_Par._ Whether to sink beneath such ponderous shame, To shrink up like a crushed snail, undergo In silence and desist from further toil, And so subside into a monument Of one their censure blasted? or to bow Cheerfully as submissively, to lower My old pretensions even as Basel dictates, To drop into the rank her wits assign me And live as they prescribe, and make that use Of my poor knowledge which their rules allow, Proud to be patted now and then, and careful To practise the true posture for receiving The amplest benefit from their hoofs' appliance When they shall condescend to tutor me? Then, one may feel resentment like a flame Within, and deck false systems in truth's garb, And tangle and entwine mankind with error, And give them darkness for a dower and falsehood For a possession, ages: or one may mope Into a shade through thinking, or else drowse Into a dreamless sleep and so die off. But I,--now Festus shall divine!--but I Am merely setting out once more, embracing My earliest aims again! What thinks he now? _Fest._ Your aims? the aims?--to Know? and where is found The early trust ... _Par._ Nay, not so fast; I say, The aims--not the old means. You know they made me A laughing-stock; I was a fool; you know The when and the how: hardly those means again! Not but they had their beauty; who should know Their passing beauty, if not I? Still, dreams They were, so let them vanish, yet in beauty If that may he. Stay: thus they pass in song! [_He sings._ Heap cassia, sandal-buds and stripes Of labdanum, and aloe-balls, Smeared with dull nard an Indian wipes From out her hair: such balsam falls Down sea-side mountain pedestals, From tree-tops where tired winds are fain, Spent with the vast and howling main, To treasure half their island-gain. And strew faint sweetness from some old Egyptian's fine worm-eaten shroud Which breaks to dust when once unrolled; Or shredded perfume, like a cloud From closet long to quiet vowed, With mothed and dropping arras hung, Mouldering her lute and books among, As when a queen, long dead, was young. Mine, every word! And on such pile shall die My lovely fancies, with fair perished things, Themselves fair and forgotten; yes, forgotten, Or why abjure them? So, I made this rhyme That fitting dignity might be preserved; No little proud was I; though the list of drugs Smacks of my old vocation, and the verse Halts like the best of Luther's psalms.