But they can nothing aid me.

I have sought

From them what they could not bestow, and now

I search no further.

Witch.

What could be the quest

Which is not in the power of the most powerful,

The rulers of the invisible?

Man.

But why should I repeat it?

A boon;

'twere in vain.

Witch. I know not that; let thy lips utter it.

Man. Well, though it torture me, 'tis but the same; My pang shall find a voice. From my youth upwards My spirit walk'd not with the souls of men,

Nor look'd upon the earth with human eyes;
The thirst of their ambition was not mine,
The aim of their existence was not mine;
My joys, my griefs, my passions, and my powers,
Made me a stranger; though I wore the form,
I had no sympathy with breathing flesh,
Nor midst the creatures of clay that girded me
Was there but one who- -but of her anon.
I said with men, and with the thoughts of men,
I held but slight communion; but instead,
My joy was in the wilderness,-to breathe
The difficult air of the iced mountain's top,
Where the birds dare not build, nor insect's wing
Flit o'er the herbless granite; or to plunge
Into the torrent, and to roll along

On the swift whirl of the new breaking wave
Of river-stream, or ocean, in their flow.
In these my early strength exulted; or
To follow through the night the moving moon,
The stars and their development; or catch
The dazzling lightnings till my eyes grew dim;
Or to look, list'ning, on the scatter'd leaves,
While Autumn winds were at their evening song.
These were my pastimes, and to be alone;
For if the beings, of whom I was one,-
Hating to be so,-cross'd me in my path,
I felt myself degraded back to them,
And was all clay again. And then I dived,

In my lone wanderings, to the caves of death,
Searching its cause in its effect; and drew

From wither'd bones, and skulls, and heap'd up dust,
Conclusions most forbidden. Then I pass'd

The nights of years in sciences untaught,
Save in the old time; and with time and toil,
And terrible ordeal, and such penance
As in itself hath power upon the air,
And spirits that do compass air and earth,
Space, and the peopled infinite, I made
Mine eyes familiar with Eternity,

Such as, before me, did the Magi, and

He who from out their fountain dwellings raised
Eros and Anteros,' at Gadara,

As I do thee;-and with my knowledge grew
The thirst of knowledge, and the power and joy
Of this most bright intelligence, until-

Witch. Proceed.

Man.

Oh! I but thus prolong'd my words,
Boasting these idle attributes, because
As I approach the core of my heart's grief—
But to my task. I have not named to thee
Father or mother, mistress, friend, or being,
With whom I wore the chain of human ties;
If I had such, they seem'd not such to me;
Yet there was one-

Witch.

Spare not thyself—proceed.

Man. She was like me in lineaments; her eyes,
Her hair, her features, all, to the very tone.

Even of her voice, they said were like to mine;

7 The philosopher Jamblicus. The story of the raising of Eros and Anteros may be found in his life by Eunapius. It is well told.-["It is reported of him," says Eunapius, "that while he and his scholars were bathing in the hot baths of Gadara, in Syria, a dispute arising concerning the baths, he, smiling, ordered his disciples to ask the inhabitants by what names the two lesser springs, that were nearer and handsomer than the rest, were called. To which the inhabitants replied, that 'the one was called Eros, and the other Anteros, but for what reason they knew not.' Upon which Jamblicus, sitting by one of the springs, put his hand in the water, and muttering some few words to himself, called up a fair-complexioned boy, with goldcoloured locks dangling from his back and breast, so that he looked like one that was washing and then, going to the other spring, and doing as he had done before, called up another Cupid, with darker and more dishevelled hair: upon which both the Cupids clung about Jamblicus; but he presently sent them back to their proper places. After this, his friends submitted their belief to him in everything."]

:

But soften'd all, and temper'd into beauty :
She had the same lone thoughts and wanderings,
The quest of hidden knowledge, and a mind
To comprehend the universe: nor these
Alone, but with them gentler powers than mine,
Pity, and smiles, and tears-which I had not;
And tenderness-but that I had for her;
Humility-and that I never had.

Her faults were mine-her virtues were her own-
I loved her, and destroy'd her!

Witch.

With thy hand?

Man. Not with my hand, but heart, which broke her heart; It gazed on mine, and wither'd. I have shed

Blood, but not hers-and yet her blood was shed;

I saw and could not stanch it.

Witch.

And for this

A being of the race thou dost despise,

The order, which thine own would rise above,
Mingling with us and ours,-thou dost forego

The gifts of our great knowledge, and shrink'st back
To recreant mortality-Away!

