CUERVO - Biblioteca Nacional de Colombia

70 PARACELSUS
And laugh that man's applause or welfare once
Could tempt thee to forsake them? Or when years
Had passed, and still their love possessed thee wholly;
When from without some murmur startled thee
Of darkling mortals, famish ed for one ray
Of thy so-hoarded luxury of light,
Didst thou ne'er strive even yet to break those spells,
And prove thou couldst recover and fulfil
Thy early mission, long ago renounced,
And, to that end, select some shape once more?
And did not mist-like influences, thick films,
Faint memories of the rest, that charmed so long
Thine eyes, float fast, confuse thee, bear thee off,
As whirling snowdrifts blind a man who treads
A mountain ridge, with guiding spear, through storm?
Say, though I fell, I had excuse to fall ;
Say, I was tempted sorely: say but this,
Dear lord, Aprile's lord I
Paracelsus. Clasp me not thus,
Aprile I . . . That the truth should reach me thus r
We are weak dust. Nay, clasp not, or I faint I
Aprile. My king I and envious thoughts could outrage
theo I
La, I forget my ruin, and rejoice
In thy success, as thou I Let our God's praise
Go bravely through the world at last I What care
Through me or thee? I feel thy breath ... why, tears?
Tears in the darkness-and from thee to me ?
Paracelsus. Love me henceforth, Aprile, while I learn
To love; and, merciful God, forgive us both I
''Ie wake at length from weary dreams; but both
Have slept in fairy-land: though dark and drear
Appears the world before us, we no less
Wake with our wrists and ancles jewelled still.
I, too, have sought to KNOW as thou to LOVE­
Excluding love as thou refusedst knowledge.
Still thou hast beauty and I, power. We wake:
\Vhat penance canst devise for both of us?
Aprile. I hear tbee faintly . . . the thick darkness I
Even
Thine eyes are hid. 'Tis as I knew: I speak,
And now I die. But I have seen thy face I
0, poet, think of me, and sing of me 1
But to have seen thee, and to die so soon I
Paracelsus. Die not, Aprile: we must never part.
Are we not halves of one dissevered world,
\Vhom this strange chance unites once more? Part?
never 1
Till thou, tbe lover, know; and I, the knower,
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