CUERVO - Biblioteca Nacional de Colombia

64 PARACELSUS
With those who watch, but work no more­
Who gaze on life, but live no more :
And yet we trusted thou shouldst speak
God's message which our lips, too weak,
Refused to utter,-shouldst redeem
Our fault: such trust, and all, a dream!
So we chose thee a bright birth-place
'Vhere the richness ran to flowers­
Couldst not sing one song for grace?
Nor make one blossom man's and ours?
Must one more recreant to his race
Die with unexerted powers
And join us, leaving as he found
The world, he was to loosen, bound?
Anguish! ever and for ever;
Still beginning, ending never!
Yet, lost and last one, come!
How couldst understand, alas,
V,That our pale ghosts strove to say,
As their shades did glance and pass
Before thee, night and day?
Thou wert blind, as we were dumb;
Once more, therefore, come, 0 come I
How shall we beLLer arm the spirit
vVho next shall thy post of life inherit­
How guard him from thy ruin?
Tell us of thy sad undoing
Here, where we sit, ever pursuing
Our weary task, ever renewing
Sharp sorrow, far from God who gave
Our powers, and man they could not save! "
APRILE enters
A spirit better armed, succeeding me ?
Ha, ha! our king that wouldst be, here at last?
Art thou the Poet who shall save the world?
Thy hand to mine. Stay, fix thine eyes on mine.
Thou wouldst be king? Still fix thine eyes on mine!
Paracelsus. Ha, ha! why crouchest not? Am I not
king?
So torture is not wholly unavailing!
Have my fierce spasms compelled thee from thy lair?
Art thou the Sage I only seemed to be,
Myself of after-time, my very self
,\lith sight a little clearer, strength more firm,
'Vho robs me of my prize and takes my place
Por just a fault, a weakness, a neglect?
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