CUERVO - Biblioteca Nacional de Colombia

PARACELSUS
I am come back, not for those mummeries,
But to love you, and to kiss your little fect,
Soft as an ermine's winter coat I
F estus. A sense
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:
W ere he at Einsiedeln-or Micbal here I
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Paracelsus. Cruel I I see bel' now-I kneel-I shriek­
I clasp her vesture-but she fades, still fades;
And she is gone; sweet human love is gone!
'Tis only when they spring to heaven that angels
Rev eal themselves to you; they sit all day
Beside you, and lie down at rught by you,
Who care not for their presence--muse or slcep­
And all at once they leave you and you know them I
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 !
'Tis very dusk. Where are we put, Aprile?
Have they left us in the lurch? This murky, loathsome
Death-trap-this slaughter-hause-is not the h all
In the golden city I 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 I-Hold! 'Tis but a dream-no more.
I bave 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 labours 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 I Your clear voice
Vibrates too like a barp-string. Do you ask
How could I still remain on earth, should God
Grant me the great approval which I seek?
I I, you, and God can comprehend each other,
But men would murmur, and with cause enough;
For when they saw me, stainless of aU sin,
Preserved and sanctified by inward light,
They would complain that comfort, shut from them,
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