Paracelsus: Part Iv: Paracelsus Aspires Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AB BCDEBBEBFGHEIJGGBGBK ELMBGMEBGNOBPQGDGEBB EEECREGEEBES BSGBB BGTEEBEEEGBE BM BBBUEE BVEWXBMGWY BMBEDBBDEEEZEDCEEEAE OEEEGDEEEMBEEDLGCJMA 2EGBEGEGGEEEB2GEELKC 2D BME BMEBEOBBDGEBD2IGBEBE EA2BM BBM BWGMEGGBBBGMDBBWE2GE F2BVG2DG BEE B BBGLGBBD B BBBBBB2B2B2 EEEEEDDD EBQH2EBBB BMGELBBI2GBE BH2J2BEL BI2DM BBMDBDEBEHEBGBBEB2ME GEQGB BB BGDDHEGME OGTLBEEEEEGEELREBMBB BBK2EBE BBLBEGL2HHBBLLEEBEBB EM2N2ENBBEMEG BE BEERGEHDBMMEO2EBB BMP2LELEEBBEBLEBO2BB BE BDBBE BC2EEGBELEELEEI2I2MX LBGEBQ2BEM2BTM2BMBLL FLGWGLR2BMNBBBK2LEEW GLELGBEMGMEMEMS2 BL2BG BOEMBEH2 BEHBMEEEBEEELRLB B DFBGMEEGBLBEEBEB B ET2T2EBEBBWWBEEGLGLL EEEGHGBGBGHGEEEEEEE DEDEEBEBEDBBB LOLLOLBBBBEDEDEEEEEE EEE BH BEEBDE BFEGBI2M BEBLEBMBBU2B BELV2KGGE BEEM2BEEBBEB BEOLE BB BEBGEEEEEBELBMBGBEBB BEBBE BV2EBBLBMLEW2EBDLLGB E BBOLBEEEBBDEBEBL BX2H2BBEBEEBY2BEBEEH DBB BMBLMBBMHBEBBBBLBBBB EBLE BBBEEE BL BB BBZ2B BE BH BBBEDEP2EE BM BLBBEBE BBD BBBDEBBBT2EScene Colmar in Alsatia an Inn | A |
Paracelsus Festus | B |
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Paracelsus | B |
to Johannes Oporinus his Secretary | C |
Sic itur ad astra Dear Von Visenburg | D |
Is scandalized and poor Torinus paralysed | E |
And every honest soul that Basil holds | B |
Aghast and yet we live as one may say | B |
Just as though Liechtenfels had never set | E |
So true a value on his sorry carcass | B |
And learned P tter had not frowned us dumb | F |
We live and shall as surely start to morrow | G |
For Nuremberg as we drink speedy scathe | H |
To Basil in this mantling wine suffused | E |
A delicate blush no fainter tinge is born | I |
I' the shut heart of a bud Pledge me good John | J |
Basil a hot plague ravage it and P tter | G |
Oppose the plague Even so Do you too share | G |
Their panic the reptiles Ha ha faint through these | B |
Desist for these They manage matters so | G |
At Basil 't is like but others may find means | B |
To bring the stoutest braggart of the tribe | K |
Once more to crouch in silence means to breed | E |
A stupid wonder in each fool again | L |
Now big with admiration at the skill | M |
Which stript a vain pretender of his plumes | B |
And that done means to brand each slavish brow | G |
So deeply surely ineffaceably | M |
That henceforth flattery shall not pucker it | E |
Out of the furrow there that stamp shall stay | B |
To show the next they fawn on what they are | G |
This Basil with its magnates fill my cup | N |
Whom I curse soul and limb And now despatch | O |
Despatch my trusty John and what remains | B |
To do whate'er arrangements for our trip | P |
Are yet to be completed see you hasten | Q |
This night we'll weather the storm at least to morrow | G |
For Nuremberg Now leave us this grave clerk | D |
Has divers weighty matters for my ear | G |
Oporinus goes out | E |
And spare my lungs At last my gallant Festus | B |
I am rid of this arch knave that dogs my heels | B |
As a gaunt crow a gasping sheep at last | E |
May give a loose to my delight How kind | E |
How very kind my first best only friend | E |
Why this looks like fidelity Embrace me | C |
Not a hair silvered yet Right you shall live | R |
Till I am worth your love you shall be pround | E |
And I but let time show Did you not wonder | G |
I sent to you because our compact weighed | E |
Upon my conscience you recall the night | E |
At Basil which the gods confound because | B |
Once more I aspire I call you to my side | E |
You come You thought my message strange | S |
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Festus | B |
So strange | S |
That I must hope indeed your messenger | G |
Has mingled his own fancies with the words | B |
Purporting to be yours | B |
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Paracelsus | B |
He said no more | G |
'T is probable than the precious folk I leave | T |
Said fiftyfold more roughly Well a day | E |
'T is true poor Paracelsus is exposed | E |
At last a most egregious quack he proves | B |
And those he overreached must spit their hate | E |
On one who utterly beneath contempt | E |
Could yet deceive their topping wits You heard | E |
Bare truth and at my bidding you come here | G |
To speed me on my enterprise as once | B |
Your lavish wishes sped me my own friend | E |
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Festus | B |
What is your purpose Aureole | M |
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Paracelsus | B |
Oh for purpose | B |
There is no lack of precedents in a case | B |
Like mine at least if not precisely mine | U |
The case of men cast off by those they sought | E |
To benefit | E |
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Festus | B |
They really cast you off | V |
