventured to display somewhat minutely the mood itself in its rise and progress, and have suffered the agency by which it is influenced and determined, to be generally discernible in its effects alone, and subordinate throughout, if not altogether excluded: and this for a reason. I have endeavored to write a poem, not a drama: the canons of the drama are well known, and I cannot but think that, inasmuch as they have immediate regard to stage representation, the peculiar advantages they hold out are really such only so long as the purpose for which they were at first instituted is kept in view. I do not very well understand what is called a Dramatic Poem, wherein all those restrictions only submitted to on account of compensating good in the original scheme are scrupulously retained, as though for some special fitness in themselves--and all new facilities placed at an author's disposal by the vehicle he selects, as pertinaciously rejected. It is certain, however, that a work like mine depends on the intelligence and sympathy of the reader for its success,--indeed were my scenes stars, it must be his coöperating fancy which, supplying all chasms, shall collect the scattered lights into one constellation--a Lyre or a Crown. I trust for his indulgence towards a poem which had not been imagined six months ago; and that even should he think slightingly of the present (an experiment I am in no case likely to repeat) he will not be prejudiced against other productions which may follow in a more popular, and perhaps less difficult form."

Mr. Browning, senior, paid for the publication of Paracelsus. In its final form, as here given, it is greatly changed, not in structure but in phrase. Mr. Cooke states that the change affects nearly a third of the lines.

PERSONS

AUREOLUS PARACELSUS, a student. FESTUS and MICHAL, his friends. APRILE, an Italian poet.

I. PARACELSUS ASPIRES

SCENE, Würzburg: a garden in the environs. 1512.

FESTUS, PARACELSUS, MICHAL.

Paracelsus. Come close to me, dear friends; still closer; thus! Close to the heart which, though long time roll by Ere it again beat quicker, pressed to yours, As now it beats--perchance a long, long time-- At least henceforth your memories shall make Quiet and fragrant as befits their home. Nor shall my memory want a home in yours-- Alas, that it requires too well such free Forgiving love as shall embalm it there! For if you would remember me aright, As I was born to be, you must forget All fitful, strange and moody waywardness Which e'er confused my better spirit, to dwell Only on moments such as these, dear friends! --My heart no truer, but my words and ways More true to it: as Michal, some months hence, Will say, "this autumn was a pleasant time," For some few sunny days; and overlook Its bleak wind, hankering after pining leaves. Autumn would fain be sunny; I would look Liker my nature's truth: and both are frail, And both beloved, for all our frailty.

Michal. Aureole!

Par. Drop by drop! she is weeping like a child! Not so! I am content--more than content; Nay, autumn wins you best by this its mute Appeal to sympathy for its decay: Look up, sweet Michal, nor esteem the less Your stained and drooping vines their grapes bow down, Nor blame those creaking trees bent with their fruit, That apple-tree with a rare after-birth Of peeping blooms sprinkled its wealth among! Then for the winds--what wind that ever raved Shall vex that ash which overlooks you both, So proud it wears its berries? Ah, at length, The old smile meet for her, the lady of this Sequestered nest!--this kingdom, limited Alone by one old populous green wall Tenanted by the ever-busy flies. Gray crickets and shy lizards and quick spiders, Each family of the silver-threaded moss-- Which, look through near, this way, and it appears A stubble-field or a cane-brake, a marsh Of bulrush whitening in the sun: laugh now! Fancy the crickets, each one in his house, Looking out, wondering at the world--or best, Yon painted snail with his gay shell of dew, Travelling to see the glossy balls high up Hung by the caterpillar, like gold lamps.

Mich. In truth we have lived carelessly and well.

Par. And shall, my perfect pair!--each, trust me, born For the other; nay, your very hair, when mixed, Is of one hue. For where save in this nook Shall you two walk, when I am far away, And wish me prosperous fortune? Stay: that plant Shall never wave its tangles lightly and softly, As a queen's languid and imperial arm Which scatters crowns among her lovers, but you Shall be reminded to predict to me Some great success! Ah see, the sun sinks broad Behind Saint Saviour's: wholly gone, at last!

Festus. Now, Aureole, stay those wandering eyes awhile! You are ours to-night, at least; and while you spoke Of Michal and her tears, I thought that none Could willing leave what he so seemed to love: But that last look destroys my dream--that look As if, where'er you gazed, there stood a star! How far was Würzburg with its church and spire And garden-walls and all things they contain, From that look's far alighting?

Par. I but spoke And looked alike from simple joy to see The beings I love best, shut in so well From all rude chances like to be my lot, That, when afar, my weary spirit,--disposed To lose awhile its care in soothing thoughts Of them, their pleasant features, looks and words,-- Needs never hesitate, nor apprehend Encroaching trouble may have readied them too, Nor have recourse to fancy's busy aid And fashion even a wish in their behalf Beyond what they possess already here; But, unobstructed, may at once forget Itself in them, assured how well they fare. Beside, this Festus knows he holds me one Whom quiet and its charms arrest in vain, One scarce aware of all the joys I quit, Too filled with airy hopes to make account Of soft delights his own heart garners up: Whereas behold how much our sense of all That's beauteous proves alike! When Festus learns That every common pleasure of the world Affects me as himself; that I have just As varied appetite for joy derived From common things; a stake in life, in short, Like his; a stake which rash pursuit of aims That life affords not, would as soon destroy;-- He may convince himself that, this in view, I shall act well advised. And last, because, Though heaven and earth and all things were at stake, Sweet Michal must not weep, our parting eve.

Fest. True: and the eve is deepening, and we sit As little anxious to begin our talk As though to-morrow I could hint of it As we paced arm-in-arm the cheerful town At sun-dawn; or could whisper it by fits (Trithemius busied with his class the while) In that dim chamber where the noon-streaks peer Half-frightened by the awful tomes around; Or in some grassy lane unbosom all From even-blush to midnight: but, to-morrow! Have I full leave to tell my inmost mind? We have been brothers, and henceforth the world Will rise between us:--all my freest mind? 'T is 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 Be spent the while, the better! Recall how oft My wondrous plans and dreams and hopes and fears Have--never wearied you, oh no!--as I 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? 'T is 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 despatched 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 Has 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.

Par. Dear Festus, hear me. What is it you wish? 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!

Fest. When you deign To hear my purpose ...

Par. Hear it? I can say Beforehand all this evening's conference! 'T is 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 naught 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 you abide 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--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, Mostly in this,--that in itself alone 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 you search 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 naught to fear! Who will may know The secret'st workings of my soul. What though It be so?--if indeed the strong desire Eclipse the aim in me?--if splendor break Upon the outset of my path alone, And duskest shade succeed? What fairer seal Shall I require to my authentic mission Than this fierce energy?--this instinct striving Because its nature is to strive?--enticed By the security of no broad course, Without success forever in its eyes! How know I else such glorious fate my own, But in the restless irresistible force That works within me? Is it for human will To institute such impulses?--still less, To disregard their promptings! What should I Do, kept among you all; your loves, your cares, Your life--all to be mine? Be sure that God Ne'er dooms to waste the strength he deigns impart! Ask the geier-eagle why she stoops at once Into the vast and unexplored abyss, What full-grown power informs her from the first, Why she not marvels, strenuously beating The silent boundless regions of the sky! Be sure they sleep not whom God needs! Nor fear Their holding light his charge, when every hour That finds that charge delayed, is a new death. This for the faith in which I trust; and hence I can abjure so well the idle arts These pedants strive to learn and teach; Black Arts, Great Works, the Secret and Sublime, forsooth-- Let others prize: too intimate a tie Connects me with our God! A sullen fiend To do my bidding, fallen and hateful sprites To help me--what are these, at best, beside God helping, God directing everywhere, So that the earth shall yield her secrets up, And every object there be charged to strike, Teach, gratify her master God appoints? And I am young, my Festus, happy and free! I can devote myself; I have a life To give; I, singled out for this, the One! Think, think! the wide East, where all Wisdom sprung; The bright South, where she dwelt; the hopeful North, All are passed o'er--it lights on me! 'T is time New hopes should animate the world, new light Should dawn from new revealings to a race Weighed down so long, forgotten so long; thus shall The heaven reserved for us at last receive Creatures whom no unwonted splendors blind, But ardent to confront the unclouded blaze, Whose beams not seldom blessed their pilgrimage, Not seldom glorified their life below.

Fest. My words have their old fate and make faint stand Against your glowing periods. Call this, truth-- Why not pursue it in a fast retreat, Some one of Learning's many palaces, After approved example?--seeking there Calm converse with the great dead, soul to soul, Who laid up treasure with the like intent --So lift yourself into their airy place, And fill out full their unfulfilled careers, Unravelling the knots their baffled skill Pronounced inextricable, true!--but left Far less confused. A fresh eye, a fresh hand, Might do much at their vigor's waning-point; Succeeding with new-breathed new-hearted force, As at old games the runner snatched the torch From runner still: this way success might be. But you have coupled with your enterprise An arbitrary self-repugnant scheme Of seeking it in strange and untried paths. What books are in the desert? Writes the sea The secret of her yearning in vast caves Where yours will fall the first of human feet? Has wisdom sat there and recorded aught You press to read? Why turn aside from her To visit, where her vesture never glanced, Now--solitudes consigned to barrenness By God's decree, which who shall dare impugn? Now--ruins where she paused but would not stay, Old ravaged cities that, renouncing her, She called an endless curse on, so it came: Or worst of all, now--men you visit, men, Ignoblest troops who never heard her voice Or hate it, men without one gift from Rome Or Athens,--these shall Aureole's teachers be! Rejecting past example, practice, precept, Aidless 'mid these he thinks to stand alone: Thick like a glory round the Stagirite Your rivals throng, the sages: here stand you! Whatever you may protest, knowledge is not Paramount in your love; or for her sake You would collect all help from every source-- Rival, assistant, friend, foe, all would merge In the broad class of those who showed her haunts, And those who showed them not.

Par. What shall I say? Festus, from childhood I have been possessed By a fire--by a true fire, or faint or fierce, As from without some master, so it seemed, Repressed or urged its current: this but ill Expresses what I would convey: but rather I will believe an angel ruled me thus, Than that my soul's own workings, own high nature, So became manifest. I knew not then What whispered in the evening, and spoke out At midnight. If some mortal, born too soon, Were laid away in some great trance--the ages Coming and going all the while--till dawned His true time's advent; and could then record The words they spoke who kept watch by his bed,-- Then I might tell more of the breath so light Upon my eyelids, and the fingers light Among my hair. Youth is confused; yet never So dull was I but, when that spirit passed, I turned to him, scarce consciously, as turns A water-snake when fairies cross his sleep. And having this within me and about me While Einsiedeln, its mountains, lakes and woods Confined me--what oppressive joy was mine When life grew plain, and I first viewed the thronged, The everlasting concourse of mankind! Believe that ere I joined them, ere I knew The purpose of the pageant, or the place Consigned me in its ranks--while, just awake, Wonder was freshest and delight most pure-- 'T was then that least supportable appeared A station with the brightest of the crowd, A portion with the proudest of them all. And from the tumult in my breast, this only Could I collect, that I must thenceforth die Or elevate myself far, far above The gorgeous spectacle. I seemed to long At once to trample on, yet save mankind, To make some unexampled sacrifice In their behalf, to wring some wondrous good From heaven or earth for them, to perish, winning Eternal weal in the act: as who should dare Pluck out the angry thunder from its cloud, That, all its gathered flame discharged on him, No storm might threaten summer's azure sleep: Yet never to be mixed with men so much As to have part even in my own work, share In my own largess. Once the feat achieved, I would withdraw from their officious praise, Would gently put aside their profuse thanks. Like some knight traversing a wilderness, Who, on his way, may chance to free a tribe Of desert-people from their dragon-foe; When all the swarthy race press round to kiss His feet, and choose him for their king, and yield Their poor tents, pitched among the sand-hills, for His realm: and he points, smiling, to his scarf Heavy with riveled gold, his burgonet Gay set with twinkling stones--and to the East, Where these must be displayed!

Fest. Good: let us hear No more about your nature, "which first shrank From all that marked you out apart from men!"

Par. I touch on that; these words but analyze The first mad impulse: 't was as brief as fond, For as I gazed again upon the show, I soon distinguished here and there a shape Palm-wreathed and radiant, forehead and full eye. Well pleased was I their state should thus at once Interpret my own thoughts:--"Behold the clue To all," I rashly said, "and what I pine To do, these have accomplished: we are peers. They know and therefore rule: I too, will know!" You were beside me, Festus, as you say; You saw me plunge in their pursuits whom fame Is lavish to attest the lords of mind, Not pausing to make sure the prize in view Would satiate my cravings when obtained, But since they strove I strove. Then came a slow And strangling failure. We aspired alike, Yet not the meanest plodder, Tritheim counts A marvel, but was all-sufficient, strong Or staggered only at his own vast wits; While I was restless, nothing satisfied, Distrustful, most perplexed. I would slur over That struggle; suffice it, that I loathed myself As weak compared with them, yet felt somehow A mighty power was brooding, taking shape Within me; and this lasted till one night When, as I sat revolving it and more, A still voice from without said--"Seest thou not, Desponding child, whence spring defeat and loss? Even from thy strength. Consider: hast thou gazed Presumptuously on wisdom's countenance, No veil between; and can thy faltering hands, Unguided by the brain the sight absorbs, Pursue their task as earnest blinkers do Whom radiance ne'er distracted? Live their life If thou wouldst share their fortune, choose their eyes Unfed by splendor. Let each task present Its petty good to thee. Waste not thy gifts In profitless waiting for the gods' descent, But have some idol of thine own to dress With their array. Know, not for knowing's sake, But to become a star to men forever; Know, for the gain it gets, the praise it brings, The wonder it inspires, the love it breeds: Look one step onward, and secure that step!" And I smiled as one never smiles but once, Then first discovering my own aim's extent, Which sought to comprehend the works of God, And God himself, and all God's intercourse With the human mind; I understood, no less, My fellows' studies, whose true worth I saw, But smiled not, well aware who stood by me. And softer came the voice--"There is a way: 'T is hard for flesh to tread therein, imbued With frailty--hopeless, if indulgence first Have ripened inborn germs of sin to strength: Wilt thou adventure for my sake and man's, Apart from all reward?" And last it breathed-- "Be happy, my good soldier; I am by thee, Be sure, even to the end!"--I answered not, Knowing him. As he spoke, I was endued With comprehension and a steadfast will; And when he ceased, my brow was sealed his own. If there took place no special change in me, How comes it all things wore a different hue Thenceforward?--pregnant with vast consequence, Teeming with grand result, loaded with fate? So that when, quailing at the mighty range Of secret truths which yearn for birth, I haste To contemplate undazzled some one truth, Its bearings and effects alone--at once What was a speck expands into a star, Asking a life to pass exploring thus, Till I near craze. I go to prove my soul! I see my way as birds their trackless way. I shall arrive! what time, what circuit first, I ask not: but unless God send his hail Or blinding fireballs, sleet or stifling snow, In some time, his good time, I shall arrive: He guides me and the bird. In his good time!

Mich. Vex him no further, Festus; it is so!

Fest. Just thus you help me ever. This would hold Were it the trackless air, and not a path Inviting you, distinct with footprints yet Of many a mighty marcher gone that way. You may have purer views than theirs, perhaps, But they were famous in their day--the proofs Remain. At least accept the light they lend.

Par. Their light! the sum of all is briefly this: They labored and grew famous, and the fruits Are best seen in a dark and groaning earth Given over to a blind and endless strife With evils, what of all their lore abates? No; I reject and spurn them utterly And all they teach. Shall I still sit beside Their dry wells, with a white lip and filmed eye, While in the distance heaven is blue above Mountains where sleep the unsunned tarns?

Fest. And yet As strong delusions have prevailed ere now. Men have set out as gallantly to seek Their ruin. I have heard of such: yourself Avow all hitherto have failed and fallen.

Mich. Nay, Festus, when but as the pilgrims faint Through the drear way, do you expect to see Their city dawn amid the clouds afar?

Par. Ay, sounds it not like some old well-known tale? For me, I estimate their works and them So rightly, that at times I almost dream I too have spent a life the sages' way, And tread once more familiar paths. Perchance I perished in an arrogant self-reliance Ages ago; and in that act, a prayer For one more chance went up so earnest, so Instinct with better light let in by death, That life was blotted out--not so completely But scattered wrecks enough of it remain, Dim memories, as now, when once more seems The goal in sight again. All which, indeed, Is foolish, and only means--the flesh I wear, The earth I tread, are not more clear to me Than my belief, explained to you or no.

Fest. And who am I, to challenge and dispute That clear belief? I will divest all fear.

Mich. Then Aureole is God's commissary! he shall Be great and grand--and all for us!

Par. No, sweet! Not great and grand. If I can serve mankind 'T is well; but there our intercourse must end: I never will be served by those I serve.

Fest. Look well to this; here is a plague-spot, here, Disguise it how you may! 'T is true, you utter This scorn while by our side and loving us; 'T is but a spot as yet: but it will break Into a hideous blotch if overlooked. How can that course be safe which from the first Produces carelessness to human love? It seems you have abjured the helps which men Who overpass their kind, as you would do, Have humbly sought; I dare not thoroughly probe This matter, lest I learn too much. Let be That popular praise would little instigate Your efforts, nor particular approval Reward you; put reward aside; alone You shall go forth upon your arduous task, None shall assist you, none partake your toil, None share your triumph: still you must retain Some one to cast your glory on, to share Your rapture with. Were I elect like you, I would encircle me with love, and raise A rampart of my fellows; it should seem Impossible for me to fail, so watched By gentle friends who made my cause their own. They should ward off fate's envy--the great gift, Extravagant when claimed by me alone, Being so a gift to them as well as me. If danger daunted me or ease seduced, How calmly their sad eyes should gaze reproach!

