_Par._ (_after a pause_). No, I have naught to fear! Who will may know The secret'st workings of my soul. What though It be so?--if indeed the strong desire _Eclipse the aim in me?_--if splendor break Upon the outset of my path alone, And duskest shade succeed? What fairer seal Shall I require to my authentic mission Than this fierce energy?--this instinct striving Because its nature is to strive?--enticed By the security of no broad course, Without success forever in its eyes! How know I else such glorious fate my own, But in the restless irresistible force That works within me? Is it for human will To institute such impulses?--still less, To disregard their promptings! What should I Do, kept among you all; your loves, your cares, Your life--all to be mine? Be sure that God Ne'er dooms to waste the strength he deigns impart! Ask the geier-eagle why she stoops at once Into the vast and unexplored abyss, What full-grown power informs her from the first, Why she not marvels, strenuously beating The silent boundless regions of the sky! Be sure they sleep not whom God needs! Nor fear Their holding light his charge, when every hour That finds that charge delayed, is a new death. This for the faith in which I trust; and hence I can abjure so well the idle arts These pedants strive to learn and teach; Black Arts, Great Works, the Secret and Sublime, forsooth-- Let others prize: too intimate a tie Connects me with our God! A sullen fiend To do my bidding, fallen and hateful sprites To help me--what are these, at best, beside God helping, God directing everywhere, So that the earth shall yield her secrets up, And every object there be charged to strike, Teach, gratify her master God appoints? And I am young, my Festus, happy and free! I can devote myself; I have a life To give; I, singled out for this, the One! Think, think! the wide East, where all Wisdom sprung; The bright South, where she dwelt; the hopeful North, All are passed o'er--it lights on me! 'T is time New hopes should animate the world, new light Should dawn from new revealings to a race Weighed down so long, forgotten so long; thus shall The heaven reserved for us at last receive Creatures whom no unwonted splendors blind, But ardent to confront the unclouded blaze, Whose beams not seldom blessed their pilgrimage, Not seldom glorified their life below.