CUERVO - Biblioteca Nacional de Colombia

PARACELSUS
A glad cheer in their voices-Michal weeps,
And Festus ponders gravely I
Festus. When you deign
To hear my purpose .•.
Paracelsus. Hear it? I can say
Beforehand all this evening's conference I
'Tis 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
A 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: at last
Our two minds go together-all the good
Approved by him, I gladly recognize;
All he counts bad, I thankfully discard;
And nought forbids my looking up at last
For some stray comfort in his cautious brow­
When, 10 I I learn that, spite of all, there lurks
Some innate and inexplicable germ
Of failure in my schemes; 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 there were no God:
A life which, prompted by the sad and blind
Lusts of the world, 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.
Michal. Is it so, Festus?
He speal{s so calmly and kindly-is it so ?
Pw·acelsus. 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 I
But this ambiguous warfare ...
Festus. . .. 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, I
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