Mich. O Aureole, can I sing when all alone, Without first calling, in my fancy, both To listen by my side--even I! And you? Do you not feel this? Say that you feel this!

Par. I feel 't is pleasant that my aims, at length Allowed their weight, should be supposed to need A further strengthening in these goodly helps! My course allures for its own sake, its sole Intrinsic worth; and ne'er shall boat of mine Adventure forth for gold and apes at once. Your sages say, "if human, therefore weak:" If weak, more need to give myself entire To my pursuit; and by its side, all else... No matter! I deny myself but little In waiving all assistance save its own. Would there were some real sacrifice to make! Your friends the sages threw their joys away, While I must be content with keeping mine.

Fest. But do not cut yourself from human weal! You cannot thrive--a man that dares effect To spend his life in service to his kind For no reward of theirs, unbound to them By any tie; nor do so, Aureole! No-- There are strange punishments for such. Give up (Although no visible good flow thence) some part Of the glory to another; hiding thus, Even from yourself, that all is for yourself. Say, say almost to God--"I have done all For her, not for myself!"

Par. And who but lately Was to rejoice in my success like you? Whom should I love but both of you?

Fest. I know not: But know this, you, that 't is no will of mine You should abjure the lofty claims you make; And this the cause--I can no longer seek To overlook the truth, that there would be A monstrous spectacle upon the earth, Beneath the pleasant sun, among the trees: --A being knowing not what love is. Hear me! You are endowed with faculties which bear Annexed to them as 't were a dispensation To summon meaner spirits to do their will And gather round them at their need; inspiring Such with a love themselves can never feel, Passionless 'mid their passionate votaries. I know not if you joy in this or no, 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! 'T is 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! --Warns me to have in dread no quick repulse, No 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 of my quest? 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 justify 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 labors and the precepts of old time, I have not lightly 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 Binds it, and makes all error: and, to KNOW, Rather consists in opening out a way Whence the imprisoned splendor 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 favor: 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 labor ne'er performed: While, contrary, it has chanced some idle day, To autumn loiterers just as fancy-free As the midges in the sun, gives birth at last 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 a soul 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 alone, 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 Accloys the spirit! We may not be doomed To cope with seraphs, but at least the rest Shall cope with us. Make no more giants, God, But elevate the race at once! We ask 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 thine 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 its narrow sphere, But chose to figure forth another world And other frames meet for their vast desires,-- And all a dream! Thus was life scorned; but life Shall yet be crowned: twine amaranth! I am priest! And all for yielding with a lively spirit A poor existence, parting with a youth Like those 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, see, 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!

Mich. I ever did 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, One--when, a beggar, he prepares to plunge, One--when, a prince, he rises with his pearl? Festus, I plunge!

Fest. We wait you when you rise!

II. PARACELSUS ATTAINS

SCENE, Constantinople: the house of a Greek conjurer. 1521.

PARACELSUS.

Over the waters in the vaporous West The sun goes down as in a sphere of gold Behind the arm of the city, which between, With all that length of domes and minarets, Athwart the splendor, black and crooked runs Like a Turk verse along a scimitar. There lie, sullen memorial, and no more Possess my aching sight! 'T is done at last. Strange--and the juggles of a sallow cheat Have won me to this act! 'T is as yon cloud Should voyage unwrecked o'er many a mountain-top And break upon a molehill. I have dared Come to a pause with knowledge; scan for once The heights already reached, without regard To the extent above; fairly compute All I have clearly gained; for once excluding A brilliant future to supply and perfect All half-gains and conjectures and crude hopes: And all because a fortune-teller wills His credulous seekers should inscribe thus much Their previous life's attainment, in his roll, Before his promised secret, as he vaunts, Make up the sum: and here, amid the scrawled Uncouth recordings of the dupes of this Old arch-genethliac, lie my life's results!

A few blurred characters suffice to note A stranger wandered long through many lands And reaped the fruit he coveted in a few Discoveries, as appended here and there, The fragmentary produce of much toil, In a dim heap, fact and surmise together Confusedly massed as when acquired; he was Intent on gain to come too much to stay And scrutinize the little gained: the whole Slipt in the blank space 'twixt an idiot's gibber And a mad lover's ditty--there it lies.

And yet those blottings chronicle a life-- A whole life, and my life! Nothing to do, No problem for the fancy, but a life Spent and decided, wasted past retrieve Or worthy beyond peer. Stay, what does this Remembrancer set down concerning "life"? "'Time fleets, youth fades, life is an empty dream,' It is the echo of time; and he whose heart Beat first beneath a human heart, whose speech Was copied from a human tongue, can never Recall when he was living yet knew not this. Nevertheless long seasons pass o'er him Till some one hour's experience shows what nothing, It seemed, could clearer show; and ever after, An altered brow and eye and gait and speech Attest that now he knows the adage true, 'Time fleets, youth fades, life is an empty dream.'"

Ay, my brave chronicler, and this same hour As well as any: now, let my time be!

Now! I can go no farther; well or ill, 'T is done. I must desist and take my chance. I cannot keep on the stretch: 't is no back-shrinking-- For let but some assurance beam, some close To my toil grow visible, and I proceed At any price, though closing it, I die. Else, here I pause. The old Greek's prophecy Is like to turn out true: "I shall not quit His chamber till I know what I desire!" Was it the light wind sang it o'er the sea?

An end, a rest! strange how the notion, once Encountered, gathers strength by moments! Rest! Where has it kept so long? this throbbing brow To cease, this beating heart to cease, all cruel And gnawing thoughts to cease! To dare let down My strung, so high-strung brain, to dare unnerve My harassed o'ertasked frame, to know my place, My portion, my reward, even my failure, Assigned, made sure forever! To lose myself Among the common creatures of the world, To draw some gain from having been a man, Neither to hope nor fear, to live at length! Even in failure, rest! But rest in truth And power and recompense ... I hoped that once!

What, sunk insensibly so deep? Has all Been undergone for this? This the request My labor qualified me to present With no fear of refusal? Had I gone Slightingly through my task, and so judged fit To moderate my hopes; nay, were it now My sole concern to exculpate myself, End things or mend them,--why, I could not choose A humbler mood to wait for the event! No, no, there needs not this; no, after all, At worst I have performed my share of the task: The rest is God's concern; mine, merely this, To know that I have obstinately held By my own work. The mortal whose brave foot Has trod, unscathed, the temple-court so far That he descries at length the shrine of shrines, Must let no sneering of the demons' eyes, Whom he could pass unquailing, fasten now Upon him, fairly past their power; no, no-- He must not stagger, faint, fall down at last, Having a charm to baffle them; behold, He bares his front: a mortal ventures thus Serene amid the echoes, beams and glooms! If he be priest henceforth, if he wake up The god of the place to ban and blast him there, Both well! What's failure or success to me? I have subdued my life to the one purpose Whereto I ordained it; there alone I spy, No doubt, that way I may be satisfied.

Yes, well have I subdued my life! beyond The obligation of my strictest vow, The contemplation of my wildest bond, Which gave my nature freely up, in truth, But in its actual state, consenting fully All passionate impulses its soil was formed To rear, should wither; but foreseeing not The tract, doomed to perpetual barrenness, Would seem one day, remembered as it was, Beside the parched sand-waste which now it is, Already strewn with faint blooms, viewless then. I ne'er engaged to root up loves so frail I felt them not; yet now, 't is very plain Some soft spots had their birth in me at first, If not love, say, like love: there was a time When yet this wolfish hunger after knowledge Set not remorselessly love's claims aside. This heart was human once, or why recall Einsiedeln, now, and Würzburg which the Mayne Forsakes her course to fold as with an arm?

And Festus--my poor Festus, with his praise And counsel and grave fears--where is he now With the sweet maiden, long ago his bride? I surely loved them--that last night, at least, When we ... gone! gone! the better. I am saved The sad review of an ambitious youth Choked by vile lusts, unnoticed in their birth, But let grow up and wind around a will Till action was destroyed. No, I have gone Purging my path successively of aught Wearing the distinct likeness of such lusts. I have made life consist of one idea: Ere that was master, up till that was born, I bear a memory of a pleasant life Whose small events I treasure; till one morn I ran o'er the seven little grassy fields, Startling the flocks of nameless birds, to tell Poor Festus, leaping all the while for joy, To leave all trouble for my future plans, Since I had just determined to become The greatest and most glorious man on earth. And since that morn all life has been forgotten: All is one day, one only step between The outset and the end: one tyrant all- Absorbing aim fills up the interspace, One vast unbroken chain of thought, kept up Through a career apparently adverse To its existence: life, death, light and shadow, The shows of the world, were bare receptacles Or indices of truth to be wrung thence, Not ministers of sorrow or delight: A wondrous natural robe in which she went. For some one truth would dimly beacon me From mountains rough with pines, and flit and wink O'er dazzling wastes of frozen snow, and tremble Into assured light in some branching mine Where ripens, swathed in fire, the liquid gold-- And all the beauty, all the wonder fell On either side the truth, as its mere robe; I see the robe now--then I saw the form. So far, then, I have voyaged with success, So much is good, then, in this working sea Which parts me from that happy strip of land: But o'er that happy strip a sun shone, too! And fainter gleams it as the waves grow rough, And still more faint as the sea widens; last I sicken on a dead gulf streaked with light From its own putrefying depths alone. Then, God was pledged to take me by the hand; Now, any miserable juggle can bid My pride depart. All is alike at length: God may take pleasure in confounding pride By hiding secrets with the scorned and base-- I am here, in short: so little have I paused Throughout! I never glanced behind to know If I had kept my primal light from wane, And thus insensibly am--what I am!

Oh, bitter; very bitter! And more bitter, To fear a deeper curse, an inner ruin, Plague beneath plague, the last turning the first To light beside its darkness. Let me weep My youth and its brave hopes, all dead and gone, In tears which burn! Would I were sure to win Some startling secret in their stead, a tincture Of force to flush old age with youth, or breed Gold, or imprison moonbeams till they change To opal shafts!--only that, hurling it Indignant back, I might convince myself My aims remained supreme and pure as ever! Even now, why not desire, for mankind's sake, That if I fail, some fault may be the cause, That, though I sink, another may succeed? O God, the despicable heart of us! Shut out this hideous mockery from my heart!

'T was politic in you, Aureole, to reject Single rewards, and ask them in the lump; At all events, once launched, to hold straight on: For now 't is all or nothing. Mighty profit Your gains will bring if they stop short of such Full consummation! As a man, you had A certain share of strength; and that is gone Already in the getting these you boast. Do not they seem to laugh, as who should say-- "Great master, we are here indeed, dragged forth To light; this hast thou done: be glad! Now, seek The strength to use which thou hast spent in getting!"

And yet 't is much, surely 't is very much, Thus to have emptied youth of all its gifts, To feed a fire meant to hold out till morn Arrived with inexhaustible light; and lo, I have heaped up my last, and day dawns not! And I am left with gray hair, faded hands, And furrowed brow. Ha, have I, after all, Mistaken the wild nursling of my breast? Knowledge it seemed, and power, and recompense! Was she who glided through my room of nights, Who laid my head on her soft knees and smoothed The damp locks,--whose sly soothings just began When my sick spirit craved repose awhile-- God! was I fighting sleep off for death's sake?

God! Thou art mind! Unto the master-mind Mind should be precious. Spare my mind alone! All else I will endure; if, as I stand Here, with my gains, thy thunder smite me down, I bow me; 't is thy will, thy righteous will; I o'erpass life's restrictions, and I die; And if no trace of my career remain Save a thin corpse at pleasure of the wind In these bright chambers level with the air, See thou to it! But if my spirit fail, My once proud spirit forsake me at the last, Hast thou done well by me? So do not thou! Crush not my mind, dear God, though I be crushed! Hold me before the frequence of thy seraphs And say,--"I crushed him, lest he should disturb My law. Men must not know their strength: behold, Weak and alone, how he had raised himself!"

But if delusions trouble me, and thou, Not seldom felt with rapture in thy help Throughout my toils and wanderings, dost intend To work man's welfare through my weak endeavor, To crown my mortal forehead with a beam From thine own blinding crown, to smile, and guide This puny hand and let the work so wrought Be styled my work,--hear me! I covet not An influx of new power, an angel's soul: It were no marvel then--but I have reached Thus far, a man; let me conclude, a man! Give but one hour of my first energy, Of that invincible faith, but only one! That I may cover with an eagle-glance The truths I have, and spy some certain way To mould them, and completing them, possess!

Yet God is good: I started sure of that, And why dispute it now? I'll not believe But some undoubted warning long ere this Had reached me: a fire-labarum was not deemed Too much for the old founder of these walls. Then, if my life has not been natural, It has been monstrous: yet, till late, my course So ardently engrossed me, that delight, A pausing and reflecting joy, 't is plain, Could find no place in it. True, I am worn; But who clothes summer, who is life itself? God, that created all things, can renew! And then, though after-life to please me now Must have no likeness to the past, what hinders Reward from springing out of toil, as changed As bursts the flower from earth and root and stalk? What use were punishment, unless some sin Be first detected? let me know that first! No man could ever offend as I have done ...

(A voice from within.)

I hear a voice, perchance I heard Long ago, but all too low, So that scarce a care it stirred If the voice were real or no: I heard it in my youth when first The waters of my life outburst: But, now their stream ebbs faint, I hear That voice, still low, but fatal-clear-- As if all poets, God ever meant Should save the world, and therefore lent Great gifts to, but who, proud, refused To do his work, or lightly used Those gifts, or failed through weak endeavor, So, mourn cast off by him forever,-- As if these leaned in airy ring To take me; this the song they sing.

"Lost, lost! yet come, With our wan troop make thy home. Come, come! for we Will not breathe, so much as breathe Reproach to thee, Knowing what thou sink'st beneath. So sank we in those old years, We who bid thee, come! thou last Who, living yet, hast life o'erpast. And altogether we, thy peers, Will pardon crave for thee, the last Whose trial is done, whose lot is cast With those who watch but work no more, Who gaze on life but live no more. Yet we trusted thou shouldst speak The message which our lips, too weak, Refused to utter,--shouldst redeem Our fault: such trust, and all a dream! Yet we chose thee a birthplace Where the richness ran to flowers: Couldst not sing one song for grace? Not make one blossom man's and ours? Must one more recreant to his race Die with unexerted powers, And join us, leaving as he found The world, he was to loosen, bound? Anguish! ever and forever; Still beginning, ending never! Yet, lost and last one, come! How couldst understand, alas, What our pale ghosts strove to say, As their shades did glance and pass Before thee night and day? Thou wast blind as we were dumb: Once more, therefore, come, O come! How should we clothe, how arm the spirit Shall next thy post of life inherit-- How guard him from thy speedy ruin? Tell us of thy sad undoing Here, where we sit, ever pursuing Our weary task, ever renewing Sharp sorrow, far from God who gave Our powers, and man they could not save!"

(APRILE enters.)

Ha, ha! our king that wouldst be, here at last? Art thou the poet who shall save the world? Thy hand to mine! Stay, fix thine eyes on mine! Thou wouldst be king? Still fix thine eyes on mine!

Par. Ha, ha! why crouchest not? Am I not king? So torture is not wholly unavailing! Have my fierce spasms compelled thee from thy lair? Art thou the sage I only seemed to be, Myself of after-time, my very self With sight a little clearer, strength more firm, Who robes him in my robe and grasps my crown For just a fault, a weakness, a neglect? I scarcely trusted God with the surmise That such might come, and thou didst hear the while!

Aprile. Thine eyes are lustreless to mine: my hair Is soft, nay silken soft: to talk with thee Flushes my cheek, and thou art ashy-pale. Truly, thou hast labored, hast withstood her lips, The siren's! Yes, 't is like thou hast attained! Tell me, dear master, wherefore now thou comest? I thought thy solemn songs would have their meed In after-time; that I should hear the earth Exult in thee and echo with thy praise, While I was laid forgotten in my grave.

Par. Ah fiend, I know thee, I am not thy dupe! Thou art ordained to follow in my track, Reaping my sowing, as I scorned to reap The harvest sown by sages passed away. Thou art the sober searcher, cautious striver, As if, except through me, thou hast searched or striven! Ay, tell the world! Degrade me after all, To an aspirant after fame, not truth-- To all but envy of thy fate, be sure!

Apr. Nay, sing them to me; I shall envy not: Thou shalt be king! Sing thou, and I will sit Beside, and call deep silence for thy songs, And worship thee, as I had ne'er been meant To fill thy throne: but none shall ever know! Sing to me; for already thy wild eyes Unlock my heart-strings, as some crystal-shaft Reveals by some chance blaze its parent fount After long time: so thou reveal'st my soul. All will flash forth at last, with thee to hear!

Par. (His secret! I shall get his secret--fool!) I am he that aspired to KNOW: and thou?

Apr. I would LOVE infinitely, and be loved!

Par. Poor slave! I am thy king indeed.

Apr. Thou deem'st That--born a spirit, dowered even as thou, Born for thy fate--because I could not curb My yearnings to possess at once the full Enjoyment, but neglected all the means Of realizing even the frailest joy, Gathering no fragments to appease my want, Yet nursing up that want till thus I die-- Thou deem'st I cannot trace thy safe sure march O'er perils that o'erwhelm me, triumphing, Neglecting naught below for aught above, Despising nothing and ensuring all-- Nor that I could (my time to come again) Lead thus my spirit securely as thine own. Listen, and thou shalt see I know thee well. I would love infinitely ...

Ah, lost! lost! Oh ye who armed me at such cost, How shall I look on all of ye With your gifts even yet on me?

