_Aris._ Dost think that sorrow Lives only in hot brows? No angers be That rage not on the tongue? _Oc._ O, you can feel? _Aris._ Here sweep the tides that prove it. _Oc._ Yet so calm? _Aris._ Who keeps his heart astir with his own woe Has never room for others. Let us put Our paltry love aside and seek the good Of all the city, not of one because He is our friend. Think not a man may leave Life's reefed and breakered straits behind and reach Philosophy's still-waved almighty sea With selfish sorrow's mottled pilot eye. _Oc._ And you've a mortal pulse? Can love and die? _Aris._ I am as you, Ocrastes,--heart and limb,-- But I have given my kingdom to my soul, And throned secure above the body's chance Rock not with its misfortune. _Oc._ Who can keep Such sovereign state, my lord? Art never torn Or shaken? _Aris._ What hap of winds, think you, may shake The monarch towers of the soul? _Oc._ Forgive me, Aristocles. Thou sun immovable! How like Hyperion fixed in calm you shine, And riot's faction in my blood grows still With looking on thee. I'll to court and strive With sober measure to effect repeal Of Dion's banishment. And failing that, I yet may save for him his untouched wealth. [_Going, turns_] Is it not lonely on the serene height, My lord? _Aris._ The gods are sometimes there. [_Exit Ocrastes_] The gods? Vain words on vainer tongue. O, man, man, man! Weak child of limit and unwinged desire, Coping with deity in daring bout, And drowned at last within a woman's tear! ... Hyperion fixed in calm. Ay, true it is That in the heaven of my sphering mind I've reached the pause solstitial. And would fain Take comet course on new, unbidden track Than traverse o'er the stale appointed route. Ay, break the orbit's fond and placid round, And swim a wonder to the staring suns! The end is death,--and yet a comet's death. The rushing wings are round me, bear me up, And drive me like a meteor charging doom, When Aratea veils me with her eyes. [_Enter Tichus_] _Tich._ [_Aside, noting Aristocles' groan_] Ho, for ill that's past and ill that is to come, philosophy has ever a saw, but in a present pinch speaks not for groaning!... My lord, the lady Aratea asks for word with you. _Aris._ [_Hesitating_] Tell her ... I come. [_Curtain_] ACT II