I only heard a vague tale of some priest | E |
Cured by your skill who wrangled at your claim | W |
Knowing his life's worth best and how the judge | X |
The matter was referred to saw no cause | B |
To interfere nor you to hide your full | M |
Contempt of him nor he again to smother | G |
His wrath thereat which raised so fierce a flame | W |
That Basil soon was made no place for you | Y |
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Paracelsus | B |
The affair of Liechtenfels the shallowest fable | M |
The last and silliest outrage mere pretence | B |
I knew it I foretold it from the first | E |
How soon the stupid wonder you mistook | D |
For genuine loyalty a cheering promise | B |
Of better things to come would pall and pass | B |
And every word comes true Saul is among | D |
The prophets Just so long as I was pleased | E |
To play off the mere antics of my art | E |
Fantastic gambols leading to no end | E |
I got huge praise but one can ne'er keep down | Z |
Our foolish nature's weakness There they flocked | E |
Poor devils jostling swearing and perspiring | D |
Till the walls rang again and all for me | C |
I had a kindness for them which was right | E |
But then I stopped not till I tacked to that | E |
A trust in them and a respect a sort | E |
Of sympathy for them I must needs begin | A |
To teach them not amaze them to impart | E |
The spirit which should instigate the search | O |
Of truth just what you bade me I spoke out | E |
Forthwith a mighty squadron in disgust | E |
Filed off the sifted chaff of the sack I said | E |
Redoubling my endeavours to secure | G |
The rest When lo one man had tarried so long | D |
Only to ascertain if I supported | E |
This tenet of his or that another loved | E |
To hear impartially before he judged | E |
And having heard now judged this bland disciple | M |
Passed for my dupe but all along it seems | B |
Spied error where his neighbours marvelled most | E |
That fiery doctor who had hailed me friend | E |
Did it because my by paths once proved wrong | D |
And beaconed properly would commend again | L |
The good old ways our sires jogged safely o'er | G |
Though not their squeamish sons the other worthy | C |
Discovered divers verses of St John | J |
Which read successively refreshed the soul | M |
But muttered backwards cured the gout the stone | A2 |
The colic and what not Quid multa The end | E |
Was a clear class room and a quiet leer | G |
From grave folk and a sour reproachful glance | B |
From those in chief who cap in hand installed | E |
The new professor scarce a year before | G |
And a vast flourish about patient merit | E |
Obscured awhile by flashy tricks but sure | G |
Sooner or later to emerge in splendour | G |
Of which the example was some luckless wight | E |
Whom my arrival had discomfited | E |
But now it seems the general voice recalled | E |
To fill my chair and so efface the stain | B2 |
Basil had long incurred I sought no better | G |
Only a quiet dismissal from my post | E |
And from my heart I wished them better suited | E |
And better served Good night to Basil then | L |
But fast as I proposed to rid the tribe | K |
Of my obnoxious back I could not spare them | C2 |
The pleasure of a parting kick | D |
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Festus | B |
You smile | M |
Despise them as they merit | E |
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Paracelsus | B |
If I smile | M |
'T is with as very contempt as ever turned | E |
Flesh into stone This courteous recompense | B |
This grateful Festus were your nature fit | E |
To be defiled your eyes the eyes to ache | O |
At gangrene blotches eating poison blains | B |
The ulcerous barky scurf of leprosy | B |
Which finds a man and leaves a hideous thing | D |
That cannot but be mended by hell fire | G |
I would lay bare to you the human heart | E |
Which God cursed long ago and devils make since | B |
Their pet nest and their never tiring home | D2 |
Oh sages have discovered we are born | I |
For various ends to love to know has ever | G |
One stumbled in his search on any signs | B |
Of a nature in us formed to hate To hate | E |
If that be our true object which evokes | B |
Our powers in fullest strength be sure 't is hate | E |
Yet men have doubted if the best and bravest | E |
Of spirits can nourish him with hate alone | A2 |
I had not the monopoly of fools | B |
It seems at Basil | M |
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Festus | B |
But your plans your plans | B |
I have yet to learn your purpose Aureole | M |
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Paracelsus | B |
Whether to sink beneath such ponderous shame | W |
To shrink up like a crushed snail undergo | G |
In silence and desist from further toil | M |
and so subside into a monument | E |
