CUERVO - Biblioteca Nacional de Colombia

PARACELSUS
And still more faint as the sea widens; last
I sicken on a dead gulph, streaked with light
From its own putrifying depths alone I
Then-God was pledged to take me by the hand;
Now-any miserable juggler bends
My pride to him. All seems alike at length :
'¥ho knows which are the wise and which the fools?
God may take pleasure in confounding pride
By hiding secrets with the scorned and base-
Be who stoops lowest may find most-in short,
I am here; and all seems natural; I start not:
And never having glanced behind to know
If I had kept my primal light from wane,
Am thus insensibly grown-what I am I
Oh, bitter; very bitter I And more bitter,
To fear a deeper curse, an inner ruin-
Plague beneath plague-the last turning the first
To light beside its darkness. Better weep
My youth and its brave hopes, all dead and gone,
In tears which burn I 'Would I were sure to win
Some startling secret in their stead I-a tincture
01 force to flush old age with youth, or breed
Gold, or imprison moonbeams till lhey change
To opal shafts I- only that, hurling it
Indignant back, I might convince myself
My aims remained as ever supreme and pure I
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 I
Shut out this hideous mockery from my heart I
'Twas 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 'tis all or nothing. Mighty profit
Your gains will bring if they stop short of such
Full consummation I As a man, you had
A cerlain share of strength, and that is gone
Already in the getting these you boast.
Do not they seem to laugh, as who should say-
" Grea t master, we are here indeed; dragged forth
" To light: this hast thou done; be glad I now, seek
" The strength to use which thou hast spent in getting I "
And yet 'tis surely much, 'tis very much,
Thus to have emptied youth of all its gifts,
©Biblioteca Nacional de Colombia
61