10
Paracelsus.
My plan, in lack of better, for pursuing
The path which God's will seems to authorize—
A broad plan, vague and ill defined enough,
But courting censure and imploring aid:
Well—he discerns much good in it, avows
This motive worthy, that hope plausible,
A danger here, to be avoided—there,
An oversight to be repair'd: in fine
Our minds go every way together—all good
Approved by him, I gladly recognize ;
All he counts bad, I thankfully discard;
And nought forbids me to look up at last
For some stray comfort in his cautious brow—
When, lo! I learn that, spite of all, there lurks
Some innate and inexplicable germ
Of failure in my schemes; so that at last
It all amounts to this—the sovereign proof
That we devote ourselves wholly to God
Is in a life as though no God there were:
A life which, prompted by the sad and blind
Folly of man, Festus abhors the most—
The path which God's will seems to authorize—
A broad plan, vague and ill defined enough,
But courting censure and imploring aid:
Well—he discerns much good in it, avows
This motive worthy, that hope plausible,
A danger here, to be avoided—there,
An oversight to be repair'd: in fine
Our minds go every way together—all good
Approved by him, I gladly recognize ;
All he counts bad, I thankfully discard;
And nought forbids me to look up at last
For some stray comfort in his cautious brow—
When, lo! I learn that, spite of all, there lurks
Some innate and inexplicable germ
Of failure in my schemes; so that at last
It all amounts to this—the sovereign proof
That we devote ourselves wholly to God
Is in a life as though no God there were:
A life which, prompted by the sad and blind
Folly of man, Festus abhors the most—
