_Fest._ Have you no thought, no memory for me, Aureole? I am so wretched--my pure Michal Is gone, and you alone are left me now, And even you forget me. Take my hand-- Lean on me thus. Do you not know me, Aureole? _Par._ Festus, my own friend, you are come at last? As you say, 't is an awful enterprise; But you believe I shall go through with it: 'T is like you, and I thank you. Thank him for me, Dear Michal! See how bright St. Saviour's spire Flames in the sunset; all its figures quaint Gay in the glancing light: you might conceive them A troop of yellow-vested white-haired Jews Bound for their own land where redemption dawns. _Fest._ Not that blest time--not our youth's time, dear God! _Par._ Ha--stay! true, I forget--all is done since, And he is come to judge me. How he speaks, How calm, how well! yes, it is true, all true; All quackery; all deceit; myself can laugh The first at it, if you desire: but still You know the obstacles which taught me tricks So foreign to my nature--envy and hate, Blind opposition, brutal prejudice, Bald ignorance--what wonder if I sunk To humor men the way they most approved? My cheats were never palmed on such as you, Dear Festus! I will kneel if you require me, Impart the meagre knowledge I possess, Explain its bounded nature, and avow My insufficiency--whate'er you will: I give the fight up: let there be an end, A privacy, an obscure nook for me. I want to be forgotten even by God. But if that cannot be, dear Festus, lay me, When I shall die, within some narrow grave, Not by itself--for that would be too proud-- But where such graves are thickest; let it look Nowise distinguished from the hillocks round, So that the peasant at his brother's bed May tread upon my own and know it not; And we shall all be equal at the last, Or classed according to life's natural ranks, Fathers, sons, brothers, friends--not rich, nor wise, Nor gifted: lay me thus, then say, "He lived Too much advanced before his brother men; They kept him still in front: 't was for their good, But yet a dangerous station. It were strange That he should tell God he had never ranked With men: so, here at least he is a man."