_Par._ My heart! they loose my heart, those simple words; Its darkness passes, which naught else could touch: Like some dark snake that force may not expel, Which glideth out to music sweet and low. What were you doing when your voice broke through A chaos of ugly images? You, indeed! Are you alone here? _Fest._ All alone: you know me? This cell? _Par._ An unexceptionable vault: Good brick and stone: the bats kept out, the rats Kept in: a snug nook: how should I mistake it? _Fest._ But wherefore am I here? _Par._ Ah, well remembered! Why, for a purpose--for a purpose, Festus! 'T is like me: here I trifle while time fleets, And this occasion, lost, will ne'er return. You are here to be instructed. I will tell God's message; but I have so much to say, I fear to leave half out. All is confused No doubt; but doubtless you will learn in time. He would not else have brought you here: no doubt I shall see clearer soon. _Fest._ Tell me but this-- You are not in despair? _Par._ I? and for what? _Fest._ Alas, alas! he knows not, as I feared! _Par._ What is it you would ask me with that earnest Dear searching face? _Fest._ How feel you, Aureole? _Par._ Well: Well. 'T is a strange thing: I am dying, Festus, And now that fast the storm of life subsides, I first perceive how great the whirl has been. I was calm then, who am so dizzy now-- Calm in the thick of the tempest, but no less A partner of its motion and mixed up With its career. The hurricane is spent, And the good boat speeds through the brightening weather; But is it earth or sea that heaves below? The gulf rolls like a meadow-swell, o'erstrewn With ravaged boughs and remnants of the shore; And now some islet, loosened from the land, Swims past with all its trees, sailing to ocean; And now the air is full of uptorn canes, Light strippings from the fan-trees, tamarisks Unrooted, with their birds still clinging to them, All high in the wind. Even so my varied life Drifts by me; I am young, old, happy, sad, Hoping, desponding, acting, taking rest, And all at once: that is, those past conditions Float back at once on me. If I select Some special epoch from the crowd, 't is but To will, and straight the rest dissolve away, And only that particular state is present With all its long-forgotten circumstance Distinct and vivid as at first--myself A careless looker-on and nothing more, Indifferent and amused, but nothing more. And this is death: I understand it all. New being waits me; new perceptions must Be born in me before I plunge therein; Which last is Death's affair; and while I speak, Minute by minute he is filling me