University of Virginia Library

Scene III

MAGUS
There is nothing on all this earth that's precious
To him who owns it, but Anxiety,
With heavy Anthesis i' the other scale,
O'er balances the pleasure on't: the rich ore
Is mixed with so much dross we cannot separate it.
There gleams no blue speck in the clouded waste
Of the charg'd atmosphere (not more perchance
Than is enough to make a butcher's surtout)
But minute after minute threatens us,
Lest in the misty wrappings of gray clouds
We lose that island space of narrowing blue—
The man who hoards a casket, shuddering
Will press it closer to his aching heart,
If the deep reed bed should but tremble to
The wind that strays thro' its rustling depths, or wave
Its trembling shadows to the ambiguity
Of moonlight. So it fares with him who knows
The windings of the world and fain would cherish
All that he loves from its intrusion:
Distrust increases with increase of years,
She is the firstborn of Experience
And ye may know her by her stealthy shuffle
And the keen gray twinkle of her deep-sunk eye
And the rejectings of her anxious front
To gaze at her own shadow. If ye greet her,
Or pass your hand in hers, she will respond
With an uncordial and relaxing grasp,
As though she did repent her courtesy
E'en in the doing o't—but from her counsel
We learn that many a gay flower, which disperses
Incense to every wandering air, fades off
And grows to a poisonous berry, which gives death
To all who taste it—that the broider'd side
Of Life's fair tapestry, with its woven groups
Of gloomy imagery, and the inwrought splendour
Of flower and fruitage, sheweth fair to the eyes
Of inexperienced immaturity,
But unto those whose rarity of locks
The hand of Time hath salted, she exhibits
The dark reverse of it,
The intertwinings and rough wanderings
Of random threads and wayward colourings—
A mêlée and confusion of all hues,
Disorder of a system which seemed Order.
Yet never, in my gayest hour of Being,
Was I so sanguine as to deem to my fate
Would with each longing of impatient Hope
Each gasp and indraw of the hasty breath
Sparkle like Oroonoko in a tube,
Which even as it ignites and inflames
Doth change to bitter ashes.