Paracelsus / By Robert Browning.

  • Browning, Robert, 1812-1889
Date:
1835
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Paracelsus / By Robert Browning. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    18! And he is filling me minute by minute With power, and while my foot is on the threshold Of boundless life—the portals yet unopen’d— All preparations not complete within— I turn new knowledge upon old events, And the effect is ... But I must not tell; It is not fair. Your own turn will arrive Some day. Dear Festus you will die like me— Y our turn will come so that you do but wait! Fest. T is of that past life that I burn to hear . . . Par. You wonder it engages me just now ? In truth, I wonder too. What ’s life to me ? Where’er I look is fire, where’er I listen Music, and where I tend bliss evermore. Yet I can not refrain : ’tis a refined Delight to view those chances once again. I am so near the perils I escape. That I must play with them and turn them over. To feel how fully they are past and gone. Still it is like some further cause exists For this peculiar mood—some hidden purpose ; Did I not tell you something of it, Festus ?