Par. (Ah, 't is some moonstruck creature after all! Such fond fools as are like to haunt this den: They spread contagion, doubtless: yet he seemed To echo one foreboding of my heart So truly, that ... no matter! How he stands With eve's last sunbeam staying on his hair Which turns to it as if they were akin: And those clear smiling eyes of saddest blue Nearly set free, so far they rise above The painful fruitless striving of the brow And enforced knowledge of the lips, firm-set In slow despondency's eternal sigh! Has he, too, missed life's end, and learned the cause?) I charge thee, by thy fealty, be calm! Tell me what thou wouldst be, and what I am.

Apr. I would love infinitely, and be loved. First: I would carve in stone, or cast in brass, The forms of earth. No ancient hunter lifted Up to the gods by his renown, no nymph Supposed the sweet soul of a woodland tree Or sapphirine spirit of a twilight star, Should be too hard for me; no shepherd-king Regal for his white locks; no youth who stands Silent and very calm amid the throng, His right hand ever hid beneath his robe Until the tyrant pass; no lawgiver, No swan-soft woman rubbed with lucid oils Given by a god for love of her--too hard! Every passion sprung from man, conceived by man, Would I express and clothe it in its right form, Or blend with others struggling in one form, Or show repressed by an ungainly form. Oh, if you marvelled at some mighty spirit With a fit frame to execute its will-- Even unconsciously to work its will-- You should be moved no less beside some strong Rare spirit, fettered to a stubborn body, Endeavoring to subdue it and inform it With its own splendor! All this I would do: And I would say, this done, "His sprites created, God grants to each a sphere to be its world, Appointed with the various objects needed To satisfy its own peculiar want; So, I create a world for these my shapes Fit to sustain their beauty and their strength!" And, at the word, I would contrive and paint Woods, valleys, rocks and plains, dells, sands and wastes, Lakes which, when morn breaks on their quivering bed, Blaze like a wyvern flying round the sun, And ocean isles so small, the dog-fish tracking A dead whale, who should find them, would swim thrice Around them, and fare onward--all to hold The offspring of my brain. Nor these alone: Bronze labyrinth, palace, pyramid and crypt, Baths, galleries, courts, temples and terraces, Marts, theatres, and wharfs--all filled with men, Men everywhere! And this performed in turn, When those who looked on, pined to hear the hopes And fears and hates and loves which moved the crowd, I would throw down the pencil as the chisel, And I would speak; no thought which ever stirred A human breast should be untold; all passions, All soft emotions, from the turbulent stir Within a heart fed with desires like mine, To the last comfort shutting the tired lids Of him who sleeps the sultry noon away Beneath the tent-tree by the wayside well: And this in language as the need should be, Now poured at once forth in a burning flow, Now piled up in a grand array of words. This done, to perfect and consummate all, Even as a luminous haze links star to star, I would supply all chasms with music, breathing Mysterious motions of the soul, no way To be defined save in strange melodies. Last, having thus revealed all I could love, Having received all love bestowed on it, I would die: preserving so throughout my course God full on me, as I was full on men: He would approve my prayer, "I have gone through The loveliness of life; create for me If not for men, or take me to thyself, Eternal, infinite love!" If thou hast ne'er Conceived this mighty aim, this full desire, Thou hast not passed my trial, and thou art No king of mine.

Par. Ah me!

Apr. But thou art here! Thou didst not gaze like me upon that end Till thine own powers for compassing the bliss Were blind with glory; nor grow mad to grasp At once the prize long patient toil should claim, Nor spurn all granted short of that. And I Would do as thou, a second time: nay, listen! Knowing ourselves, our world, our task so great, Our time so brief, 't is clear if we refuse The means so limited, the tools so rude To execute our purpose, life will fleet, And we shall fade, and leave our task undone. We will be wise in time: what though our work Be fashioned in despite of their ill-service, Be crippled every way? 'T were little praise Did full resources wait on our goodwill At every turn. Let all be as it is. Some say the earth is even so contrived That tree and flower, a vesture gay, conceal A bare and skeleton framework. Had we means Answering to our mind! But now I seem Wrecked on a savage isle: how rear thereon My palace? Branching palms the props shall be, Fruit glossy mingling; gems are for the East; Who heeds them? I can pass them. Serpents' scales, And painted birds' down, furs and fishes' skins Must help me; and a little here and there Is all I can aspire to: still my art Shall show its birth was in a gentler clime. "Had I green jars of malachite, this way I'd range them: where those sea-shells glisten above, Cressets should hang, by right: this way we set The purple carpets, as these mats are laid, Woven of fern and rush and blossoming flag." Or if, by fortune, some completer grace Be spared to me, some fragment, some slight sample Of the prouder workmanship my own home boasts, Some trifle little heeded there, but here The place's one perfection--with what joy Would I enshrine the relic, cheerfully Foregoing all the marvels out of reach! Could I retain one strain of all the psalm Of the angels, one word of the fiat of God, To let my followers know what such things are! I would adventure nobly for their sakes: When nights were still, and still the moaning sea, And far away I could descry the land Whence I departed, whither I return, I would dispart the waves, and stand once more At home, and load my bark, and hasten back, And fling my gains to them, worthless or true. "Friends," I would say, "I went far, far for them, Past the high rocks the haunt of doves, the mounds Of red earth from whose sides strange trees grow out, Past tracts of milk-white minute blinding sand, Till, by a mighty moon, I tremblingly Gathered these magic herbs, berry and bud, In haste, not pausing to reject the weeds, But happy plucking them at any price. To me, who have seen them bloom in their own soil, They are scarce lovely: plait and wear them, you! And guess, from what they are, the springs that fed them, The stars that sparkled o'er them, night by night, The snakes that travelled far to sip their dew!" Thus for my higher loves; and thus even weakness Would win me honor. But not these alone Should claim my care; for common life, its wants And ways, would I set forth in beauteous hues: The lowest hind should not possess a hope, A fear, but I'd be by him, saying better Than he his own heart's language. I would live Forever in the thoughts I thus explored, As a discoverer's memory is attached To all he finds; they should be mine henceforth, Imbued with me, though free to all before: For clay, once cast into my soul's rich mine, Should come up crusted o'er with gems. Nor this Would need a meaner spirit than the first; Nay, 't would be but the selfsame spirit, clothed In humbler guise, but still the selfsame spirit: As one spring wind unbinds the mountain snow And comforts violets in their hermitage.

But, master, poet, who hast done all this, How didst thou 'scape the ruin whelming me? Didst thou, when nerving thee to this attempt, Ne'er range thy mind's extent, as some wide hall, Dazzled by shapes that filled its length with light, Shapes clustered there to rule thee, not obey, That will not wait thy summons, will not rise Singly, nor when thy practised eye and hand Can well transfer their loveliness, but crowd By thee forever, bright to thy despair? Didst thou ne'er gaze on each by turns, and ne'er Resolve to single out one, though the rest Should vanish, and to give that one, entire In beauty, to the world; forgetting, so, Its peers, whose number baffles mortal power? And, this determined, wast thou ne'er seduced By memories and regrets and passionate love, To glance once more farewell? and did their eyes Fasten thee, brighter and more bright, until Thou couldst but stagger back unto their feet, And laugh that man's applause or welfare ever Could tempt thee to forsake them? Or when years Had passed and still their love possessed thee wholly, When from without some murmur startled thee Of darkling mortals famished for one ray Of thy so-hoarded luxury of light, Didst thou ne'er strive even yet to break those spells And prove thou couldst recover and fulfil Thy early mission, long ago renounced, And to that end, select some shape once more? And did not mist-like influences, thick films, Faint memories of the rest that charmed so long Thine eyes, float fast, confuse thee, bear thee off, As whirling snow-drifts blind a man who treads A mountain ridge, with guiding spear, through storm? Say, though I fell, I had excuse to fall; Say, I was tempted sorely: say but this, Dear lord, Aprile's lord!

Par. Clasp me not thus, Aprile! That the truth should reach me thus! We are weak dust. Nay, clasp not or I faint!

Apr. My king! and envious thoughts could outrage thee? Lo, I forget my ruin, and rejoice In thy success, as thou! Let our God's praise Go bravely through the world at last! What care Through me or thee? I feel thy breath. Why, tears? Tears in the darkness, and from thee to me?

Par. Love me henceforth, Aprile, while I learn To love; and, merciful God, forgive us both! We wake at length from weary dreams; but both Have slept in fairy-land: though dark and drear Appears the world before us, we no less Wake with our wrists and ankles jewelled still. I too have sought to KNOW as thou to LOVE-- Excluding love as thou refusedst knowledge. Still thou hast beauty and I, power. We wake: What penance canst devise for both of us?

Apr. I hear thee faintly. The thick darkness! Even Thine eyes are hid, 'T is as I knew: I speak, And now I die. But I have seen thy face! O poet, think of me, and sing of me! But to have seen thee and to die so soon!

Par. Die not, Aprile! We must never part. Are we not halves of one dissevered world, Whom this strange chance unites once more? Part? never! Till thou the lover, know; and I, the knower, Love--until both are saved. Aprile, hear! We will accept our gains, and use them--now! God, he will die upon my breast! Aprile!

Apr. To speak but once, and die! yet by his side. Hush! hush! Ha! go you ever girt about With phantoms, powers? I have created such, But these seem real as I.

Par. Whom can you see Through the accursed darkness?

Apr. Stay; I know, I know them: who should know them well as I? White brows, lit up with glory; poets all!

Par. Let him but live, and I have my reward!

Apr. Yes; I see now. God is the perfect poet, Who in his person acts his own creations. Had you but told me this at first! Hush! hush!

Par. Live! for my sake, because of my great sin, To help my brain, oppressed by these wild words And their deep import. Live! 't is not too late. I have a quiet home for us, and friends. Michal shall smile on you. Hear you? Lean thus, And breathe my breath. I shall not lose one word Of all your speech, one little word, Aprile!

Apr. No, no. Crown me? I am not one of you! 'T is he, the king, you seek. I am not one.

Par. Thy spirit, at least, Aprile! Let me love.

I have attained, and now I may depart.

III. PARACELSUS

SCENE, Basel: a chamber in the house of PARACELSUS. 1526.

PARACELSUS, FESTUS.

Par. Heap logs and let the blaze laugh out!

Fest. True, true! 'T is very fit all, time and chance and change Have wrought since last we sat thus, face to face And soul to soul--all cares, far-looking fears, Vague apprehensions, all vain fancies bred By your long absence, should be cast away, Forgotten in this glad unhoped renewal Of our affections.

Par. Oh, omit not aught Which witnesses your own and Michal's own Affection: spare not that! Only forget The honors and the glories and what not, It pleases you to tell profusely out.

Fest. Nay, even your honors, in a sense, I waive: The wondrous Paracelsus, life's dispenser, Fate's commissary, idol of the schools And courts, shall be no more than Aureole still, Still Aureole and my friend as when we parted Some twenty years ago, and I restrained As best I could the promptings of my spirit Which secretly advanced you, from the first, To the pre-eminent rank which, since, your own Adventurous ardor nobly triumphing, Has won for you.

Par. Yes, yes. And Michal's face Still wears that quiet and peculiar light Like the dim circlet floating round a pearl?

Fest. Just so.

Par. And yet her calm sweet countenance, Though saintly, was not sad; for she would sing Alone. Does she still sing alone, bird-like, Not dreaming you are near? Her carols dropt In flakes through that old leafy bower built under The sunny wall at Würzburg, from her lattice Among the trees above, while I, unseen, Sat conning some rare scroll from Tritheim's shelves, Much wondering notes so simple could divert My mind from study. Those were happy days. Respect all such as sing when all alone!

Fest. Scarcely alone: her children, yon may guess, Are wild beside her.

Par. Ah, those children quite Unsettle the pure picture in my mind: A girl, she was so perfect, so distinct: No change, no change! Not but this added grace May blend and harmonize with its compeers, And Michal may become her motherhood; But 't is a change, and I detest all change, And most a change in aught I loved long since. So, Michal--you have said she thinks of me?

Fest. O very proud will Michal be of you! Imagine how we sat, long winter-nights, Scheming and wondering, shaping your presumed Adventure, or devising its reward; Shutting out fear with all the strength of hope. For it was strange how, even when most secure In our domestic peace, a certain dim And flitting shade could sadden all; it seemed A restlessness of heart, a silent yearning, A sense of something wanting, incomplete-- Not to be put in words, perhaps avoided By mute consent--but, said or unsaid, felt To point to one so loved and so long lost. And then the hopes rose and shut out the fears-- How you would laugh should I recount them now! I still predicted your return at last With gifts beyond the greatest of them all, All Tritheim's wondrous troop; did one of which Attain renown by any chance, I smiled, As well aware of who would prove his peer. Michal was sure some woman, long ere this, As beautiful as you were sage, had loved ...

Par. Far-seeing, truly, to discern so much In the fantastic projects and day-dreams Of a raw restless boy!

Fest. Oh, no: the sunrise Well warranted our faith in this full noon! Can I forget the anxious voice which said, "Festus, have thoughts like these e'er shaped themselves In other brains than mine? have their possessors Existed in like circumstance? were they weak As I, or ever constant from the first, Despising youth's allurements and rejecting As spider-films the shackles I endure? Is there hope for me?"--and I answered gravely As an acknowledged elder, calmer, wiser, More gifted mortal. O you must remember, For all your glorious ...

Par. Glorious? ay, this hair, These hands--nay, touch them, they are mine! Recall With all the said recallings, times when thus To lay them by your own ne'er turned you pale As now. Most glorious, are they not?

Fest. Why--why-- Something must be subtracted from success So wide, no doubt. He would be scrupulous, truly, Who should object such drawbacks. Still, still, Aureole, You are changed, very changed! 'T were losing nothing To look well to it: you must not be stolen From the enjoyment of your well-won meed.

Par. My friend! you seek my pleasure, past a doubt: You will best gain your point, by talking, not Of me, but of yourself.

Fest. Have I not said All touching Michal and my children? Sure You know, by this, full well how Aennchen looks Gravely, while one disparts her thick brown hair; And Aureole's glee when some stray gannet builds Amid the birch-trees by the lake. Small hope Have I that he will honor (the wild imp) His namesake. Sigh not! 't is too much to ask That all we love should reach the same proud fate. But you are very kind to humor me By showing interest in my quiet life; You, who of old could never tame yourself To tranquil pleasures, must at heart despise.

Par. Festus, strange secrets are let out by death Who blabs so oft the follies of this world: And I am death's familiar, as you know. I helped a man to die, some few weeks since, Warped even from his go-cart to one end-- The living on princes' smiles, reflected from A mighty herd of favorites. No mean trick He left untried, and truly well-nigh wormed All traces of God's finger out of him: Then died, grown old. And just an hour before, Having lain long with blank and soulless eyes, He sat up suddenly, and with natural voice Said that in spite of thick air and closed doors God told him it was June; and he knew well, Without such telling, harebells grew in June; And all that kings could ever give or take Would not be precious as those blooms to him. Just so, allowing I am passing sage, It seems to me much worthier argument Why pansies,[2] eyes that laugh, bear beauty's prize From violets, eyes that dream--(your Michal's choice)-- Than all fools find to wonder at in me Or in my fortunes. And be very sure I say this from no prurient restlessness, No self-complacency, itching to turn, Vary and view its pleasure from all points, And, in this instance, willing other men May be at pains, demonstrate to itself The realness of the very joy it tastes. What should delight me like the news of friends Whose memories were a solace to me oft, As mountain-baths to wild fowls in their flight? Ofter than you had wasted thought on me Had you been wise, and rightly valued bliss. But there's no taming nor repressing hearts: God knows I need such!--So, you heard me speak?

Fest. Speak? when?

Par. When but this morning at my class? There was noise and crowd enough. I saw you not. Surely you know I am engaged to fill The chair here?--that 't is part of my proud fate To lecture to as many thick-skulled youths As please, each day, to throng the theatre, To my great reputation, and no small Danger of Basel's benches long unused To crack beneath such honor?

Fest. I was there; I mingled with the throng: shall I avow Small care was mine to listen?--too intent On gathering from the murmurs of the crowd A full corroboration of my hopes! What can I learn about your powers? but they Know, care for naught beyond your actual state, Your actual value; yet they worship you, Those various natures whom you sway as one! But ere I go, be sure I shall attend ...

Par. Stop, o' God's name: the thing's by no means yet Past remedy! Shall I read this morning's labor --At least in substance? Naught so worth the gaining As an apt scholar! Thus then, with all due Precision and emphasis--you, beside, are clearly Guiltless of understanding more, a whit, The subject than your stool--allowed to be A notable advantage.

Fest. Surely, Aureole, You laugh at me!

Par. I laugh? Ha, ha! thank heaven, I charge you, if 't be so! for I forget Much, and what laughter should be like. No less, However, I forego that luxury Since it alarms the friend who brings it back. True, laughter like my own must echo strangely To thinking men; a smile were better far; So, make me smile! If the exulting look You wore but now be smiling, 't is so long Since I have smiled! Alas, such smiles are born Alone of hearts like yours, or herdsmen's souls Of ancient time, whose eyes, calm as their flocks, Saw in the stars mere garnishry of heaven, And in the earth a stage for altars only. Never change, Festus: I say, never change!

Fest. My God, if he be wretched after all!

Par. When last we parted, Festus, you declared, --Or Michal, yes, her soft lips whispered words I have preserved. She told me she believed I should succeed (meaning, that in the search I then engaged in, I should meet success) And yet be wretched: now, she augured false.

Fest. Thank heaven! but you spoke strangely: could I venture To think bare apprehension lest your friend, Dazzled by your resplendent course, might find Henceforth less sweetness in his own, could move Such earnest mood in you? Fear not, dear friend, That I shall leave you, inwardly repining Your lot was not my own!