Of one their censure blasted or to bow | G |
Cheerfully as submissively to lower | G |
My old pretensions even as Basil dictates | B |
To drop into the rank her wits assign me | B |
And live as they prescribe and make that use | B |
Of my poor knowledge which their rules allow | G |
Proud to be patted now and then and careful | M |
To practise the true posture for receiving | D |
The amplest benefit from their hoofs' appliance | B |
When they shall condescend to tutor me | B |
Then one may feel resentment like a flame | W |
Within and deck false systems in truth's garb | E2 |
And tangle and entwine mankind with error | G |
And give them darkness for a dower and falsehood | E |
For a possession ages or one may mope | F2 |
Into a shade through thinking or else drowse | B |
Into a dreamless sleep and so die off | V |
But I now Festus shall divine but I | G2 |
Am merely setting out once more embracing | D |
My earliest aims again What thinks he now | G |
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Festus | B |
Your aims the aims to Know and where is found | E |
The early trust | E |
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Paracelsus | B |
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Nay not so fast I say | B |
The aims not the old means You know they made me | B |
A laughing stock I was a fool you know | G |
The when and the how hardly those means again | L |
Not but they had their beauty who should know | G |
Their passing beauty if not I Still dreams | B |
They were so let them vanish yet in beauty | B |
If that may be Stay thus they pass in song | D |
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He sings | B |
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Heap cassia sandal buds and stripes | B |
Of labdanum and aloe balls | B |
Smeared with dull nard an Indian wipes | B |
From out her hair such balsam falls | B |
Down sea side mountain pedestals | B |
From tree tops where tired winds are fain | B2 |
Spent with the vast and howling main | B2 |
To treasure half their island gain | B2 |
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And strew faint sweetness from some old | E |
Egyptian's fine worm eaten shroud | E |
Which breaks to dust when once unrolled | E |
Or shredded perfume like a cloud | E |
From closet long to quiet vowed | E |
With mothed and dropping arras hung | D |
Mouldering her lute and books among | D |
As when a queen long dead was young | D |
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Mine every word And on such pile shall die | E |
My lovely fancies with fair perished things | B |
Themselves fair and forgotten yes forgotten | Q |
Or why abjure them So I made this rhyme | H2 |
That fitting dignity might be preserved | E |
No little proud was I though the list of drugs | B |
Smacks of my old vocation and the verse | B |
Halts like the best of Luther's psalms | B |
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Festus | B |
But Aureole | M |
Talk not thus wildly and madly I am here | G |
Did you know all I have travelled far indeed | E |
To learn your wishes Be yourself again | L |
For in this mood I recognize you less | B |
Than in the horrible despondency | B |
I witnessed last You may account this joy | I2 |
But rather let me gaze on that despair | G |
Than hear these incoherent words and see | B |
This flushed cheek and intensely sparkling eye | E |
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Paracelsus | B |
Why man I was light hearted in my prime | H2 |
I am light hearted now what would you have | J2 |
Aprile was a poet I make songs | B |
'T is the very augury of success I want | E |
Why should I not be joyous now as then | L |
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Festus | B |
Joyous and how and what remains for joy | I2 |
You have declared the ends which I am sick | D |
Of naming are impracticable | M |
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Paracelsus | B |
Ay | B |
Pursued as I pursued them the arch fool | M |
Listen my plan will please you not 't is like | D |
But you are little versed in the world's ways | B |
This is my plan first drinking its good luck | D |
I will accept all helps all I despised | E |
So rashly at the outset equally | B |
With early impulses late years have quenched | E |
I have tried each way singly now for both | H |
All helps no one sort shall exclude the rest | E |
I seek to know and to enjoy at once | B |
Not one without the other as before | G |
Suppose my labour should seem God's own cause | B |
Once more as first I dreamed it shall not baulk me | B |
Of the meanest earthliest sensualest delight | E |
That may be snatched for every joy is gain | B2 |
And gain is gain however small My soul | M |
Can die then nor be taunted what was gained | E |
