CUERVO - Biblioteca Nacional de Colombia

106 PARACELSUS
And a statue bright was on every deck I
We shouted, every man of us,
And steered right into the harbour thus,
With pomp and prean glorious.
An hundred shapes of lucid stone!
All day we built a shrine for each­
A shrine of rock for every one-
Nor paused we till in the westering sun
We sate together on the beach
To sing, because onr task was done;
When lo! what shouts and merry songs I
'What laughter all the distance stirs!
'What raft comes loaded with its throngs
Of gentle islandel's ?
" The isles are just at hand," they cried:
" Like cloudlets faint at even sleeping,
.. Our temple-gates are opened wide,
" Our olive-groves thick shade are keeping
" For the lucid shapes you bring "-they cried.
Oh, then we woke with sudden start
From our deep dream; we knew, too late,
How bare the rock, how desolate,
To which . we had flung 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, though vain "-we cried.
Festus. In truth?
Paracelsus. Nay, wait: all this in tracings faint
May still be read on that deserted rock,
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 ciung
" To their first fault, and withered in their pride! "
Festus. Come back, then, Aureole; as you fear God, come I
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 I
Return with me to Einsiedeln, dear Aureole,
Paracelsus. No way, no way: it would not turn to good.
A spotless child sleeps on the flowering moss­
'Tis 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)
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