Par. And this forever! Forever! gull who may, they will be gulled! They will not look nor think; 't is nothing new In them: but surely he is not of them! My Festus, do you know, I reckoned, you-- Though all beside were sand-blind--you, my friend, Would look at me, once close, with piercing eye Untroubled by the false glare that confounds A weaker vision: would remain serene, Though singular amid a gaping throng. I feared you, or I had come, sure, long ere this, To Einsiedeln. Well, error has no end, And Rhasis is a sage, and Basel boasts A tribe of wits, and I am wise and blest Past all dispute! 'T is vain to fret at it. I have vowed long ago my worshippers Shall owe to their own deep sagacity All further information, good or bad. Small risk indeed my reputation runs, Unless perchance the glance now searching me Be fixed much longer; for it seems to spell Dimly the characters a simpler man Might read distinct enough. Old eastern books Say, the fallen prince of morning some short space Remained unchanged in semblance; nay, his brow Was hued with triumph: every spirit then Praising, his heart on flame the while:--a tale! Well, Festus, what discover you, I pray?

Fest. Some foul deed sullies then a life which else Were raised supreme?

Par. Good: I do well, most well! Why strive to make men hear, feel, fret themselves With what is past their power to comprehend? I should not strive now: only, having nursed The faint surmise that one yet walked the earth, One, at least, not the utter fool of show, Not absolutely formed to be the dupe Of shallow plausibilities alone: One who, in youth, found wise enough to choose The happiness his riper years approve, Was yet so anxious for another's sake, That, ere his friend could rush upon a mad And ruinous course, the converse of his own, His gentle spirit essayed, prejudged for him The perilous path, foresaw its destiny, And warned the weak one in such tender words, Such accents--his whole heart in every tone-- That oft their memory comforted that friend When it by right should have increased despair: --Having believed, I say, that this one man Could never lose the light thus from the first His portion--how should I refuse to grieve At even my gain if it disturb our old Relation, if it make me out more wise? Therefore, once more reminding him how well He prophesied, I note the single flaw That spoils his prophet's title. In plain words, You were deceived, and thus were you deceived-- I have not been successful, and yet am Most miserable; 't is said at last; nor you Give credit, lest you force me to concede That common sense yet lives upon the world!

Fest. You surely do not mean to banter me?

Par. You know, or--if you have been wise enough To cleanse your memory of such matters--knew, As far as words of mine could make it clear, That 't was my purpose to find joy or grief Solely in the fulfilment of my plan Or plot or whatsoe'er it was; rejoicing Alone as it proceeded prosperously, Sorrowing then only when mischance retarded Its progress. That was in those Würzburg days! Not to prolong a theme I thoroughly hate, I have pursued this plan with all my strength; And having failed therein most signally, Cannot object to ruin utter and drear As all-excelling would have been the prize Had fortune favored me. I scarce have right To vex your frank good spirit late so glad In my supposed prosperity, I know, And, were I lucky in a glut of friends, Would well agree to let your error live, Nay, strengthen it with fables of success. But mine is no condition to refuse The transient solace of so rare a godsend, My solitary luxury, my one friend: Accordingly I venture to put off The wearisome vest of falsehood galling me, Secure when he is by. I lay me bare, Prone at his mercy--but he is my friend! Not that he needs retain his aspect grave; That answers not my purpose; for 't is like, Some sunny morning--Basel being drained Of its wise population, every corner Of the amphitheatre crammed with learned clerks, Here Œcolampadius, looking worlds of wit, Here Castellanus, as profound as he, Munsterus here, Frobenius there, all squeezed And staring,--that the zany of the show, Even Paracelsus, shall put off before them His trappings with a grace but seldom judged Expedient in such cases:--the grim smile That will go round! Is it not therefore best To venture a rehearsal like the present In a small way? Where are the signs I seek, The first-fruits and fair sample of the scorn Due to all quacks? Why, this will never do!

Fest. These are foul vapors, Aureole; naught beside! The effect of watching, study, weariness. Were there a spark of truth in the confusion Of these wild words, you would not outrage thus Your youth's companion. I shall ne'er regard These wanderings, bred of faintness and much study. 'T is not thus you would trust a trouble to me, To Michal's friend.

Par. I have said it, dearest Festus! For the manner, 't is ungracious probably; You may have it told in broken sobs, one day, And scalding tears, ere long: but I thought best To keep that off as long as possible. Do you wonder still?

Fest. No; it must oft fall out That one whose labor perfects any work, Shall rise from it with eye so worn that he Of all men least can measure the extent Of what he has accomplished. He alone Who, nothing tasked, is nothing weary too, May clearly scan the little he effects: But we, the bystanders, untouched by toil, Estimate each aright.

Par. This worthy Festus Is one of them, at last! 'T is so with all! First, they set down all progress as a dream; And next, when he whose quick discomfiture Was counted on, accomplishes some few And doubtful steps in his career,--behold, They look for every inch of ground to vanish Beneath his tread, so sure they spy success!

Fest. Few doubtful steps? when death retires before Your presence--when the noblest of mankind, Broken in body or subdued in soul, May through your skill renew their vigor, raise The shattered frame to pristine stateliness? When men in racking pain may purchase dreams Of what delights them most, swooning at once Into a sea of bliss or rapt along As in a flying sphere of turbulent light? When we may look to you as one ordained To free the flesh from fell disease, as frees Our Luther's burning tongue the fettered soul? When ...

Par. When and where, the devil, did you get This notable news?

Fest. Even from the common voice; From those whose envy, daring not dispute The wonders it decries, attributes them To magic and such folly.

Par. Folly? Why not To magic, pray? You find a comfort doubtless In holding, God ne'er troubles him about Us or our doings: once we were judged worth The devil's tempting ... I offend: forgive me, And rest content. Your prophecy on the whole Was fair enough as prophesyings go; At fault a little in detail, but quite Precise enough in the main; and hereupon I pay due homage: you guessed long ago (The prophet!) I should fail--and I have failed.

Fest. You mean to tell me, then, the hopes which fed Your youth have not been realized as yet? Some obstacle has barred them hitherto? Or that their innate ...

Par. As I said but now, You have a very decent prophet's fame, So you but shun details here. Little matter Whether those hopes were mad,--the aims they sought, Safe and secure from all ambitious fools; Or whether my weak wits are overcome By what a better spirit would scorn: I fail. And now methinks 't were best to change a theme I am a sad fool to have stumbled on. I say confusedly what comes uppermost; But there are times when patience proves at fault, As now: this morning's strange encounter--you Beside me once again! you, whom I guessed Alive, since hitherto (with Luther's leave) No friend have I among the saints at peace, To judge by any good their prayers effect. I knew you would have helped me--why not he, My strange competitor in enterprise, Bound for the same end by another path, Arrived, or ill or well, before the time, At our disastrous journey's doubtful close? How goes it with Aprile? Ah, they miss Your lone sad sunny idleness of heaven, Our martyrs for the world's sake; heaven shuts fast: The poor mad poet is howling by this time! Since you are my sole friend then, here or there, I could not quite repress the varied feelings This meeting wakens; they have had their vent, And now forget them. Do the rear-mice still Hang like a fretwork on the gate (or what In my time was a gate) fronting the road From Einsiedeln to Lachen?

Fest. Trifle not: Answer me, for my sake alone! You smiled Just now, when I supposed some deed, unworthy Yourself, might blot the else so bright result; Yet if your motives have continued pure, Your will unfaltering, and in spite of this, You have experienced a defeat, why then I say not you would cheerfully withdraw From contest--mortal hearts are not so fashioned-- But surely you would ne'ertheless withdraw. You sought not fame nor gain nor even love, No end distinct from knowledge,--I repeat Your very words: once satisfied that knowledge Is a mere dream, you would announce as much, Yourself the first. But how is the event? You are defeated--and I find you here!

Par. As though "here" did not signify defeat! I spoke not of my little labors here, But of the break-down of my general aims: For you, aware of their extent and scope, To look on these sage lecturings, approved By beardless boys, and bearded dotards worse, As a fit consummation of such aims, Is worthy notice. A professorship At Basel! Since you see so much in it, And think my life was reasonably drained Of life's delights to render me a match For duties arduous as such post demands,-- Be it far from me to deny my power To fill the petty circle lotted out Of infinite space, or justify the host Of honors thence accruing. So, take notice, This jewel dangling from my neck preserves The features of a prince, my skill restored To plague his people some few years to come: And all through a pure whim. He had eased the earth For me, but that the droll despair which seized The vermin of his household, tickled me. I came to see. Here drivelled the physician, Whose most infallible nostrum was at fault; There quaked the astrologer, whose horoscope Had promised him interminable years; Here a monk fumbled at the sick man's mouth With some undoubted relic--a sudary Of the Virgin; while another piebald knave Of the same brotherhood (he loved them ever) Was actively preparing 'neath his nose Such a suffumigation as, once fired, Had stunk the patient dead ere he could groan. I cursed the doctor and upset the brother, Brushed past the conjurer, vowed that the first gust Of stench from the ingredients just alight Would raise a cross-grained devil in my sword, Not easily laid: and ere an hour the prince Slept as he never slept since prince he was. A day--and I was posting for my life, Placarded through the town as one whose spite Had near availed to stop the blessed effects Of the doctor's nostrum which, well seconded By the sudary, and most by the costly smoke-- Not leaving out the strenuous prayers sent up Hard by in the abbey--raised the prince to life: To the great reputation of the seer Who, confident, expected all along The glad event--the doctor's recompense-- Much largess from his highness to the monks-- And the vast solace of his loving people, Whose general satisfaction to increase, The prince was pleased no longer to defer The burning of some dozen heretics Remanded till God's mercy should be shown Touching his sickness: last of all were joined Ample directions to all loyal folk To swell the complement by seizing me Who--doubtless some rank sorcerer--endeavored To thwart these pious offices, obstruct The prince's cure, and frustrate heaven by help Of certain devils dwelling in his sword. By luck, the prince in his first fit of thanks Had forced this bauble on me as an earnest Of further favors. This one case may serve To give sufficient taste of many such, So, let them pass. Those shelves support a pile Of patents, licenses, diplomas, titles From Germany, France, Spain, and Italy; They authorize some honor; ne'ertheless, I set more store by this Erasmus sent; He trusts me; our Frobenius is his friend, And him "I raised" (nay, read it) "from the dead." I weary you, I see. I merely sought To show, there's no great wonder after all That, while I fill the class-room and attract A crowd to Basel, I get leave to stay, And therefore need not scruple to accept The utmost they can offer, if I please: For 't is but right the world should be prepared To treat with favor e'en fantastic wants Of one like me, used up in serving her. Just as the mortal, whom the gods in part Devoured, received in place of his lost limb Some virtue or other--cured disease, I think; You mind the fables we have read together.

Fest. You do not think I comprehend a word. The time was, Aureole, you were apt enough To clothe the airiest thoughts in specious breath; But surely you must feel how vague and strange These speeches sound.

Par. Well, then: you know my hopes; I am assured, at length, those hopes were vain; That truth is just as far from me as ever; That I have thrown my life away; that sorrow On that account is idle, and further effort To mend and patch what's marred beyond repairing, As useless: and all this was taught your friend By the convincing good old-fashioned method Of force--by sheer compulsion. Is that plain?

Fest. Dear Aureole, can it be my fears were just? God wills not ...

Par. Now, 't is this I most admire-- The constant talk men of your stamp keep up Of God's will, as they style it; one would swear Man had but merely to uplift his eye, And see the will in question charactered On the heaven's vault. 'T is hardly wise to moot Such topics: doubts are many and faith is weak. I know as much of any will of God As knows some dumb and tortured brute what Man, His stern lord, wills from the perplexing blows That plague him every way; but there, of course, Where least he suffers, longest he remains-- My case; and for such reasons I plod on, Subdued but not convinced. I know as little Why I deserve to fail, as why I hoped Better things in my youth. I simply know I am no master here, but trained and beaten Into the path I tread; and here I stay, Until some further intimation reach me, Like an obedient drudge. Though I prefer To view the whole thing as a task imposed Which, whether dull or pleasant, must be done-- Yet, I deny not, there is made provision Of joys which tastes less jaded might affect; Nay, some which please me too, for all my pride-- Pleasures that once were pains: the iron ring Festering about a slave's neck grows at length Into the flesh it eats. I hate no longer A host of petty vile delights, undreamed of Or spurned before; such now supply the place Of my dead aims: as in the autumn woods Where tall trees used to flourish, from their roots Springs up a fungous brood sickly and pale, Chill mushrooms colored like a corpse's cheek.

Fest. If I interpret well your words, I own It troubles me but little that your aims, Vast in their dawning and most likely grown Extravagantly since, have baffled you. Perchance I am glad; you merit greater praise; Because they are too glorious to be gained, Yon do not blindly cling to them and die; You fell, but have not sullenly refused To rise, because an angel worsted you In wrestling, though the world holds not your peer; And though too harsh and sudden is the change To yield content as yet, still you pursue The ungracious path as though 't were rosy-strewn. 'T is well: and your reward, or soon or late, Will come from him whom no man serves in vain.

Par. Ah, very fine! For my part, I conceive The very pausing from all further toil, Which you find heinous, would become a seal To the sincerity of all my deeds. To be consistent I should die at once; I calculated on no after-life; Yet (how crept in, how fostered, I know not) Here am I with as passionate regret For youth and health and love so vainly lavished, As if their preservation had been first And foremost in my thoughts; and this strange fact Humbled me wondrously, and had due force In rendering me the less averse to follow A certain counsel, a mysterious warning-- You will not understand--but 't was a man With aims not mine and yet pursued like mine, With the same fervor and no more success, Perishing in my sight; who summoned me, As I would shun the ghastly fate I saw, To serve my race at once; to wait no longer That God should interfere in my behalf, But to distrust myself, put pride away, And give my gains, imperfect as they were, To men. I have not leisure to explain How, since, a singular series of events Has raised me to the station you behold, Wherein I seem to turn to most account The mere wreck of the past,--perhaps receive Some feeble glimmering token that God views And may approve my penance: therefore here You find me, doing most good or least harm. And if folks wonder much and profit little 'T is not my fault; only, I shall rejoice When my part in the farce is shuffled through, And the curtain falls: I must hold out till then.

Fest. Till when, dear Aureole?

Par. Till I'm fairly thrust From my proud eminence. Fortune is fickle And even professors fall: should that arrive, I see no sin in ceding to my bent. You little fancy what rude shocks apprise us We sin; God's intimations rather fail In clearness than in energy: 't were well Did they but indicate the course to take Like that to be forsaken. I would fain Be spared a further sample. Here I stand, And here I stay, be sure, till forced to flit.

Fest. Be you but firm on that head! long ere then All I expect will come to pass, I trust: The cloud that wraps you will have disappeared. Meantime, I see small chance of such event: They praise you here as one whose lore, already Divulged, eclipses all the past can show, But whose achievements, marvellous as they be, Are faint anticipations of a glory About to be revealed. When Basel's crowds Dismiss their teacher, I shall be content That he depart.

Par. This favor at their hands I look for earlier than your view of things Would warrant. Of the crowd you saw to-day, Remove the full half sheer amazement draws, Mere novelty, naught else; and next, the tribe Whose innate blockish dulness just perceives That unless miracles (as seem my works) Be wrought in their behalf, their chance is slight To puzzle the devil; next, the numerous set Who bitterly hate established schools, and help The teacher that oppugns them, till he once Have planted his own doctrine, when the teacher May reckon on their rancor in his turn; Take, too, the sprinkling of sagacious knaves Whose cunning runs not counter to the vogue, But seeks, by flattery and crafty nursing, To force my system to a premature Short-lived development. Why swell the list? Each has his end to serve, and his best way Of serving it: remove all these, remains A scantling, a poor dozen at the best, Worthy to look for sympathy and service, And likely to draw profit from my pains.

Fest. 'T is no encouraging picture: still these few Redeem their fellows. Once the germ implanted, Its growth, if slow, is sure.

Par. God grant it so! I would make some amends: but if I fail, The luckless rogues have this excuse to urge, That much is in my method and my manner, My uncouth habits, my impatient spirit, Which hinders of reception and result My doctrine: much to say, small skill to speak! These old aims suffered not a looking-off Though for an instant; therefore, only when I thus renounce them and resolved to reap Some present fruit--to teach mankind some truth So dearly purchased--only then I found Such teaching was an art requiring cares And qualities peculiar to itself: That to possess was one thing--to display Another. With renown first in my thoughts, Or popular praise, I had soon discovered it: One grows but little apt to learn these things.

Fest. If it be so, which nowise I believe, There needs no waiting fuller dispensation To leave a labor of so little use. Why not throw up the irksome charge at once?

Par. A task, a task! But wherefore hide the whole Extent of degradation once engaged In the confessing vein? Despite of all My fine talk of obedience and repugnance, Docility and what not, 't is yet to learn If when the task shall really be performed, My inclination free to choose once more, I shall do aught but slightly modify The nature of the hated task I quit. In plain words, I am spoiled; my life still tends As first it tended; I am broken and trained To my old habits: they are part of me. I know, and none so well, my darling ends Are proved impossible: no less, no less, Even now what humors me, fond fool, as when Their faint ghosts sit with me and flatter me And send me back content to my dull round? How can I change this soul?--this apparatus Constructed solely for their purposes, So well adapted to their every want, To search out and discover, prove and perfect; This intricate machine whose most minute And meanest motions have their charm to me Though to none else--an aptitude I seize, An object I perceive, a use, a meaning, A property, a fitness, I explain And I alone:--how can I change my soul? And this wronged body, worthless save when tasked Under that soul's dominion--used to care For its bright master's cares and quite subdue Its proper cravings--not to ail nor pine So he but prosper--whither drag this poor Tried patient body? God! how I essayed To live like that mad poet, for a while, To love alone; and how I felt too warped And twisted and deformed! What should I do, Even though released from drudgery, but return Faint, as you see, and halting, blind and sore, To my old life and die as I began? I cannot feed on beauty for the sake Of beauty only, nor can drink in balm From lovely objects for their loveliness; My nature cannot lose her first imprint; I still must hoard and heap and class all truths With one ulterior purpose: I must know! Would God translate me to his throne, believe That I should only listen to his word To further my own aim! For other men, Beauty is prodigally strewn around, And I were happy could I quench as they This mad and thriveless longing, and content me With beauty for itself alone: alas, I have addressed a frock of heavy mail Yet may not join the troop of sacred knights; And now the forest-creatures fly from me, The grass-banks cool, the sunbeams warm no more. Best follow, dreaming that ere night arrive, I shall o'ertake the company and ride Glittering as they!