Nor on the other hand should pleasure follow | G |
As though I had not spurned her hitherto | E |
Shall she o'ercloud my spirit's rapt communion | Q |
With the tumultuous past the teeming future | G |
Glorious with visions of a full success | B |
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Festus | B |
Success | B |
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Paracelsus | B |
And wherefore not Why not prefer | G |
Results obtained in my best state of being | D |
To those derived alone from seasons dark | D |
As the thoughts they bred When I was best my youth | H |
Unwasted seemed success not surest too | E |
It is the nature of darkness to obscure | G |
I am a wanderer I remember well | M |
One journey how I feared the track was missed | E |
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So long the city I desired to reach | O |
Lay hid when suddenly its spires afar | G |
Flashed through the circling clouds you may conceive | T |
My transport Soon the vapours closed again | L |
But I had seen the city and one such glance | B |
No darkness could obscure nor shall the present | E |
A few dull hours a passing shame or two | E |
Destroy the vivid memories of the past | E |
I will fight the battle out a little spent | E |
Perhaps but still an able combatant | E |
You look at my grey hair and furrowed brow | G |
But I can turn even weakness to account | E |
Of many tricks I know 't is not the least | E |
To push the ruins of my frame whereon | L |
The fire of vigour trembles scarce alive | R |
Into a heap and send the flame aloft | E |
What should I do with age So sickness lends | B |
An aid it being I fear the source of all | M |
We boast of mind is nothing but disease | B |
And natural health is ignorance | B |
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Festus | B |
I see | B |
But one good symptom in this notable scheme | K2 |
I feared your sudden journey had in view | E |
To wreak immediate vengeance on your foes | B |
'T is not so I am glad | E |
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Paracelsus | B |
And if I please | B |
To spit on them to trample them what then | L |
'T is sorry warfare truly but the fools | B |
Provoke it I would spare their self conceit | E |
But if they must provoke me cannot suffer | G |
Forbearance on my part if I may keep | L2 |
No quality in the shade must needs put forth | H |
Power to match power my strength against their strength | H |
And teach them their own game with their own arms | B |
Why be it so and let them take their chance | B |
I am above them like a god there's no | L |
Hiding the fact what idle scruples then | L |
Were those that ever bade me soften it | E |
Communicate it gently to the world | E |
Instead of proving my supremacy | B |
Taking my natural station o'er their head | E |
Then owning all the glory was a man's | B |
And in my elevation man's would be | B |
But live and learn though life's short learning hard | E |
And therefore though the wreck of my past self | M2 |
I fear dear P tter that your lecture room | N2 |
Must wait awhile for its best ornament | E |
The penitent empiric who set up | N |
For somebody but soon was taught his place | B |
Now but too happy to be let confess | B |
His error snuff the candles and illustrate | E |
Fiat experientia corpore vili | M |
Your medicine's soundness in his person Wait | E |
Good P tter | G |
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Festus | B |
He who sneers thus is a god | E |
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Paracelsus | B |
Ay ay laugh at me I am very glad | E |
You are not gulled by all this swaggering you | E |
Can see the root of the matter how I strive | R |
To put a good face on the overthrow | G |
I have experienced and to bury and hide | E |
My degradation in its length and breadth | H |
How the mean motives I would make you think | D |
Just mingle as is due with nobler aims | B |
The appetites I modestly allow | M |
May influence me as being mortal still | M |
Do goad me drive me on and fast supplant | E |
My youth's desires You are no stupid dupe | O2 |
You find me out Yes I had sent for you | E |
To palm these childish lies upon you Festus | B |
Laugh you shall laugh at me | B |
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Festus | B |
The past then Aureole | M |
Proves nothing Is our interchange of love | P2 |
Yet to begin Have I to swear I mean | L |
No flattery in this speech or that For you | E |
Whate'er you say there is no degradation | L |
These low thoughts are no inmates of your mind | E |
Or wherefore this disorder You are vexed | E |
As much by the intrusion of base views | B |
Familiar to your adversaries as they | B |
Were troubled should your qualities alight | E |
