CUERVO - Biblioteca Nacional de Colombia

PARACELSUS
With Carolostadius)-and returning sought
Basil and . . .
Paracelsus. I remember. Here's a case, now,
Will teach you why I answer not, but burn
The books you mention: pray, does Luther dream
His arguments convince by their own force
The crowds that own his doctrine? No, indeed:
His plain denial of established points
Ages had sanctified and men supposed
COUld never be oppugned while earth was under
And heaven above them-points which chance, or time
Affected not-did more than the array
Of argument which followed. Boldly deny!
There is much breath-stopping, hair-stiffening
A while; then, amazed glances, mute awaiting
The thunderbolt which does not come; and next,
R eproachful wonder and enquiry: those
VV110 else had never stirred, are able now
To find the rest out for themselves-perhaps
To outstrip him who set the whole at work,
-As never will my wise class its instructor.
And you saw Luther?
Festus. 'Tis a wondrous soul!
Paracelsus. True: the so-heavy chain which galled
mankind
Is shattered, and the noblest of us all
l\Iust bow to the deliverer-nay, the worker
Of our own projects-we who long before
Had burst its trammels, but forgot the crowd,
We should have taught, still groaned beneath the
load :
This he has done and nobly. Speed that may 1
"\V11atever be my chance or my despair,
What benefits mankind must glad me too:
And men seem made, though not as I believed,
For something better than the times produce:
Witness these gangs of peasants your new lights
From Suabia have possessed, whom Munzer leads,
And whom the duke, the landgrave, and the elector
Will calm in blood I Well, well-'tis not my world I
Festus. Hark 1
Paracelsus. 'Tis the melancholy wind astir
Within the trees; the embers too are grey,
Il'lorn must be near.
Festus. Best ope the casement: see,
The night, late strewn with clouds and flying stars,
Is blank and motionless : how peaceful sleep
The tree-tops all together 1 Like an asp,
The wind slips whispering from bough to bough.
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