Fest. I think I apprehend What you would say: if you, in truth, design To enter once more on the life thus left, Seek not to hide that all this consciousness Of failure is assumed!

Par. My friend, my friend, I toil, you listen; I explain, perhaps You understand: there our communion ends. Have you learnt nothing from to-day's discourse? When we would thoroughly know the sick man's state We feel awhile the fluttering pulse, press soft The hot brow, look upon the languid eye, And thence divine the rest. Must I lay bare My heart, hideous and beating, or tear up My vitals for your gaze, ere you will deem Enough made known? You! who are you, forsooth? That is the crowning operation claimed By the arch-demonstrator--heaven the hall, And earth the audience. Let Aprile and you Secure good places: 't will be worth the while.

Fest. Are you mad, Aureole? What can I have said To call for this? I judged from your own words.

Par. Oh, doubtless! A sick wretch describes the ape That mocks him from the bed-foot, and all gravely You thither turn at once: or he recounts The perilous journey he has late performed, And you are puzzled much how that could be! You find me here, half stupid and half mad; It makes no part of my delight to search Into these matters, much less undergo Another's scrutiny; but so it chances That I am led to trust my state to you: And the event is, you combine, contrast And ponder on my foolish words as though They thoroughly conveyed all hidden here-- Here, loathsome with despair and hate and rage! Is there no fear, no shrinking and no shame? Will you guess nothing? will you spare me nothing? Must I go deeper? Ay or no?

Fest. Dear friend ...

Par. True: I am brutal--'t is a part of it; The plague's sign--you are not a lazar-haunter, How should you know? Well then, you think it strange I should profess to have failed utterly, And yet propose an ultimate return To courses void of hope: and this, because You know not what temptation is, nor how 'T is like to ply men in the sickliest part. You are to understand that we who make Sport for the gods, are hunted to the end: There is not one sharp volley shot at us, Which 'scaped with life, though hurt, we slacken pace And gather by the wayside herbs and roots To stanch our wounds, secure from further harm: We are assailed to life's extremest verge. It will be well indeed if I return, A harmless busy fool, to my old ways! I would forget hints of another fate, Significant enough, which silent hours Have lately scared me with.

Fest. Another! and what?

Par. After all, Festus, you say well: I am A man yet: I need never humble me. I would have been--something, I know not what; But though I cannot soar, I do not crawl. There are worse portions than this one of mine. You say well!

Fest. Ah!

Par. And deeper degradation! If the mean stimulants of vulgar praise, If vanity should become the chosen food Of a sunk mind, should stifle even the wish To find its early aspirations true, Should teach it to breathe falsehood like life-breath-- An atmosphere of craft and trick and lies; Should make it proud to emulate, surpass Base natures in the practices which woke Its most indignant loathing once ... No, no! Utter damnation is reserved for hell! I had immortal feelings; such shall never Be wholly quenched: no, no! My friend, you wear A melancholy face, and certain 't is There 's little cheer in all this dismal work. But was it my desire to set abroach Such memories and forebodings? I foresaw Where they would drive. 'T were better we discuss News from Lucerne or Zurich; ask and tell Of Egypt's flaring sky or Spain's cork-groves.

Fest. I have thought: trust me, this mood will pass away! I know you and the lofty spirit you bear, And easily ravel out a clue to all. These are the trials meet for such as you, Nor must you hope exemption: to be mortal Is to be plied with trials manifold. Look round! The obstacles which kept the rest From your ambition, have been spurned by you; Their fears, their doubts, the chains that bind them all, Were flax before your resolute soul, which naught Avails to awe save these delusions bred From its own strength, its selfsame strength disguised, Mocking itself. Be brave, dear Aureole! Since The rabbit has his shade to frighten him, The fawn a rustling bough, mortals their cares, And higher natures yet would slight and laugh At these entangling fantasies, as you At trammels of a weaker intellect,-- Measure your mind's height by the shade it casts! I know you.

Par. And I know you, dearest Festus! And how you love unworthily; and how All admiration renders blind.

Fest. You hold That admiration blinds?

Par. Ay and alas!

Fest. Naught blinds you less than admiration, friend! Whether it be that all love renders wise In its degree; from love which blends with love-- Heart answering heart--to love which spends itself In silent mad idolatry of some Pre-eminent mortal, some great soul of souls, Which ne'er will know how well it is adored. I say, such love is never blind; but rather Alive to every the minutest spot Which mars its object, and which hate (supposed So vigilant and searching) dreams not of. Love broods on such: what then? When first perceived Is there no sweet strife to forget, to change, To overflush those blemishes with all The glow of general goodness they disturb? --To make those very defects an endless source Of new affection grown from hopes and fears? And, when all fails, is there no gallant stand Made even for much proved weak? no shrinking-back Lest, since all love assimilates the soul To what it loves, it should at length become Almost a rival of its idol? Trust me, If there be fiends who seek to work our hurt, To ruin and drag down earth's mightiest spirits Even at God's foot, 't will be from such as love, Their zeal will gather most to serve their cause; And least from those who hate, who most essay By contumely and scorn to blot the light Which forces entrance even to their hearts: For thence will our defender tear the veil And show within each heart, as in a shrine, The giant image of perfection, grown In hate's despite, whose calumnies were spawned In the untroubled presence of its eyes. True admiration blinds not; nor am I So blind. I call your sin exceptional; It springs from one whose life has passed the bounds Prescribed to life. Compound that fault with God! I speak of men; to common men like me The weakness you reveal endears you more, Like the far traces of decay in suns. I bid you have good cheer!

Par. Præclare! Optime! Think of a quiet mountain-cloistered priest Instructing Paracelsus! yet 't is so. Come, I will show you where my merit lies. 'T is in the advance of individual minds That the slow crowd should ground their expectation Eventually to follow; as the sea Waits ages in its bed till some one wave Out of the multitudinous mass, extends The empire of the whole, some feet perhaps, Over the strip of sand which could confine Its fellows so long time: thenceforth the rest, Even to the meanest, hurry in at once, And so much is clear gained. I shall be glad If all my labors, failing of aught else, Suffice to make such inroad and procure A wider range for thought: nay, they do this; For, whatsoe'er my notions of true knowledge And a legitimate success, may be, I am not blind to my undoubted rank When classed with others: I precede my age: And whoso wills is very free to mount These labors as a platform whence his own May have a prosperous outset. But, alas! My followers--they are noisy as you heard; But, for intelligence, the best of them So clumsily wield the weapons I supply And they extol, that I begin to doubt Whether their own rude clubs and pebble-stones Would not do better service than my arms Thus vilely swayed--if error will not fall Sooner before the old awkward batterings Than my more subtle warfare, not half learned.

Fest. I would supply that art, then, or withhold New arms until you teach their mystery.

Par. Content you, 't is my wish; I have recourse To the simplest training. Day by day I seek To wake the mood, the spirit which alone Can make those arms of any use to men. Of course they are for swaggering forth at once Graced with Ulysses' bow, Achilles' shield-- Flash on us, all in armor, thou Achilles! Make our hearts dance to thy resounding step! A proper sight to scare the crows away!

Fest. Pity you choose not then some other method 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.

Par. 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 world. Then, for the principles, they are so simple (Being chiefly of the overturning sort), That one time is as proper to propound them As any other--to-morrow at my class, Or half a century hence embalmed in print. For if mankind intend to learn at all, They must begin by giving faith to them 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, Averröes, Were blocks!

Fest. And that reminds me, I heard something About your waywardness: you burned their books. It seems, instead of answering those sages.

Par. And who said that?

Fest. Some I met yesternight With Œcolampadius. As you know, the purpose Of this short stay at Basel was to learn His pleasure touching certain missives sent For our Zuinglius and himself. 'T was he Apprised me that the famous teacher here Was my old friend.

Par. Ah, I forgot: you went ...

Fest. 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 Basel and ...

Par. I remember. Here 's a case, now, Will teach you why I answer not, but burn The books you mention. Pray, does Luther dream His arguments convince by their own force The crowds that own his doctrine? No, indeed! 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. And you saw Luther?

Fest. 'T is a wondrous soul!

Par. 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. Witness these gangs of peasants your new lights From Suabia have possessed, whom Münzer leads, And whom the duke, the landgrave and the elector Will calm in blood! Well, well; 't is not my world!

Fest. Hark!

Par. 'T is the melancholy wind astir Within the trees; the embers too are gray: Morn must be near.

Fest. 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.

Par. Ay; you would gaze on a wind-shaken tree By the hour, nor count time lost.

Fest. So you shall gaze: Those happy times will come again.

Par. Gone, gone, Those pleasant times! Does not the moaning wind Seem to bewail that we have gained such gains And bartered sleep for them?

Fest. It is our trust That there is yet another world to mend All error and mischance.

Par. 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 forever, Like a dead friend safe from unkindness more! See, morn at length. The heavy darkness seems Diluted, gray 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.

Fest. One favor, 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?

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 2: Citrinula (flammula) herba Paracelso multum familiaris.--DORN.]

IV. PARACELSUS ASPIRES

SCENE, Colmar in Alsatia: an Inn. 1528.

PARACELSUS, FESTUS.

Par. (to JOHANNES OPORINUS, his Secretary). _Sic itur ad astra!_ Dear Von Visenburg Is scandalized, and poor Torinus paralyzed, And every honest soul that Basel 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 Basel in this mantling wine, suffused A delicate blush, no fainter tinge is born I' the shut heart of a bud. Pledge me, good John-- "Basel; 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 Basel, '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 Basel with its magnates,--fill my cup,-- Whom I curse soul and limb. And now dispatch, Dispatch, 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, How very kind, my first best only friend! Why, this looks like fidelity. Embrace me! Not a hair silvered yet? Right! you shall live Till I am worth your love; you shall be proud, And I--but let time show! Did you not wonder? I sent to you because our compact weighed Upon my conscience--(you recall the night At Basel, which the gods confound!)--because Once more I aspire. I call you to my side: You come. You thought my message strange?

Fest. So strange That I must hope, indeed, your messenger Has mingled his own fancies with the words Purporting to be yours.

Par. He said no more, 'T is probable, than the precious folk I leave Said fiftyfold more roughly. Welladay, 'T is true! poor Paracelsus is exposed At last; a most egregious quack he proves: And those he overreached must spit their hate On one who, utterly beneath contempt, Could yet deceive their topping wits. You heard Bare truth; and at my bidding you come here To speed me on my enterprise, as once Your lavish wishes sped me, my own friend!

Fest. What is your purpose, Aureole?

Par. Oh, for purpose, There is no lack of precedents in a case Like mine; at least, if not precisely mine, The case of men cast off by those they sought To benefit.

Fest. They really cast you off? I only heard a vague tale of some priest, Cured by your skill, who wrangled at your claim, Knowing his life's worth best; and how the judge The matter was referred to saw no cause To interfere, nor you to hide your full Contempt of him; nor he, again, to smother His wrath thereat, which raised so fierce a flame That Basel soon was made no place for you.

Par. The affair of Liechtenfels? the shallowest fable, The last and silliest outrage--mere pretence! I knew it, I foretold it from the first, How soon the stupid wonder you mistook For genuine loyalty--a cheering promise Of better things to come--would pall and pass; And every word comes true. Saul is among The prophets! Just so long as I was pleased To play off the mere antics of my art, Fantastic gambols leading to no end, I got huge praise: but one can ne'er keep down Our foolish nature's weakness. There they flocked, Poor devils, jostling, swearing and perspiring. Till the walls rang again; and all for me! I had a kindness for them, which was right; But then I stopped not till I tacked to that A trust in them and a respect--a sort Of sympathy for them; I must needs begin To teach them, not amaze them, "to impart The spirit which should instigate the search Of truth," just what you bade me! I spoke out. Forthwith a mighty squadron, in disgust, Filed off--"the sifted chaff of the sack," I said, Redoubling my endeavors to secure The rest. When lo! one man had tarried so long Only to ascertain if I supported This tenet of his, or that; another loved To hear impartially before he judged, And having heard, now judged; this bland disciple Passed for my dupe, but all along, it seems, Spied error where his neighbors marvelled most; That fiery doctor who had hailed me friend, Did it because my by-paths, once proved wrong And beaconed properly, would commend again The good old ways our sires jogged safely o'er, Though not their squeamish sons; the other worthy Discovered divers verses of St. John, Which, read successively, refreshed the soul, But, muttered backwards, cured the gout, the stone, The colic and what not. Quid multa? The end Was a clear class-room, and a quiet leer From grave folk, and a sour reproachful glance From those in chief who, cap in hand, installed The new professor scarce a year before; And a vast flourish about patient merit Obscured awhile by flashy tricks, but sure Sooner or later to emerge in splendor-- Of which the example was some luckless wight Whom my arrival had discomfited, But now, it seems, the general voice recalled To fill my chair and so efface the stain Basel had long incurred. I sought no better, Only a quiet dismissal from my post, And from my heart I wished them better suited And better served. Good night to Basel, then! But fast as I proposed to rid the tribe Of my obnoxious back, I could not spare them The pleasure of a parting kick.

Fest. You smile: Despise them as they merit!

Par. If I smile, 'T is with as very contempt as ever turned Flesh into stone. This courteous recompense, This grateful ... Festus, were your nature fit To be defiled, your eyes the eyes to ache At gangrene-blotches, eating poison-blains, The ulcerous barky scurf of leprosy Which finds--a man, and leaves--a hideous thing That cannot but be mended by hell-fire, --I would lay bare to you the human heart Which God cursed long ago, and devils make since Their pet nest and their never-tiring home. Oh, sages have discovered we are born For various ends--to love, to know: has ever One stumbled, in his search, on any signs Of a nature in us formed to hate? To hate? If that be our true object which evokes Our powers in fullest strength, be sure 't is hate! Yet men have doubted if the best and bravest Of spirits can nourish him with hate alone. I had not the monopoly of fools, It seems, at Basel.

Fest. But your plans, your plans! I have yet to learn your purpose, Aureole!

Par. Whether to sink beneath such ponderous shame, To shrink up like a crushed snail, undergo In silence and desist from further toil, And so subside into a monument Of one their censure blasted? or to bow Cheerfully as submissively, to lower My old pretensions even as Basel dictates, To drop into the rank her wits assign me And live as they prescribe, and make that use Of my poor knowledge which their rules allow, Proud to be patted now and then, and careful To practise the true posture for receiving The amplest benefit from their hoofs' appliance When they shall condescend to tutor me? Then, one may feel resentment like a flame Within, and deck false systems in truth's garb, And tangle and entwine mankind with error, And give them darkness for a dower and falsehood For a possession, ages: or one may mope Into a shade through thinking, or else drowse Into a dreamless sleep and so die off. But I,--now Festus shall divine!--but I Am merely setting out once more, embracing My earliest aims again! What thinks he now?

Fest. Your aims? the aims?--to Know? and where is found The early trust ...

Par. Nay, not so fast; I say, The aims--not the old means. You know they made me A laughing-stock; I was a fool; you know The when and the how: hardly those means again! Not but they had their beauty; who should know Their passing beauty, if not I? Still, dreams They were, so let them vanish, yet in beauty If that may he. Stay: thus they pass in song! [He sings. Heap cassia, sandal-buds and stripes Of labdanum, and aloe-balls, Smeared with dull nard an Indian wipes From out her hair: such balsam falls Down sea-side mountain pedestals, From tree-tops where tired winds are fain, Spent with the vast and howling main, To treasure half their island-gain.

And strew faint sweetness from some old Egyptian's fine worm-eaten shroud Which breaks to dust when once unrolled; Or shredded perfume, like a cloud From closet long to quiet vowed, With mothed and dropping arras hung, Mouldering her lute and books among, As when a queen, long dead, was young.

Mine, every word! And on such pile shall die My lovely fancies, with fair perished things, Themselves fair and forgotten; yes, forgotten, Or why abjure them? So, I made this rhyme That fitting dignity might be preserved; No little proud was I; though the list of drugs Smacks of my old vocation, and the verse Halts like the best of Luther's psalms.

Fest. But, Aureole, Talk not thus wildly and madly. I am here-- Did you know all! I have travelled far, indeed, To learn your wishes. Be yourself again! For in this mood I recognize you less Than in the horrible despondency I witnessed last. You may account this, joy; But rather let me gaze on that despair Than hear these incoherent words and see This flushed cheek and intensely-sparkling eye.

Par. Why, man, I was light-hearted in my prime, I am light-hearted now; what would you have? Aprile was a poet, I make songs-- 'T is the very augury of success I want! Why should I not be joyous now as then?

Fest. Joyous! and how? and what remains for joy? You have declared the ends (which I am sick Of naming) are impracticable.

Par. Ay, Pursued as I pursued them--the arch-fool! Listen: my plan will please you not, 't is like, But you are little versed in the world's ways. This is my plan--(first drinking its good luck)-- I will accept all helps; all I despised So rashly at the outset, equally With early impulses, late years have quenched: I have tried each way singly: now for both! All helps! no one sort shall exclude the rest. I seek to know and to enjoy at once, Not one without the other as before. Suppose my labor should seem God's own cause Once more, as first I dreamed,--it shall not balk me Of the meanest earthliest sensualest delight That may be snatched; for every joy is gain, And gain is gain, however small. My soul Can die then, nor be taunted--"what was gained?" Nor, on the other hand, should pleasure follow As though I had not spurned her hitherto, Shall she o'ercloud my spirit's rapt communion With the tumultuous past, the teeming future, Glorious with visions of a full success.