Amid their murky souls not otherwise | B |
A stray wolf which the winter forces down | L |
From our bleak hills suffices to affright | E |
A village in the vales while foresters | B |
Sleep calm though all night long the famished troop | O2 |
Snuff round and scratch against their crazy huts | B |
These evil thoughts are monsters and will flee | B |
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Paracelsus | B |
May you be happy Festus my own friend | E |
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Festus | B |
Nay further the delights you fain would think | D |
The superseders of your nobler aims | B |
Though ordinary and harmless stimulants | B |
Will ne'er content you | E |
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Paracelsus | B |
Hush I once despised them | C2 |
But that soon passes We are high at first | E |
In our demand nor will abate a jot | E |
Of toil's strict value but time passes o'er | G |
And humbler spirits accept what we refuse | B |
In short when some such comfort is doled out | E |
As these delights we cannot long retain | L |
Bitter contempt which urges us at first | E |
To hurl it back but hug it to our breast | E |
And thankfully retire This life of mine | L |
Must be lived out and a grave thoroughly earned | E |
I am just fit for that and nought beside | E |
I told you once I cannot now enjoy | I2 |
Unless I deem my knowledge gains through joy | I2 |
Nor can I know but straight warm tears reveal | M |
My need of linking also joy to knowledge | X |
So on I drive enjoying all I can | L |
And knowing all I can I speak of course | B |
Confusedly this will better explain feel here | G |
Quick beating is it not a fire of the heart | E |
To work off some way this as well as any | B |
So Festus sees me fairly launched his calm | Q2 |
Compassionate look might have disturbed me once | B |
But now far from rejecting I invite | E |
What bids me press the closer lay myself | M2 |
Open before him and be soothed with pity | B |
I hope if he command hope and believe | T |
As he directs me satiating myself | M2 |
With his enduring love And Festus quits me | B |
To give place to some credulous disciple | M |
Who holds that God is wise but Paracelsus | B |
Has his peculiar merits I suck in | L |
That homage chuckle o'er that admiration | L |
And then dismiss the fool for night is come | F |
And I betake myself to study again | L |
Till patient searchings after hidden lore | G |
Half wring some bright truth from its prison my frame | W |
Trembles my forehead's veins swell out my hair | G |
Tingles for triumph Slow and sure the morn | L |
Shall break on my pent room and dwindling lamp | R2 |
And furnace dead and scattered earths and ores | B |
When with a failing heart and throbbing brow | M |
I must review my captured truth sum up | N |
Its value trace what ends to what begins | B |
Its present power with its eventual bearings | B |
Latent affinities the views it opens | B |
And its full length in perfecting my scheme | K2 |
I view it sternly circumscribed cast down | L |
From the high place my fond hopes yielded it | E |
Proved worthless which in getting yet had cost | E |
Another wrench to this fast falling frame | W |
Then quick the cup to quaff that chases sorrow | G |
I lapse back into youth and take again | L |
My fluttering pulse for evidence that God | E |
Means good to me will make my cause his own | L |
See I have cast off this remorseless care | G |
Which clogged a spirit born to soar so free | B |
And my dim chamber has become a tent | E |
Festus is sitting by me and his Michal | M |
Why do you start I say she listening here | G |
For yonder W rzburg through the orchard bough | M |
Motions as though such ardent words should find | E |
No echo in a maiden's quiet soul | M |
But her pure bosom heaves her eyes fill fast | E |
With tears her sweet lips tremble all the while | M |
Ha ha | S2 |
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Festus | B |
It seems then you expect to reap | L2 |
No unreal joy from this your present course | B |
But rather | G |
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Paracelsus | B |
Death To die I owe that much | O |
To what at least I was I should be sad | E |
To live contented after such a fall | M |
To thrive and fatten after such reverse | B |
The whole plan is a makeshift but will last | E |
My time | H2 |
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Festus | B |
And you have never mused and said | E |
I had a noble purpose and the strength | H |
To compass it but I have stopped half way | B |
And wrongly given the first fruits of my toil | M |
To objects little worthy of the gift | E |
Why linger round them still why clench my fault | E |
Why seek for consolation in defeat | E |
In vain endeavours to derive a beauty | B |
