Collected Works (Vol. I)

THE FAREWELL OF PARACELSUS TO APRILE 41 But oh! this desert is a weary land ! Poisons alone their prickly heads lift high ; The sun, a vlobe of fury, still doth stand In the dark basin of the burning sky. There is no water, no, nor herb, and I laint at his anger who compels the herd To fall upon the waste, so fierce and dry That none may pass it, not the very bird. Throughout the vast expanse no single sound is heard. Only the moaning of the dying ox, And my parched cry for water from cracked lips ; In vain the stern impenctrable rocks Mock my complaint: the empty pitcher dips Into the empty well ; the water drips, Oozing in tiny drops caught up again By the sun’s heat, that brooks not his eclipse And dissipates the welcome clouds of rain. God! have Thou pity soon on this amazing pain. If but a lion stirred with distant roar The silence of the world, perchance at last I might find honey in his mouth, and store His tawny flanks until the sand were past.! Nay, but these wastes intolerably vast, Like glowing copper raging for the heat, Stretch and stretch on and leave me all achast Straining my eyes in horror and defeat Toward the long vista seen where rescue seems to greet, The vessel fills with brackish foam. I drink, Drink to the end, and stagger on alone Without a staff to hold me ifI sink In the hot quaymires of untrusty stone. Foodlessand beastless, so despairing grown, I know not, care not, only trust that soon The sun’s dominion may be overthrown, And o’er the wilderness appear the moon With cold lips to bestow the inestimable boon. 1 See the story of Samson. Sull I have never prayed for death, but rather Would be found fighting toward the goal I seek, Stretching both hands toward a_ loving father, And struggling toward some barren voice- less peak With feet made stedfast, if God made them weak ; So, on the journey, in the hottest fight I would be found by Death, whose palace bleak Should be a resting-place until the night Broke, and I met my God, and stood within His sight. Only my brain grows feebler with the toil, And clearer runs the river I forsook ; Now in clear pools its myriad fountains boil, Now there runs singing to its breast a brook ; Now it flows gently to a little nook Where I once rested—Ah! I clench my hand And turn away with yet undaunted look, Setting my face toward the distant land That must lie sumewhere far beyond this world of sand. About me are the bones of many men Who turned to God their rapt adoring eyes, And cast away the love within their ken For this vague treasure-house beyond the skies— Whither I turn, like a dumb beast that dies, A wistful look, and breathe a dumb com- plaint. Lo! they have cast away the mask of lies And not found Truth. saint Whose skeleton lies here because his soul did faint ! So he would be a