Fest. Success!

Par. And wherefore not? Why not prefer Results obtained in my best state of being, To those derived alone from seasons dark As the thoughts they bred? When I was best, my youth Unwasted, seemed success not surest too? It is the nature of darkness to obscure. I am a wanderer: I remember well One journey, how I feared the track was missed, So long the city I desired to reach Lay hid; when suddenly its spires afar Flashed through the circling clouds; you may conceive My transport. Soon the vapors closed again, But I had seen the city, and one such glance No darkness could obscure: nor shall the present-- A few dull hours, a passing shame or two, Destroy the vivid memories of the past. I will fight the battle out; a little spent Perhaps, but still an able combatant. You look at my gray hair and furrowed brow? But I can turn even weakness to account: Of many tricks I know, 't is not the least To push the ruins of my frame, whereon The fire of vigor trembles scarce alive, Into a heap, and send the flame aloft. What should I do with age? So, sickness lends An aid; it being, I fear, the source of all We boast of: mind is nothing but disease, And natural health is ignorance.

Fest. I see But one good symptom in this notable scheme. I feared your sudden journey had in view To wreak immediate vengeance on your foes. 'T is not so: I am glad.

Par. And if I please To spit on them, to trample them, what then? 'T is sorry warfare truly, but the fools Provoke it. I would spare their self-conceit, But if they must provoke me, cannot suffer Forbearance on my part, if I may keep No quality in the shade, must needs put forth Power to match power, my strength against their strength, And teach them their own game with their own arms-- Why, be it so and let them take their chance! I am above them like a god, there's no Hiding the fact: what idle scruples, then, Were those that ever bade me soften it, Communicate it gently to the world, Instead of proving my supremacy, Taking my natural station o'er their head, Then owning all the glory was a man's! --And in my elevation man's would be. But live and learn, though life 's short, learning hard! And therefore, though the wreck of my past self, I fear, dear Pütter, that your lecture-room Must wait awhile for its best ornament, The penitent empiric, who set up For somebody, but soon was taught his place; Now, but too happy to be let confess His error, snuff the candles, and illustrate (Fiat experientia corpore vili) Your medicine's soundness in his person. Wait, Good Pütter!

Fest. He who sneers thus, is a god!

Par. Ay, ay, laugh at me! I am very glad You are not gulled by all this swaggering; you Can see the root of the matter!--how I strive To put a good face on the overthrow I have experienced, and to bury and hide My degradation in its length and breadth; How the mean motives I would make you think Just mingle as is due with nobler aims, The appetites I modestly allow May influence me as being mortal still-- Do goad me, drive me on, and fast supplant My youth's desires. You are no stupid dupe: You find me out! Yes, I had sent for you To palm these childish lies upon you, Festus! Laugh--you shall laugh at me!

Fest. The past, then, Aureole, Proves nothing? Is our interchange of love Yet to begin? Have I to swear I mean No flattery in this speech or that? For you, Whate'er you say, there is no degradation; These low thoughts are no inmates of your mind, Or wherefore this disorder? You are vexed As much by the intrusion of base views, Familiar to your adversaries, as they Were troubled should your qualities alight Amid their murky souls: not otherwise, A stray wolf which the winter forces down From our bleak hills, suffices to affright A village in the vales--while foresters Sleep calm, though all night long the famished troop Snuff round and scratch against their crazy huts. These evil thoughts are monsters, and will flee.

Par. May you be happy, Festus, my own friend!

Fest. Nay, further; the delights you fain would think The superseders of your nobler aims, Though ordinary and harmless stimulants, Will ne'er content you....

Par. Hush! I once despised them, But that soon passes. We are high at first In our demand, nor will abate a jot Of toil's strict value; but time passes o'er, And humbler spirits accept what we refuse: In short, when some such comfort is doled out As these delights, we cannot long retain Bitter contempt which urges us at first To hurl it back, but hug it to our breast And thankfully retire. This life of mine Must be lived out and a grave thoroughly earned: I am just fit for that and naught beside. I told you once, I cannot now enjoy, Unless I deem my knowledge gains through joy; Nor can I know, but straight warm tears reveal My need of linking also joy to knowledge: So, on I drive, enjoying all I can, And knowing all I can. I speak, of course, Confusedly; this will better explain--feel here! Quick beating, is it not?--a fire of the heart To work off some way, this as well as any. So, Festus sees me fairly launched; his calm Compassionate look might have disturbed me once, But now, far from rejecting, I invite What bids me press the closer, lay myself Open before him, and be soothed with pity; I hope, if he command hope, and believe As he directs me--satiating myself With his enduring love. And Festus quits me To give place to some credulous disciple Who holds that God is wise, but Paracelsus Has his peculiar merits: I suck in That homage, chuckle o'er that admiration, And then dismiss the fool; for night is come, And I betake myself to study again, Till patient searchings after hidden lore Half wring some bright truth from its prison; my frame Trembles, my forehead's veins swell out, my hair Tingles for triumph. Slow and sure the morn Shall break on my pent room and dwindling lamp And furnace dead, and scattered earths and ores; When, with a failing heart and throbbing brow, I must review my captured truth, sum up Its value, trace what ends to what begins, Its present power with its eventual bearings, Latent affinities, the views it opens, And its full length in perfecting my scheme. I view it sternly circumscribed, cast down From the high place my fond hopes yielded it, Proved worthless--which, in getting, yet had cost Another wrench to this fast-falling frame. Then, quick, the cup to quaff, that chases sorrow! I lapse back into youth, and take again My fluttering pulse for evidence that God Means good to me, will make my cause his own. See! I have cast off this remorseless care Which clogged a spirit born to soar so free, And my dim chamber has become a tent, Festus is sitting by me, and his Michal . . . Why do you start? I say, she listening here, (For yonder--Würzburg through the orchard-bough!) Motions as though such ardent words should find No echo in a maiden's quiet soul, But her pure bosom heaves, her eyes fill fast With tears, her sweet lips tremble all the while! Ha, ha!

Fest. It seems, then, you expect to reap No unreal joy from this your present course, But rather . . .

Par. Death! To die! I owe that much To what, at least, I was. I should be sad To live contented after such a fall, To thrive and fatten after such reverse! The whole plan is a makeshift, but will last My time.

Fest. And you have never mused and said, "I had a noble purpose, and the strength To compass it; but I have stopped half-way, And wrongly given the first-fruits of my toil To objects little worthy of the gift. Why linger round them still? why clench my fault? Why seek for consolation in defeat, In vain endeavors to derive a beauty From ugliness? why seek to make the most Of what no power can change, nor strive instead With mighty effort to redeem the past And, gathering up the treasures thus cast down, To hold a steadfast course till I arrive At their fit destination and my own?" You have never pondered thus?

Par. Have I, you ask? Often at midnight, when most fancies come, Would some such airy project visit me: But ever at the end ... or will you hear The same thing in a tale, a parable? You and I, wandering over the world wide, Chance to set foot upon a desert coast. Just as we cry, "No human voice before Broke the inveterate silence of these rocks!" --Their querulous echo startles us; we turn: What ravaged structure still looks o'er the sea? Some characters remain, too! While we read, The sharp salt wind, impatient for the last Of even this record, wistfully comes and goes, Or sings what we recover, mocking it. This is the record; and my voice, the wind's. [He sings. Over the sea our galleys went, With cleaving prows in order brave To a speeding wind and a bounding wave A gallant armament: Each bark built out of a forest-tree Left leafy and rough as first it grew, And nailed all over the gaping sides, Within and without, with black bull-hides, Seethed in fat and suppled in flame, To bear the playful billows' game: So, each good ship was rude to see, Rude and bare to the outward view, But each upbore a stately tent Where cedar pales in scented row Kept out the flakes of the dancing brine, And an awning drooped the mast below, In fold on fold of the purple fine, That neither noontide nor starshine Nor moonlight cold which maketh mad, Might pierce the regal tenement. When the sun dawned, oh, gay and glad We set the sail and plied the oar; But when the night-wind blew like breath, For joy of one day's voyage more, We sang together on the wide sea, Like men at peace on a peaceful shore; Each sail was loosed to the wind so free, Each helm made sure by the twilight star, And in a sleep as calm as death, We, the voyagers from afar, Lay stretched along, each weary crew In a circle round its wondrous tent Whence gleamed soft light and curled rich scent, And with light and perfume, music too: So the stars wheeled round, and the darkness past, And at morn we started beside the mast, And still each ship was sailing fast.

Now, one morn, land appeared--a speck Dim trembling betwixt sea and sky: "Avoid it," cried our pilot, "check The shout, restrain the eager eye!" But the heaving sea was black behind For many a night and many a day, And land, though but a rock, drew nigh; So, we broke the cedar pales away, Let the purple awning flap in the wind, And a statue bright was on every deck! We shouted, every man of us, And steered right into the harbor thus, With pomp and pæan glorious.

A hundred shapes of lucid stone! All day we built its shrine for each, A shrine of rock for every one, Nor paused till in the westering sun We sat together on the beach To sing because our task was done. When lo! what shouts and merry songs! What laughter all the distance stirs! A loaded raft with happy throngs Of gentle islanders! "Our isles are just at hand," they cried, "Like cloudlets faint in even sleeping, Our temple-gates are opened wide, Our olive-groves thick shade are keeping For these majestic forms"--they cried. Oh, then we awoke with sudden start From our deep dream, and knew, too late, How bare the rock, how desolate, Which had received our precious freight: Yet we called out--"Depart! Our gifts, once given, must here abide. Our work is done; we have no heart To mar our work,"--we cried.

Fest. In truth?

Par. Nay, wait: all this in tracings faint On rugged stones strewn here and there, but piled In order once: then follows--mark what follows! "The sad rhyme of the men who proudly clung To their first fault, and withered in their pride."

Fest. Come back then, Aureole; as you fear God, come! This is foul sin; come back! Renounce the past, Forswear the future; look for joy no more, But wait death's summons amid holy sights, And trust me for the event--peace, if not joy. Return with me to Einsiedeln, dear Aureole!

Par. No way, no way! it would not turn to good. A spotless child sleeps on the flowering moss-- 'T is well for him; but when a sinful man, Envying such slumber, may desire to put His guilt away, shall he return at once To rest by lying there? Our sires knew well (Spite of the grave discoveries of their sons) The fitting course for such: dark cells, dim lamps, A stone floor one may writhe on like a worm: No mossy pillow blue with violets!

Fest. I see no symptom of these absolute And tyrannous passions. You are calmer now. This verse-making can purge you well enough Without the terrible penance you describe. You love me still: the lusts you fear will never Outrage your friend. To Einsiedeln, once more! Say but the word!

Par. No, no; those lusts forbid: They crouch, I know, cowering with half-shut eye Beside you; 't is their nature. Thrust yourself Between them and their prey; let some fool style me Or king or quack, it matters not--then try Your wisdom, urge them to forego their treat! No, no; learn better and look deeper, Festus! If you knew how a devil sneers within me While you are talking now of this, now that, As though we differed scarcely save in trifles!

Fest. Do we so differ? True, change must proceed, Whether for good or ill; keep from me, which! Do not confide all secrets: I was born To hope, and you ...

Par. To trust: you know the fruits!

Fest. Listen: I do believe, what you call trust Was self-delusion at the best: for, see! So long as God would kindly pioneer A path for you, and screen you from the world, Procure you full exemption from man's lot, Man's common hopes and fears, on the mere pretext Of your engagement in his service--yield you A limitless license, make you God, in fact, And turn your slave--you were content to say Most courtly praises! What is it, at last, But selfishness without example? None Could trace God's will so plain as you, while yours Remained implied in it; but now you fail, And we, who prate about that will, are fools! In short, God's service is established here As he determines fit, and not your way, And this you cannot brook. Such discontent Is weak. Renounce all creatureship at once! Affirm an absolute right to have and use Your energies; as though the rivers should say-- "We rush to the ocean; what have we to do With feeding streamlets, lingering in the vales, Sleeping in lazy pools?" Set up that plea, That will be bold at least!

Par. 'T is like enough. The serviceable spirits are those, no doubt, The East produces: lo, the master bids,-- They wake, raise terraces and garden-grounds In one night's space; and, this done, straight begin Another century's sleep, to the great praise Of him that framed them wise and beautiful, Till a lamp's rubbing, or some chance akin, Wake them again. I am of different mould. I would have soothed my lord, and slaved for him And done him service past my narrow bond, And thus I get rewarded for my pains! Beside, 't is vain to talk of forwarding God's glory otherwise; this is alone The sphere of its increase, as far as men Increase it; why, then, look beyond this sphere? We are his glory; and if we be glorious, Is not the thing achieved?

Fest. Shall one like me Judge hearts like yours? Though years have changed you much, And you have left your first love, and retain Its empty shade to veil your crooked ways, Yet I still hold that you have honored God. And who shall call your course without reward? For, wherefore this repining at defeat Had triumph ne'er inured you to high hopes? I urge you to forsake the life you curse, And what success attends me?--simply talk Of passion, weakness and remorse; in short, Anything but the naked truth--you choose This so-despised career, and cheaply hold My happiness, or rather other men's. Once more, return!

Par. And quickly. John the thief Has pilfered half my secrets by this time: And we depart by daybreak. I am weary, I know not how; not even the wine-cup soothes My brain to-night ... Do you not thoroughly despise me, Festus? No flattery! One like you needs not be told We live and breathe deceiving and deceived. Do you not scorn me from your heart of hearts, Me and my cant, each petty subterfuge, My rhymes and all this frothy shower of words, My glozing self-deceit, my outward crust Of lies which wrap, as tetter, morphew, furfur Wrap the sound flesh?--so, see you flatter not! Even God flatters: but my friend, at least, Is true. I would depart, secure henceforth Against all further insult, hate and wrong From puny foes; my one friend's scorn shall brand me: No fear of sinking deeper!

Fest. No, dear Aureole! No, no; I came to counsel faithfully. There are old rules, made long ere we were born. By which I judge you. I, so fallible, So infinitely low beside your mighty Majestic spirit!--even I can see You own some higher law than ours which call Sin, what is no sin--weakness, what is strength. But I have only these, such as they are, To guide me; and I blame you where they bid, Only so long as blaming promises To win peace for your soul: the more, that sorrow Has fallen on me of late, and they have helped me So that I faint not under my distress. But wherefore should I scruple to avow In spite of all, as brother judging brother, Your fate is most inexplicable to me? And should you perish without recompense And satisfaction yet--too hastily I have relied on love: you may have sinned, But you have loved. As a mere human matter-- As I would have God deal with fragile men In the end--I say that you will triumph yet!

Par. Have you felt sorrow, Festus?--'t is because You love me. Sorrow, and sweet Michal yours! Well thought on: never let her know this last Dull winding-up of all: these miscreants dared Insult me--me she loved:--so, grieve her not!

Fest. Your ill success can little grieve her now.

Par. Michal is dead! pray Christ we do not craze!

Fest. Aureole, dear Aureole, look not on me thus! Fool, fool! this is the heart grown sorrow-proof-- I cannot bear those eyes.

Par. Nay, really dead?

Fest. 'T is scarce a month.

Par. Stone dead!--then you have laid her Among the flowers ere this. Now, do you know, I can reveal a secret which shall comfort Even you. I have no julep, as men think, To cheat the grave; but a far better secret. Know, then, you did not ill to trust your love To the cold earth: I have thought much of it. For I believe we do not wholly die.

Fest. Aureole!

Par. Nay, do not laugh; there is a reason For what I say: I think the soul can never Taste death. I am, just now, as you may see, Very unfit to put so strange a thought In an intelligible dress of words; But take it as my trust, she is not dead.

Fest. But not on this account alone? you surely, --Aureole, you have believed this all along?

Par. And Michal sleeps among the roots and dews, While I am moved at Basel, and full of schemes For Nuremberg, and hoping and despairing, As though it mattered how the farce plays out, So it be quickly played. Away, away! Have your will, rabble! while we fight the prize, Troop you in safety to the snug back-seats And leave a clear arena for the brave About to perish for your sport!--Behold!

V. PARACELSUS ATTAINS

SCENE, Salzburg: a cell in the Hospital of St. Sebastian. 1541.

FESTUS, PARACELSUS.

Fest. No change! The weary night is well-nigh spent, The lamp burns low, and through the casement-bars Gray morning glimmers feebly: yet no change! Another night, and still no sigh has stirred That fallen discolored mouth, no pang relit Those fixed eyes, quenched by the decaying body, Like torch-flame choked in dust. While all beside Was breaking, to the last they held out bright, As a stronghold where life intrenched itself; But they are dead now--very blind and dead: He will drowse into death without a groan.

My Aureole--my forgotten, ruined Aureole! The days are gone, are gone! How grand thou wast! And now not one of those who struck thee down-- Poor glorious spirit--concerns him even to stay And satisfy himself his little hand Could turn God's image to a livid thing.

Another night, and yet no change! 'T is much That I should sit by him, and bathe his brow, And chafe his hands; 't is much: but he will sure Know me, and look on me, and speak to me Once more--but only once! His hollow cheek Looked all night long as though a creeping laugh At his own state were just about to break From the dying man: my brain swam, my throat swelled, And yet I could not turn away. In truth, They told me how, when first brought here, he seemed Resolved to live, to lose no faculty; Thus striving to keep up his shattered strength, Until they bore him to this stifling cell: When straight his features fell, an hour made white The flushed face, and relaxed the quivering limb, Only the eye remained intense awhile As though it recognized the tomb-like place, And then he lay as here he lies. Ay, here! Here is earth's noblest, nobly garlanded-- Her bravest champion with his well-won prize-- Her best achievement, her sublime amends For countless generations fleeting fast And followed by no trace;--the creature-god She instances when angels would dispute The title of her brood to rank with them. Angels, this is our angel! Those bright forms We clothe with purple, crown and call to thrones, Are human, but not his; those are but men Whom other men press round and kneel before; Those palaces are dwelt in by mankind; Higher provision is for him you seek Amid our pomps and glories: see it here! Behold earth's paragon! Now, raise thee, clay!