From ugliness why seek to make the most | E |
Of what no power can change nor strive instead | E |
With mighty effort to redeem the past | E |
And gathering up the treasures thus cast down | L |
To hold a steadfast course till I arrive | R |
At their fit destination and my own | L |
You have never pondered thus | B |
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Paracelsus | B |
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Have I you ask | D |
Often at midnight when most fancies come | F |
Would some such airy project visit me | B |
But ever at the end or will you hear | G |
The same thing in a tale a parable | M |
You and I wandering over the world wide | E |
Chance to set foot upon a desert coast | E |
Just as we cry No human voice before | G |
Broke the inveterate silence of these rocks | B |
Their querulous echo startles us we turn | L |
What ravaged structure still looks o'er the sea | B |
Some characters remain too While we read | E |
The sharp salt wind impatient for the last | E |
Of even this record wistfully comes and goes | B |
Or sings what we recover mocking it | E |
This is the record and my voice the wind's | B |
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He sings | B |
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Over the sea our galleys went | E |
With cleaving prows in order brave | T2 |
To a speeding wind and a bounding wave | T2 |
A gallant armament | E |
Each bark built out of a forest tree | B |
Left leafy and rough as first it grew | E |
And nailed all over the gaping sides | B |
Within and without with black bull hides | B |
Seethed in fat and suppled in flame | W |
To bear the playful billows' game | W |
So each good ship was rude to see | B |
Rude and bare to the outward view | E |
But each upbore a stately tent | E |
Where cedar pales in scented row | G |
Kept out the flakes of the dancing brine | L |
And an awning drooped the mast below | G |
In fold on fold of the purple fine | L |
That neither noontide nor starshine | L |
Nor moonlight cold which maketh mad | E |
Might pierce the regal tenement | E |
When the sun dawned oh gay and glad | E |
We set the sail and plied the oar | G |
But when the night wind blew like breath | H |
For joy of one day's voyage more | G |
We sang together on the wide sea | B |
Like men at peace on a peaceful shore | G |
Each sail was loosed to the wind so free | B |
Each helm made sure by the twilight star | G |
And in a sleep as calm as death | H |
We the voyagers from afar | G |
Lay stretched along each weary crew | E |
In a circle round its wondrous tent | E |
Whence gleamed soft light and curled rich scent | E |
And with light and perfume music too | E |
So the stars wheeled round and the darkness past | E |
And at morn we started beside the mast | E |
And still each ship was sailing fast | E |
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Now one morn land appeared a speck | D |
Dim trembling betwixt sea and sky | E |
Avoid it cried our pilot check | D |
The shout restrain the eager eye | E |
But the heaving sea was black behind | E |
For many a night and many a day | B |
And land though but a rock drew nigh | E |
So we broke the cedar pales away | B |
Let the purple awning flap in the wind | E |
And a statute bright was on every deck | D |
We shouted every man of us | B |
And steered right into the harbour thus | B |
With pomp and p an glorious | B |
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A hundred shapes of lucid stone | L |
All day we built its shrine for each | O |
A shrine of rock for every one | L |
Nor paused till in the westering sun | L |
We sat together on the beach | O |
To sing because our task was done | L |
When lo what shouts and merry songs | B |
What laughter all the distance stirs | B |
A loaded raft with happy throngs | B |
Of gentle islanders | B |
Our isles are just at hand they cried | E |
Like cloudlets faint in even sleeping | D |
Our temple gates are opened wide | E |
Our olive groves thick shade are keeping | D |
For these majestic forms they cried | E |
Oh then we awoke with sudden start | E |
From our deep dream and knew too late | E |
How bare the rock how desolate | E |
Which had received our precious freight | E |
Yet we called out Depart | E |
Our gifts once given must here abide | E |
Our work is done we have no heart | E |
To mar our work we cried | E |
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Festus | B |
In truth | H |
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Paracelsus | B |
Nay wait all this in tracings faint | E |
On rugged stones strewn here and there but piled | E |
In order once then follows mark what follows | B |
The sad rhyme of the men who proudly clung | D |
To their first fault and withered in their pride | E |