Man. Daughter of Air! I tell thee, since that hour-
But words are breath-look on me in my sleep,
Or watch my watchings-Come and sit by me!
My solitude is solitude no more,

But peopled with the Furies;-I have gnash'd
My teeth in darkness till returning morn,
Then cursed myself till sunset ;-I have pray'd
For madness as a blessing-'tis denied me.
I have affronted death-but in the war
Of elements the waters shrunk from me,
And fatal things pass'd harmless; the cold hand
Of an all-pitiless demon held me back,
Back by a single hair, which would not break.
In fantasy, imagination, all

The affluence of my soul-which one day was
A Croesus in creation-I plunged deep,
But, like an ebbing wave, it dash'd me back
Into the gulf of my unfathom'd thought.
I plunged amidst mankind-Forgetfulness

I sought in all, save where 'tis to be found,
And that I have to learn; my sciences,
My long pursued and superhuman art,
Is mortal here: I dwell in my despair-
And live-and live for ever.

Witch.

That I can aid thee.

Man.

It may be

To do this thy power

Must wake the dead, or lay me low with them.
Do so-in any shape-in any hour—

With any torture so it be the last.

Witch. That is not my province; but if thou Wilt swear obedience to my will, and do

My bidding, it may help thee to thy wishes.

Man. I will not swear-Obey! and whom? the spirits Whose presence I command, and be the slave

Of those who served me-Never!

Witch.

Is this all?

Hast thou no gentler answer?-Yet bethink thee,

And pause ere thou rejectest.

Man.

Witch. Enough! I may retire then-say!

Man.

I have said it.

Retire!

[The WITCH disappears.

Man. (alone.) We are the fools of time and terror: Days

Steal on us, and steal from us; yet we live,

Loathing our life, and dreading still to die.

In all the days of this detested yoke—
This vital weight upon the struggling heart,

Which sinks with sorrow, or beats quick with pain,
Or joy that ends in agony or faintness-

In all the days of past and future, for

In life there is no present, we can number
How few-how less than few-wherein the soul
Forbears to pant for death, and yet draws back
As from a stream in winter, though the chill
Be but a moment's. I have one resource
Still in my science-I can call the dead,
And ask them what it is we dread to be:
The sternest answer can but be the Grave,

And that is nothing. If they answer not--
The buried Prophet answer'd to the Hag
Of Endor; and the Spartan Monarch drew
From the Byzantine maid's unsleeping spirit
An answer and his destiny-he slew

That which he loved, unknowing what he slew,
And died unpardon'd—though he call'd in aid
The Phyxian Jove, and in Phigalia roused
The Arcadian Evocators to compel

The indignant shadow to depose her wrath,
Or fix her terin of vengeance-she replied
In words of dubious import, but fulfill'd.®
If I had never lived, that which I love
Had still been living; had I never loved,
That which I love would still be beautiful,
Happy and giving happiness. What is she?
What is she now?-a sufferer for my sins-
A thing I dare not think upon—or nothing.
Within few hours I shall not call in vain-
Yet in this hour I dread the thing I dare:
Until this hour I never shrunk to gaze
On spirit, good or evil-now I tremble,
And feel a strange cold thaw upon my heart.

8 The story of Pausanias, king of Sparta, (who commanded the Greeks at the battle of Platea, and afterwards perished for an attempt to betray the Lacedæmonians), and Cleonice, is told in Plutarch's life of Cimon; and in the Laconics of Pausanias the sophist in his description of Greece.-[The following is the passage from Plutarch :— "It is related, that when Pausanias was at Byzantium, he cast his eyes upon a young virgin named Cleonice, of a noble family there, and insisted on having her for a mistress. The parents, intimidated by his power, were under the hard necessity of giving up their daughter. The young woman begged that the light might be taken out of his apartments, that she might go to his bed in secresy and silence. When she entered he was asleep, and she unfortunately stumbled upon the candlestick, and threw it down. The noise waked him suddenly, and he, in his confusion, thinking it was an enemy coming to assassinate him, unsheathed a dagger that lay by him, and plunged it into the virgin's heart. After this he could never rest. Her image appeared to him every night, and with a menacing tone repeated this heroic

verse,

'Go to the fate which pride and lust prepare!'

The allies, highly incensed at this infamous action, joined Cimon to besiege him in Byzantium. But he found means to escape thence; and, as he was still haunted by the spectre, he is said to have applied to a temple at Heraclea, where the manes of the dead were consulted. There he invoked the spirit of Cleonice, and entreated her pardon. She appeared, and told him he would soon be delivered from all his troubles, after his return to Sparta :' in which, it seems, his death was enigmatically foretold."-LANGHORN's Plutarch, vol. iii. p. 279.]