God! Thou art love! I build my faith on that. Even as I watch beside thy tortured child Unconscious whose hot tears fall fast by him, So doth thy right hand guide us through the world Wherein we stumble. God! what shall we say? How has he sinned? How else should he have done? Surely he sought thy praise--thy praise, for all He might be busied by the task so much As half forget awhile its proper end. Dost thou well, Lord? Thou canst not but prefer That I should range myself upon his side-- How could he stop at every step to set Thy glory forth? Hadst thou but granted him Success, thy honor would have crowned success, A halo round a star. Or, say he erred,-- Save him, dear God; it will be like thee: bathe him In light and life! Thou art not made like us; We should be wroth in such a case; but thou Forgivest--so, forgive these passionate thoughts Which come unsought and will not pass away! I know thee, who hast kept my path, and made Light for me in the darkness, tempering sorrow So that it reached me like a solemn joy; It were too strange that I should doubt thy love. But what am I? Thou madest him and knowest How he was fashioned. I could never err That way: the quiet place beside thy feet, Reserved for me, was ever in my thoughts: But he--thou shouldst have favored him as well!

Ah! he wakens! Aureole, I am here! 't is Festus! I cast away all wishes save one wish-- Let him but know me, only speak to me! He mutters; louder and louder; any other Than I, with brain less laden, could collect What he pours forth. Dear Aureole, do but look! Is it talking or singing, this he utters fast? Misery that he should fix me with his eye, Quick talking to some other all the while! If he would husband this wild vehemence Which frustrates its intent!--I heard, I know I heard my name amid those rapid words. Oh, he will know me yet! Could I divert This current, lead it somehow gently back Into the channels of the past!--His eye Brighter than ever! It must recognize me!

I am Erasmus: I am here to pray That Paracelsus use his skill for me. The schools of Paris and of Padua send These questions for your learning to resolve. We are your students, noble master: leave This wretched cell, what business have you here? Our class awaits you; come to us once more! (O agony! the utmost I can do Touches him not; how else arrest his ear?) I am commissioned ... I shall craze like him. Better be mute and see what God shall send.

Par. Stay, stay with me!

Fest. I will; I am come here To stay with you--Festus, you loved of old; Festus, you know, you must know!

Par. Festus! Where's Aprile, then? Has he not chanted softly The melodies I heard all night? I could not Get to him for a cold hand on my breast, But I made out his music well enough, O well enough! If they have filled him full With magical music, as they freight a star With light, and have remitted all his sin, They will forgive me too, I too shall know!

Fest. Festus, your Festus!

Par. Ask him if Aprile Knows as he Loves--if I shall Love and Know? I try; but that cold hand, like lead--so cold!

Fest. My hand, see!

Par. Ah, the curse, Aprile, Aprile! We get so near--so very, very near! 'T is an old tale: Jove strikes the Titans down, Not when they set about their mountain-piling But when another rock would crown the work. And Phaeton--doubtless his first radiant plunge Astonished mortals, though the gods were calm, And Jove prepared his thunder: all old tales!

Fest. And what are these to you?

Par. Ay, fiends must laugh So cruelly, so well! most like I never Could tread a single pleasure underfoot, But they were grinning by my side, were chuckling To see me toil and drop away by flakes! Hell-spawn! I am glad, most glad, that thus I fail! Your cunning has o'ershot its aim. One year, One month, perhaps, and I had served your turn! You should have curbed your spite awhile. But now, Who will believe 't was you that held me back? Listen: there 's shame and hissing and contempt, And none but laughs who names me, none but spits Measureless scorn upon me, me alone, The quack, the cheat, the liar,--all on me! And thus your famous plan to sink mankind In silence and despair, by teaching them One of their race had probed the inmost truth, Had done all man could do, yet failed no less-- Your wise plan proves abortive. Men despair? Ha, ha! why, they are hooting the empiric, The ignorant and incapable fool who rushed Madly upon a work beyond his wits; Nor doubt they but the simplest of themselves Could bring the matter to triumphant issue. So, pick and choose among them all, accursed! Try now, persuade some other to slave for you, To ruin body and soul to work your ends! No, no; I am the first and last, I think.

Fest. Dear friend, who are accursed? who has done ...

Par. What have I done? Fiends dare ask that? or you, Brave men? Oh, you can chime in boldly, backed By the others! What had you to do, sage peers? Here stand my rivals; Latin, Arab, Jew, Greek, join dead hands against me: all I ask Is, that the world enroll my name with theirs, And even this poor privilege, it seems, They range themselves, prepared to disallow. Only observe! why, fiends may learn from them! How they talk calmly of my throes, my fierce Aspirings, terrible watchings, each one claiming Its price of blood and brain; how they dissect And sneeringly disparage the few truths Got at a life's cost; they too hanging the while About my neck, their lies misleading me And their dead names browbeating me! Gray crew, Yet steeped in fresh malevolence from hell, Is there a reason for your hate? My truths Have shaken a little the palm about each prince? Just think, Aprile, all these leering dotards Were bent on nothing less than to be crowned As we! That yellow blear-eyed wretch in chief To whom the rest cringe low with feigned respect, Galen of Pergamos and hell--nay speak The tale, old man! We met there face to face: I said the crown should fall from thee. Once more We meet as in that ghastly vestibule: Look to my brow! Have I redeemed my pledge?

Fest. Peace, peace; ah, see!

Par. Oh, emptiness of fame! O Persic Zoroaster, lord of stars! --Who said these old renowns, dead long ago, Could make me overlook the living world To gaze through gloom at where they stood, indeed, But stand no longer? What a warm light life After the shade! In truth, my delicate witch, My serpent-queen, you did but well to hide The juggles I had else detected. Fire May well run harmless o'er a breast like yours! The cave was not so darkened by the smoke But that your white limbs dazzled me: oh, white And panting as they twinkled, wildly dancing! I cared not for your passionate gestures then, But now I have forgotten the charm of charms, The foolish knowledge which I came to seek, While I remember that quaint dance; and thus I am come back, not for those mummeries, But to love you, and to kiss your little feet Soft as an ermine's winter coat!

Fest. A light Will struggle through these thronging words at last, As in the angry and tumultuous West A soft star trembles through the drifting clouds. These are the strivings of a spirit which hates So sad a vault should coop it, and calls up The past to stand between it and its fate. Were he at Einsiedeln--or Michal here!

Par. Cruel! I seek her now--I kneel--I shriek-- I clasp her vesture--but she fades, still fades; And she is gone; sweet human love is gone! 'T is only when they spring to heaven that angels Reveal themselves to you; they sit all day Beside you, and lie down at night by you Who care not for their presence, muse or sleep, And all at once they leave you, and you know them! We are so fooled, so cheated! Why, even now I am not too secure against foul play; The shadows deepen and the walls contract: No doubt some treachery is going on. 'T is very dusk. Where are we put, Aprile? Have they left us in the lurch? This murky loathsome Death-trap, this slaughter-house, is not the hall In the golden city! Keep by me, Aprile! There is a hand groping amid the blackness To catch us. Have the spider-fingers got you, Poet? Hold on me for your life! If once They pull you!--Hold! 'T is but a dream--no more! I have you still; the sun comes out again; Let us be happy: all will yet go well! Let us confer: is it not like, Aprile, That spite of trouble, this ordeal passed, The value of my labors ascertained, Just as some stream foams long among the rocks But after glideth glassy to the sea, So, full content shall henceforth be my lot? What think you, poet? Louder! Your clear voice Vibrates too like a harp-string. Do you ask How could I still remain on earth, should God Grant me the great approval which I seek? I, you, and God can comprehend each other, But men would murmur, and with cause enough; For when they saw me, stainless of all sin, Preserved and sanctified by inward light, They would complain that comfort, shut from them, I drank thus unespied; that they live on, Nor taste the quiet of a constant joy, For ache and care and doubt and weariness, While I am calm; help being vouchsafed to me, And hid from them.--'T were best consider that! You reason well, Aprile; but at least Let me know this, and die! Is this too much? I will learn this, if God so please, and die!

If thou shalt please, dear God, if thou shalt please! We are so weak, we know our motives least In their confused beginning. If at first I sought ... but wherefore bare my heart to thee? I know thy mercy; and already thoughts Flock fast about my soul to comfort it, And intimate I cannot wholly fail, For love and praise would clasp me willingly Could I resolve to seek them. Thou art good, And I should be content. Yet--yet first show I have done wrong in daring! Rather give The supernatural consciousness of strength Which fed my youth! Only one hour of that, With thee to help--O what should bar me then!

Lost, lost! Thus things are ordered here! God's creatures, And yet he takes no pride in us!--none, none! Truly there needs another life to come! If this be all--(I must tell Festus that) And other life await us not--for one, I say 't is a poor cheat, a stupid bungle, A wretched failure. I, for one, protest Against it, and I hurl it back with scorn.

Well, onward though alone! Small time remains, And much to do: I must have fruit, must reap Some profit from my toils. I doubt my body Will hardly serve me through; while I have labored It has decayed; and now that I demand Its best assistance, it will crumble fast: A sad thought, a sad fate! How very full Of wormwood 't is, that just at altar-service, The rapt hymn rising with the rolling smoke, When glory dawns and all is at the best, The sacred fire may flicker and grow faint And die for want of a wood-piler's help! Thus fades the flagging body, and the soul Is pulled down in the overthrow. Well, well-- Let men catch every word, let them lose naught Of what I say; something may yet be done. They are ruins! Trust me who am one of you! All ruins, glorious once, but lonely now. It makes my heart sick to behold you crouch Beside your desolate fane: the arches dim, The crumbling columns grand against the moon, Could I but rear them up once more--but that May never be, so leave them! Trust me, friends, Why should you linger here when I have built A far resplendent temple, all your own? Trust me, they are but ruins! See, Aprile, Men will not heed! Yet were I not prepared With better refuge for them, tongue of mine Should ne'er reveal how blank their dwelling is: I would sit down in silence with the rest.

Ha, what? you spit at me, you grin and shriek Contempt into my ear--my ear which drank God's accents once? you curse me? Why men, men, I am not formed for it! Those hideous eyes Will be before me sleeping, waking, praying, They will not let me even die. Spare, spare me, Sinning or no, forget that, only spare me The horrible scorn! You thought I could support it. But now you see what silly fragile creature Cowers thus. I am not good nor bad enough, Not Christ nor Cain, yet even Cain was saved From Hate like this. Let me but totter back! Perhaps I shall elude those jeers which creep Into my very brain, and shut these scorched Eyelids and keep those mocking faces out.

Listen, Aprile! I am very calm: Be not deceived, there is no passion here Where the blood leaps like an imprisoned thing: I am calm: I will exterminate the race! Enough of that: 't is said and it shall be. And now be merry: safe and sound am I Who broke through their best ranks to get at you. And such a havoc, such a rout, Aprile!

Fest. Have you no thought, no memory for me, Aureole? I am so wretched--my pure Michal Is gone, and you alone are left me now, And even you forget me. Take my hand-- Lean on me thus. Do you not know me, Aureole?

Par. Festus, my own friend, you are come at last? As you say, 't is an awful enterprise; But you believe I shall go through with it: 'T is like you, and I thank you. Thank him for me, Dear Michal! See how bright St. Saviour's spire Flames in the sunset; all its figures quaint Gay in the glancing light: you might conceive them A troop of yellow-vested white-haired Jews Bound for their own land where redemption dawns.

Fest. Not that blest time--not our youth's time, dear God!

Par. Ha--stay! true, I forget--all is done since, And he is come to judge me. How he speaks, How calm, how well! yes, it is true, all true; All quackery; all deceit; myself can laugh The first at it, if you desire: but still You know the obstacles which taught me tricks So foreign to my nature--envy and hate, Blind opposition, brutal prejudice, Bald ignorance--what wonder if I sunk To humor men the way they most approved? My cheats were never palmed on such as you, Dear Festus! I will kneel if you require me, Impart the meagre knowledge I possess, Explain its bounded nature, and avow My insufficiency--whate'er you will: I give the fight up: let there be an end, A privacy, an obscure nook for me. I want to be forgotten even by God. But if that cannot be, dear Festus, lay me, When I shall die, within some narrow grave, Not by itself--for that would be too proud-- But where such graves are thickest; let it look Nowise distinguished from the hillocks round, So that the peasant at his brother's bed May tread upon my own and know it not; And we shall all be equal at the last, Or classed according to life's natural ranks, Fathers, sons, brothers, friends--not rich, nor wise, Nor gifted: lay me thus, then say, "He lived Too much advanced before his brother men; They kept him still in front: 't was for their good, But yet a dangerous station. It were strange That he should tell God he had never ranked With men: so, here at least he is a man."

Fest. That God shall take thee to his breast, dear spirit, Unto his breast, be sure! and here on earth Shall splendor sit upon thy name forever. Sun! all the heaven is glad for thee: what care If lower mountains light their snowy phares At thine effulgence, yet acknowledge not The source of day? Their theft shall be their bale: For after-ages shall retrack thy beams, And put aside the crowd of busy ones And worship thee alone--the master-mind, The thinker, the explorer, the creator! Then, who should sneer at the convulsive throes With which thy deeds were born, would scorn as well The sheet of winding subterraneous fire Which, pent and writhing, sends no less at last Huge islands up amid the simmering sea. Behold thy might in me! thou hast infused Thy soul in mine; and I am grand as thou, Seeing I comprehend thee--I so simple, Thou so august. I recognize thee first; I saw thee rise, I watched thee early and late, And though no glance reveal thou dost accept My homage--thus no less I proffer it, And bid thee enter gloriously thy rest.

Par. Festus!

Fest. I am for noble Aureole, God! I am upon his side, come weal or woe. His portion shall be mine. He has done well. I would have sinned, had I been strong enough, As he has sinned. Reward him or I waive Reward! If thou canst find no place for him, He shall be king elsewhere, and I will be His slave forever. There are two of us.

Par. Dear Festus!

Fest. Here, dear Aureole! ever by you!

Par. Nay, speak on, or I dream again. Speak on! Some story, anything--only your voice. I shall dream else. Speak on! ay, leaning so!

Fest. Thus the Mayne glideth Where my Love abideth. Sleep 's no softer: it proceeds On through lawns, on through meads, On and on, whate'er befall, Meandering and musical, Though the niggard pasturage Bears not on its shaven ledge Aught but weeds and waving grasses To view the river as it passes, Save here and there a scanty patch Of primroses too faint to catch A weary bee.

Par. More, more; say on!

Fest. And scarce it pushes Its gentle way through strangling rushes Where the glossy kingfisher Flutters when noon-heats are near, Glad the shelving banks to shun, Red and steaming in the sun, Where the shrew-mouse with pale throat Burrows, and the speckled stoat; Where the quick sandpipers flit In and out the marl and grit That seems to breed them, brown as they: Naught disturbs its quiet way, Save some lazy stork that springs, Trailing it with legs and wings, Whom the shy fox from the hill Rouses, creep he ne'er so still.

Par. My heart! they loose my heart, those simple words; Its darkness passes, which naught else could touch: Like some dark snake that force may not expel, Which glideth out to music sweet and low. What were you doing when your voice broke through A chaos of ugly images? You, indeed! Are you alone here?

Fest. All alone: you know me? This cell?

Par. An unexceptionable vault: Good brick and stone: the bats kept out, the rats Kept in: a snug nook: how should I mistake it?

Fest. But wherefore am I here?

Par. Ah, well remembered! Why, for a purpose--for a purpose, Festus! 'T is like me: here I trifle while time fleets, And this occasion, lost, will ne'er return. You are here to be instructed. I will tell God's message; but I have so much to say, I fear to leave half out. All is confused No doubt; but doubtless you will learn in time. He would not else have brought you here: no doubt I shall see clearer soon.

Fest. Tell me but this-- You are not in despair?

Par. I? and for what?

Fest. Alas, alas! he knows not, as I feared!

Par. What is it you would ask me with that earnest Dear searching face?

Fest. How feel you, Aureole?

Par. Well: Well. 'T is a strange thing: I am dying, Festus, And now that fast the storm of life subsides, I first perceive how great the whirl has been. I was calm then, who am so dizzy now-- Calm in the thick of the tempest, but no less A partner of its motion and mixed up With its career. The hurricane is spent, And the good boat speeds through the brightening weather; But is it earth or sea that heaves below? The gulf rolls like a meadow-swell, o'erstrewn With ravaged boughs and remnants of the shore; And now some islet, loosened from the land, Swims past with all its trees, sailing to ocean; And now the air is full of uptorn canes, Light strippings from the fan-trees, tamarisks Unrooted, with their birds still clinging to them, All high in the wind. Even so my varied life Drifts by me; I am young, old, happy, sad, Hoping, desponding, acting, taking rest, And all at once: that is, those past conditions Float back at once on me. If I select Some special epoch from the crowd, 't is but To will, and straight the rest dissolve away, And only that particular state is present With all its long-forgotten circumstance Distinct and vivid as at first--myself A careless looker-on and nothing more, Indifferent and amused, but nothing more. And this is death: I understand it all. New being waits me; new perceptions must Be born in me before I plunge therein; Which last is Death's affair; and while I speak, Minute by minute he is filling me With power; and while my foot is on the threshold Of boundless life--the doors unopened yet, All preparations not complete within-- I turn new knowledge upon old events, And the effect is ... but I must not tell; It is not lawful. Your own turn will come One day. Wait, Festus! You will die like me.

Fest. 'T is of that past life that I burn to hear.