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Festus | B |
Come back then Aureole as you fear God come | F |
This is foul sin come back Renounce the past | E |
Forswear the future look for joy no more | G |
But wait death's summons amid holy sights | B |
And trust me for the event peace if not joy | I2 |
Return with me to Einsiedeln dear Aureole | M |
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Paracelsus | B |
No way no way it would not turn to good | E |
A spotless child sleeps on the flowering moss | B |
'T is well for him but when a sinful man | L |
Envying such slumber may desire to put | E |
His guilt away shall he return at once | B |
To rest by lying there Our sires knew well | M |
Spite of the grave discoveries of their sons | B |
The fitting course for such dark cells dim lamps | B |
A stone floor one may writhe on like a worm | U2 |
No mossy pillow blue with violets | B |
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Festus | B |
I see no symptom of these absolute | E |
And tyrannous passions You are calmer now | L |
This verse making can purge you well enough | V2 |
Without the terrible penance you describe | K |
You love me still the lusts you fear will never | G |
Outrage your friend To Einsiedeln once more | G |
Say but the word | E |
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Paracelsus | B |
No no those lusts forbid | E |
They crouch I know cowering with half shut eye | E |
Beside you 't is their nature Thrust yourself | M2 |
Between them and their prey let some fool style me | B |
Or king or quack it matters not then try | E |
Your wisdom urge them to forego their treat | E |
No no learn better and look deeper Festus | B |
If you knew how a devil sneers within me | B |
While you are talking now of this now that | E |
As though we differed scarcely save in trifles | B |
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Festus | B |
Do we so differ True change must proceed | E |
Whether for good or ill keep from me which | O |
Do not confide all secrets I was born | L |
To hope and you | E |
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Paracelsus | B |
To trust you know the fruits | B |
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Festus | B |
Listen I do believe what you call trust | E |
Was self delusion at the best for see | B |
So long as God would kindly pioneer | G |
A path for you and screen you from the world | E |
Procure you full exemption from man's lot | E |
Man's common hopes and fears on the mere pretext | E |
Of your engagement in his service yield you | E |
A limitless licence make you God in fact | E |
And turn your slave you were content to say | B |
Most courtly praises What is it at last | E |
But selfishness without example None | L |
Could trace God's will so plain as you while yours | B |
Remained implied in it but now you fail | M |
And we who prate about that will are fools | B |
In short God's service is established here | G |
As he determines fit and not your way | B |
And this you cannot brook Such discontent | E |
Is weak Renounce all creatureship at once | B |
Affirm an absolute right to have and use | B |
Your energies as though the rivers should say | B |
We rush to the ocean what have we to do | E |
With feeding streamlets lingering in the vales | B |
Sleeping in lazy pools Set up that plea | B |
That will be bold at least | E |
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Paracelsus | B |
'T is like enough | V2 |
The serviceable spirits are those no doubt | E |
The East produces lo the master bids | B |
They wake raise terraces and garden grounds | B |
In one night's space and this done straight begin | L |
Another century's sleep to the great praise | B |
Of him that framed them wise and beautiful | M |
Till a lamp's rubbing or some chance akin | L |
Wake them again I am of different mould | E |
I would have soothed my lord and slaved for him | W2 |
And done him service past my narrow bond | E |
And thus I get rewarded for my pains | B |
Beside 't is vain to talk of forwarding | D |
God's glory otherwise this is alone | L |
The sphere of its increase as far as men | L |
Increase it why then look beyond this sphere | G |
We are his glory and if we be glorious | B |
Is not the thing achieved | E |
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Festus | B |
Shall one like me | B |
Judge hearts like yours Though years have changed you much | O |
And you have left your first love and retain | L |
Its empty shade to veil your crooked ways | B |
Yet I still hold that you have honoured God | E |
And who shall call your course without reward | E |
For wherefore this repining at defeat | E |
Had triumph ne'er inured you to high hopes | B |
I urge you to forsake the life you curse | B |
And what success attends me simply talk | D |
