_Fest._ My words have their old fate and make faint stand Against your glowing periods. Call this, truth-- Why not pursue it in a fast retreat, Some one of Learning's many palaces, After approved example?--seeking there Calm converse with the great dead, soul to soul, Who laid up treasure with the like intent --So lift yourself into their airy place, And fill out full their unfulfilled careers, Unravelling the knots their baffled skill Pronounced inextricable, true!--but left Far less confused. A fresh eye, a fresh hand, Might do much at their vigor's waning-point; Succeeding with new-breathed new-hearted force, As at old games the runner snatched the torch From runner still: this way success might be. But you have coupled with your enterprise An arbitrary self-repugnant scheme Of seeking it in strange and untried paths. What books are in the desert? Writes the sea The secret of her yearning in vast caves Where yours will fall the first of human feet? Has wisdom sat there and recorded aught You press to read? Why turn aside from her To visit, where her vesture never glanced, Now--solitudes consigned to barrenness By God's decree, which who shall dare impugn? Now--ruins where she paused but would not stay, Old ravaged cities that, renouncing her, She called an endless curse on, so it came: Or worst of all, now--men you visit, men, Ignoblest troops who never heard her voice Or hate it, men without one gift from Rome Or Athens,--these shall Aureole's teachers be! Rejecting past example, practice, precept, Aidless 'mid these he thinks to stand alone: Thick like a glory round the Stagirite Your rivals throng, the sages: here stand you! Whatever you may protest, knowledge is not Paramount in your love; or for her sake You would collect all help from every source-- Rival, assistant, friend, foe, all would merge In the broad class of those who showed her haunts, And those who showed them not.