Par. You wonder it engages me just now? In truth, I wonder too. What's life to me? Where'er I look is fire, where'er I listen Music, and where I tend bliss evermore. Yet how can I refrain? 'T is a refined Delight to view those chances,--one last view. I am so near the perils I escape, That I must play with them and turn them over, To feel how fully they are past and gone. Still, it is like, some further cause exists For this peculiar mood--some hidden purpose; Did I not tell you something of it, Festus? I had it fast, but it has somehow slipt Away from me; it will return anon.

Fest. (Indeed his cheek seems young again, his voice Complete with its old tones: that little laugh Concluding every phrase, with upturned eye, As though one stooped above his head to whom He looked for confirmation and approval, Where was it gone so long, so well preserved? Then, the forefinger pointing as he speaks, Like one who traces in an open book The matter he declares; 't is many a year Since I remarked it last: and this in him, But now a ghastly wreck!) And can it be, Dear Aureole, you have then found out at last That worldly things are utter vanity? That man is made for weakness, and should wait In patient ignorance, till God appoint ...

Par. Ha, the purpose: the true purpose: that is it! How could I fail to apprehend! You here, I thus! But no more trifling: I see all, I know all: my last mission shall be done If strength suffice. No trifling! Stay; this posture Hardly befits one thus about to speak: I will arise.

Fest. Nay, Aureole, are you wild? You cannot leave your couch.

Par. No help; no help; Not even your hand. So! there, I stand once more! Speak from a couch? I never lectured thus. My gown--the scarlet lined with fur; now put The chain about my neck; my signet-ring Is still upon my hand, I think--even so; Last, my good sword; ah, trusty Azoth, leapest Beneath thy master's grasp for the last time? This couch shall be my throne: I bid these walls Be consecrate, this wretched cell become A shrine, for here God speaks to men through me. Now, Festus, I am ready to begin.

Fest. I am dumb with wonder.

Par. Listen, therefore, Festus! There will be time enough, but none to spare. I must content myself with telling only The most important points. You doubtless feel That I am happy, Festus; very happy.

Fest. 'T is no delusion which uplifts him thus! Then you are pardoned, Aureole, all your sin?

Par. Ay, pardoned: yet why pardoned?

Fest. 'T is God's praise That man is bound to seek, and you ...

Par. Have lived! We have to live alone to set forth well God's praise. 'T is true, I sinned much, as I thought, And in effect need mercy, for I strove To do that very thing; but, do your best Or worst, praise rises, and will rise forever. Pardon from him, because of praise denied-- Who calls me to himself to exalt himself? He might laugh as I laugh!

Fest. But all comes To the same thing. 'T is fruitless for mankind To fret themselves with what concerns them not; They are no use that way: they should lie down Content as God has made them, nor go mad In thriveless cares to better what is ill.

Par. No, no; mistake me not; let me not work More harm than I have worked! This is my case: If I go joyous back to God, yet bring No offering, if I render up my soul Without the fruits it was ordained to bear, If I appear the better to love God For sin, as one who has no claim on him, Be not deceived! It may be surely thus With me, while higher prizes still await The mortal persevering to the end. Beside I am not all so valueless: I have been something, though too soon I left Following the instincts of that happy time.

Fest. What happy time? For God's sake, for man's sake, What time was happy? All I hope to know That answer will decide. What happy time?

Par. When but the time I vowed myself to man?

Fest. Great God, thy judgments are inscrutable!

Par. Yes, it was in me; I was born for it-- I, Paracelsus: it was mine by right. Doubtless a searching and impetuous soul Might learn from its own motions that some task Like this awaited it about the world; Might seek somewhere in this blank life of ours For fit delights to stay its longings vast; And, grappling Nature, so prevail on her To fill the creature full she dared thus frame Hungry for joy; and, bravely tyrannous, Grow in demand, still craving more and more, And make each joy conceded prove a pledge Of other joy to follow--bating naught Of its desires, still seizing fresh pretence To turn the knowledge and the rapture wrung As an extreme, last boon, from destiny, Into occasion for new covetings, New strifes, new triumphs:--doubtless a strong soul, Alone, unaided might attain to this, So glorious is our nature, so august Man's inborn uninstructed impulses, His naked spirit so majestical! But this was born in me; I was made so; Thus much time saved: the feverish appetites, The tumult of unproved desire, the unaimed Uncertain yearnings, aspirations blind, Distrust, mistake, and all that ends in tears Were saved me; thus I entered on my course. You may be sure I was not all exempt From human trouble; just so much of doubt As bade me plant a surer foot upon The sun-road, kept my eye unruined 'mid The fierce and flashing splendor, set my heart Trembling so much as warned me I stood there On sufferance--not to idly gaze, but cast Light on a darkling race; save for that doubt, I stood at first where all aspire at last To stand: the secret of the world was mine. I knew, I felt, (perception unexpressed, Uncomprehended by our narrow thought, But somehow felt and known in every shift And change in the spirit,--nay, in every pore Of the body, even,)--what God is, what we are, What life is--how God tastes an infinite joy In infinite ways--one everlasting bliss, From whom all being emanates, all power Proceeds; in whom is life forevermore, Yet whom existence in its lowest form Includes; where dwells enjoyment there is he; With still a flying point of bliss remote, A happiness in store afar, a sphere Of distant glory in full view; thus climbs Pleasure its heights forever and forever. The centre-fire heaves underneath the earth, And the earth changes like a human face; The molten ore bursts up among the rocks, Winds into the stone's heart, outbranches bright In hidden mines, spots barren river-beds, Crumbles into fine sand where sunbeams bask-- God joys therein. The wroth sea's waves are edged With foam, white as the bitten lip of hate, When, in the solitary waste, strange groups Of young volcanos come up, cyclops-like, Staring together with their eyes on flame-- God tastes a pleasure in their uncouth pride. Then all is still; earth is a wintry clod: But spring-wind, like a dancing psaltress, passes Over its breast to waken it, rare verdure Buds tenderly upon rough banks, between The withered tree-roots and the cracks of frost, Like a smile striving with a wrinkled face; The grass grows bright, the boughs are swoln with blooms Like chrysalids impatient for the air, The shining dorrs are busy, beetles run Along the furrows, ants make their ado; Above, birds fly in merry flocks, the lark Soars up and up, shivering for very joy; Afar the ocean sleeps; white fishing-gulls Flit where the strand is purple with its tribe Of nested limpets; savage creatures seek Their loves in wood and plain--and God renews His ancient rapture. Thus he dwells in all, From life's minute beginnings, up at last To man--the consummation of this scheme Of being, the completion of this sphere Of life: whose attributes had here and there Been scattered o'er the visible world before, Asking to be combined, dim fragments meant To be united in some wondrous whole, Imperfect qualities throughout creation, Suggesting some one creature yet to make, Some point where all those scattered rays should meet Convergent in the faculties of man. Power--neither put forth blindly, nor controlled Calmly by perfect knowledge; to be used At risk, inspired or checked by hope and fear: Knowledge--not intuition, but the slow Uncertain fruit of an enhancing toil, Strengthened by love: love--not serenely pure, But strong from weakness, like a chance-sown plant Which, cast on stubborn soil, puts forth changed buds And softer stains, unknown in happier climes; Love which endures and doubts and is oppressed And cherished, suffering much and much sustained, And blind, oft-failing, yet believing love, A half-enlightened, often-checkered trust:-- Hints and previsions of which faculties, Are strewn confusedly everywhere about The inferior natures, and all lead up higher, All shape out dimly the superior race, The heir of hopes too fair to turn out false, And man appears at last. So far the seal Is put on life; one stage of being complete, One scheme wound up: and from the grand result A supplementary reflux of light, Illustrates all the inferior grades, explains Each back step in the circle. Not alone For their possessor dawn those qualities, But the new glory mixes with the heaven And earth; man, once descried, imprints forever His presence on all lifeless things: the winds Are henceforth voices, wailing or a shout, A querulous mutter or a quick gay laugh, Never a senseless gust now man is born. The herded pines commune and have deep thoughts, A secret they assemble to discuss When the sun drops behind their trunks which glare Like grates of hell: the peerless cup afloat Of the lake-lily is an urn, some nymph Swims bearing high above her head: no bird Whistles unseen, but through the gaps above That let light in upon the gloomy woods, A shape peeps from the breezy forest-top, Arch with small puckered mouth and mocking eye. The morn has enterprise, deep quiet droops With evening, triumph takes the sunset hour, Voluptuous transport ripens with the corn Beneath a warm moon like a happy face: --And this to fill us with regard for man, With apprehension of his passing worth, Desire to work his proper nature out, And ascertain his rank and final place, For these things tend still upward, progress is The law of life, man is not Man as yet. Nor shall I deem his object served, his end Attained, his genuine strength put fairly forth, While only here and there a star dispels The darkness, here and there a towering mind O'erlooks its prostrate fellows: when the host Is out at once to the despair of night, When all mankind alike is perfected, Equal in full-blown powers--then, not till then, I say, begins man's general infancy. For wherefore make account of feverish starts Of restless members of a dormant whole, Impatient nerves which quiver while the body Slumbers as in a grave? Oh, long ago The brow was twitched, the tremulous lids astir, The peaceful mouth disturbed; half uttered speech Ruffled the lip, and then the teeth were set, The breath drawn sharp, the strong right-hand clenched stronger, As it would pluck a lion by the jaw; The glorious creature laughed out even in sleep! But when full roused, each giant-limb awake, Each sinew strung, the great heart pulsing fast, He shall start up and stand on his own earth, Then shall his long triumphant march begin, Thence shall his being date,--thus wholly roused. What he achieves shall be set down to him. When all the race is perfected alike As man, that is; all tended to mankind, And, man produced, all has its end thus far: But in completed man begins anew A tendency to God. Prognostics told Man's near approach; so in man's self arise August anticipations, symbols, types Of a dim splendor ever on before In that eternal circle life pursues. For men begin to pass their nature's bound, And find new hopes and cares which fast supplant Their proper joys and griefs; they grow too great For narrow creeds of right and wrong, which fade Before the unmeasured thirst for good: while peace Rises within them ever more and more. Such men are even now upon the earth, Serene amid the half-formed creatures round Who should be saved by them and joined with them. Such was my task, and I was born to it-- Free, as I said but now, from much that chains Spirits, high-dowered but limited and vexed By a divided and delusive aim, A shadow mocking a reality Whose truth avails not wholly to disperse The flitting mimic called up by itself, And so remains perplexed and nigh put out By its fantastic fellow's wavering gleam. I, from the first, was never cheated thus; I never fashioned out a fancied good Distinct from man's; a service to be done, A glory to be ministered unto With powers put forth at man's expense, withdrawn From laboring in his behalf; a strength Denied that might avail him. I cared not Lest his success ran counter to success Elsewhere: for God is glorified in man, And to man's glory vowed I soul and limb. Yet, constituted thus, and thus endowed, I failed: I gazed on power till I grew blind. Power; I could not take my eyes from that: That only, I thought, should be preserved, increased At any risk, displayed, struck out at once-- The sign and note and character of man. I saw no use in the past: only a scene Of degradation, ugliness and tears, The record of disgraces best forgotten, A sullen page in human chronicles Fit to erase. I saw no cause why man Should not stand all-sufficient even now, Or why his annals should be forced to tell That once the tide of light, about to break Upon the world, was sealed within its spring: I would have had one day, one moment's space, Change man's condition, push each slumbering claim Of mastery o'er the elemental world At once to full maturity, then roll Oblivion o'er the work, and hide from man What night had ushered morn. Not so, dear child Of after-days, wilt thou reject the past Big with deep warnings of the proper tenure By which thou hast the earth: for thee the present Shall have distinct and trembling beauty, seen Beside that past's own shade when, in relief, Its brightness shall stand out: nor yet on thee Shall burst the future, as successive zones Of several wonder open on some spirit Flying secure and glad from heaven to heaven: But thou shalt painfully attain to joy, While hope and fear and love shall keep thee man! All this was hid from me: as one by one My dreams grew dim, my wide aims circumscribed, As actual good within my reach decreased, While obstacles sprung up this way and that To keep me from effecting half the sum, Small as it proved; as objects, mean within The primal aggregate, seemed, even the least, Itself a match for my concentred strength-- What wonder if I saw no way to shun Despair? The power I sought for man, seemed God's. In this conjuncture, as I prayed to die, A strange adventure made me know, one sin Had spotted my career from its uprise; I saw Aprile--my Aprile there! And as the poor melodious wretch disburdened His heart, and moaned his weakness in my ear, I learned my own deep error; love's undoing Taught me the worth of love in man's estate, And what proportion love should hold with power In his right constitution; love preceding Power, and with much power, always much more love; Love still too straitened in his present means, And earnest for new power to set love free. I learned this, and supposed the whole was learned: And thus, when men received with stupid wonder My first revealings, would have worshipped me, And I despised and loathed their proffered praise-- When, with awakened eyes, they took revenge For past credulity in casting shame On my real knowledge, and I hated them-- It was not strange I saw no good in man, To overbalance all the wear and waste Of faculties, displayed in vain, but born To prosper in some better sphere: and why? In my own heart love had not been made wise To trace love's faint beginnings in mankind, To know even hate is but a mask of love's, To see a good in evil, and a hope In ill-success; to sympathize, be proud Of their half-reasons, faint aspirings, dim Struggles for truth, their poorest fallacies, Their prejudice and fears and cares and doubts; All with a touch of nobleness, despite Their error, upward tending all though weak, Like plants in mines which never saw the sun, But dream of him, and guess where he may be, And do their best to climb and get to him. All this I knew not, and I failed. Let men Regard me, and the poet dead long ago Who loved too rashly; and shape forth a third And better-tempered spirit, warned by both: As from the over-radiant star too mad To drink the life-springs, beamless thence itself-- And the dark orb which borders the abyss, Ingulfed in icy night,--might have its course, A temperate and equidistant world. Meanwhile, I have done well, though not all well. As yet men cannot do without contempt; 'T is for their good, and therefore fit awhile That they reject the weak, and scorn the false, Rather than praise the strong and true, in me: But after, they will know me. If I stoop Into a dark tremendous sea of cloud, It is but for a time; I press God's lamp Close to my breast; its splendor, soon or late, Will pierce the gloom: I shall emerge one day. You understand me? I have said enough!

Fest. Now die, dear Aureole!

Par. Festus, let my hand-- This hand, lie in your own, my own true friend! Aprile! Hand in hand with you, Aprile!

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Fest. And this was Paracelsus!

STRAFFORD

A TRAGEDY

DEDICATED, IN ALL AFFECTIONATE ADMIRATION,

TO

WILLIAM C. MACREADY

LONDON, APRIL 23, 1837

Paracelsus found an enthusiastic reader in the actor Macready, who begged Browning to write him a play, even suggesting the subject to him, which did not awaken the poet's interest. More than a year passed, when the two met at a supper given by Macready after the successful presentation of Talfourd's Ion. As the guests were leaving, Macready said to Browning: "Write a play, Browning, and keep me from going to America." "Shall it be historical and English?" replied Browning. "What do you say to a drama on Strafford?" and the poet now had his subject. His choice is readily explained by the fact that he was at this time helping his friend John Forster with his Life of Strafford contained in Lives of Eminent British Statesmen. Indeed, Mr. Furnivall says without hesitation that the agreement of the Strafford of the play with the Strafford of Forster's biography is due to the fact that Browning wrote the whole of the Life of Strafford after the first seven paragraphs.

When the play was rehearsing Browning gave Macready a lilt which he had composed for the children's song in Act V. It was not used, because the two children who were to sing wished a more pretentious song. The lilt which Browning composed was purposely no more than a crooning measure. He afterward gave it to Miss Hickey for her special edition of Strafford, and it is reproduced here in its place. The following is Browning's preface to the first edition:--

"I had for some time been engaged in a Poem of a very different nature, when induced to make the present attempt; and am not without apprehension that my eagerness to freshen a jaded mind by diverting it to the healthy natures of a grand epoch, may have operated unfavorably on the represented play, which is one of Action in Character, rather than Character in Action. To remedy this, in some degree, considerable curtailment will be necessary, and, in a few instances, the supplying details not required, I suppose, by the mere reader. While a trifling success would much gratify, failure will not wholly discourage me from another effort: experience is to come; and earnest endeavor may yet remove many disadvantages.

"The portraits are, I think, faithful; and I am exceedingly fortunate in being able, in proof of this, to refer to the subtle and eloquent exposition of the characters of Eliot and Strafford, in the Lives of Eminent British Statesmen, now in the course of publication in Lardner's Cyclopedia, by a writer [John Forster] whom I am proud to call my friend; and whose biographies of Hampden, Pym, and Vane, will, I am sure, fitly illustrate the present year--the Second Centenary of the Trial concerning Ship-Money. My Carlisle, however, is purely imaginary: I at first sketched her singular likeness roughly in, as suggested by Matthews and the memoir-writers--but it was too artificial, and the substituted outline is exclusively from Voiture and Waller.

"The Italian boat-song in the last scene is from Redi's 'Bacco,' long since naturalized in the joyous and delicate version of Leigh Hunt."

PERSONS

CHARLES I. Earl of HOLLAND. Lord SAVILE. Sir HENRY VANE. WENTWORTH, Viscount WENTWORTH, Earl of STRAFFORD. JOHN PYM. JOHN HAMPDEN. The younger VANE. DENZIL HOLLIS. BENJAMIN RUDYARD. NATHANIEL FIENNES. Earl of LOUDON. MAXWELL, Usher of the Black Rod. BALFOUR, Constable of the Tower. A PURITAN. Queen HENRIETTA. LUCY PERCY, Countess of Carlisle. Presbyterians, Scots Commissioners, Adherents of Strafford, Secretaries, Officers of the Court, etc. Two of Stafford's CHILDREN.

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