Thou wast a kind child ever. He loves thee, but he must not see thee now. Thou hast indeed a rare touch on thy harp; He loves that in thee, too; there was a time (But that is past), he would have paid thy strain With music to have drawn the stars from heaven. He has his harp and laurel with him still; But he has laid the use of music by, And all which might relax his settled gloom. Yet thou may’st try thy playing, if thou wilt, But thou must keep unseen: follow us on, But at a distance! in these solitudes, In this clear mountain air, a voice will rise, Though from afar, distinctly; it may soothe him. Play when we halt; and when the evening comes, And I must leave him (for his pleasure is To be left musing these soft nights alone In the high unfrequented mountain spots), Then watch him, for he ranges swift and far, Sometimes to Etna’s top, and to the cone; But hide thee in the rocks a great way down, And try thy noblest strains, my Callicles, With the sweet night to help thy harmony! Thou wilt earn my thanks sure, and perhaps his. CALLICLES. More than a day and night, Pausanias, Of this fair summer-weather, on these hills, Would I bestow to help Empedocles. That needs no thanks: one is far better here Than in the broiling city in these heats. But tell me, how hast thou persuaded him In this his present fierce, man-hating mood, To bring thee out with him alone on Etna? PAUSANIAS. Thou hast heard all men speaking of Pantheia, The woman who at Agrigentum lay Thirty long days in a cold trance of death, And whom Empedocles called back to life. Thou art too young to note it, but his power Swells with the swelling evil of this time, And holds men mute to see where it will rise. He could stay swift diseases in old days, Chain madmen by the music of his lyre, Cleanse to sweet airs the breath of poisonous streams, And in the mountain chinks inter the winds. This he could do of old; but now, since all Clouds and grows daily worse in Sicily, Since broils tear us in twain, since this new swarm Of sophists has got empire in our schools Where he was paramount, since he is banished, And lives a lonely man in triple gloom,-- He grasps the very reins of life and death. I asked him of Pantheia yesterday, When we were gathered with Peisianax; And he made answer, I should come at night On Etna here, and be alone with him, And he would tell me, as his old, tried friend, Who still was faithful, what might profit me,-- That is, the secret of this miracle. CALLICLES.