Of passion weakness and remorse in short | E |
Anything but the naked truth you choose | B |
This so despised career and cheaply hold | E |
My happiness or rather other men's | B |
Once more return | L |
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Paracelsus | B |
And quickly John the thief | X2 |
Has pilfered half my secrets by this time | H2 |
And we depart by daybreak I am weary | B |
I know not how not even the wine cup soothes | B |
My brain to night | E |
Do you not thoroughly despise me Festus | B |
No flattery One like you needs not be told | E |
We live and breathe deceiving and deceived | E |
Do you not scorn me from your heart of hearts | B |
Me and my cant each petty subterfuge | Y2 |
My rhymes and all this frothy shower of words | B |
My glozing self deceit my outward crust | E |
Of lies which wrap as tetter morphew furfair | B |
Wrapt the sound flesh so see you flatter not | E |
Even God flatters but my friend at least | E |
Is true I would depart secure henceforth | H |
Against all further insult hate and wrong | D |
From puny foes my one friend's scorn shall brand me | B |
No fear of sinking deeper | B |
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Festus | B |
No dear Aureole | M |
No no I came to counsel faithfully | B |
There are old rules made long ere we were born | L |
By which I judge you I so fallible | M |
So infinitely low beside your mighty | B |
Majestic spirit even I can see | B |
You own some higher law than ours which call | M |
Sin what is no sin weakness what is strength | H |
But I have only these such as they are | B |
To guide me and I blame you where they bid | E |
Only so long as blaming promises | B |
To win peace for your soul the more that sorrow | B |
Has fallen on me of late and they have helped me | B |
So that I faint not under my distress | B |
But wherefore should I scruple to avow | L |
In spite of all as brother judging brother | B |
Your fate is most inexplicable to me | B |
And should you perish without recompense | B |
And satisfaction yet too hastily | B |
I have relied on love you may have sinned | E |
But you have loved As a mere human matter | B |
As I would have God deal with fragile men | L |
In the end I say that you will triumph yet | E |
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Paracelsus | B |
Have you felt sorrow Festus 't is because | B |
You love me Sorrow and sweet Michal yours | B |
Well thought on never let her know this last | E |
Dull winding up of all these miscreants dared | E |
Insult me me she loved so grieve her not | E |
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Festus | B |
Your ill success can little grieve her now | L |
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Paracelsus | B |
Michal is dead pray Christ we do not craze | B |
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Festus | B |
Aureole dear Aureole look not on me thus | B |
Fool fool this is the heart grown sorrow proof | Z2 |
I cannot bear those eyes | B |
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Paracelsus | B |
Nay really dead | E |
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Festus | B |
'T is scarce a month | H |
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Paracelsus | B |
Stone dead then you have laid her | B |
Among the flowers ere this Now do you know | B |
I can reveal a secret which shall comfort | E |
Even you I have no julep as men think | D |
To cheat the grave but a far better secret | E |
Know then you did not ill to trust your love | P2 |
To the cold earth I have thought much of it | E |
For I believe we do not wholly die | E |
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Festus | B |
Aureole | M |
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Paracelsus | B |
Nay do not laugh there is a reason | L |
For what I say I think the soul can never | B |
Taste death I am just now as you may see | B |
Very unfit to put so strange a thought | E |
In an intelligible dress of words | B |
But take it as my trust she is not dead | E |
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Festus | B |
But not on this account alone you surely | B |
Aureole you have believed this all along | D |
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Paracelsus | B |
And Michal sleeps among the roots and dews | B |
While I am moved at Basil and full of schemes | B |
For Nuremberg and hoping and despairing | D |
As though it mattered how the farce plays out | E |
So it be quickly played Away away | B |
Have your will rabble while we fight the prize | B |
Troop you in safety to the snug back seats | B |
And leave a clear arena for the brave | T2 |
About to perish for your sport Behold | E |
Robert Browning
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