Methought, on this aspiring form I gazed
Until a youth, who downcast looked, and coy,
Came near; when wondering that he never raised
His eyes, I asked what thoughts might him employ:
The minstrel said, 'twas "he who to enjoy
"Plato's Elysium leapt into the sea--
"Cleombrotus'--and, the fanatic boy
Thus briefly named, my minstrel guide from me
Departed. I, to follow felt I was not free.

Perplexed, I seemed a while to look around,
And wistfully to think of mother Earth;
But soon all thought and consciousness were bound
Unto that mountain region: I felt dearth
Of earthly sense, as heretofore, but birth
Of intellection; for the spirits twain,
Of Hellas sprung, seemed now, in words of worth,
Though without mortal sound, of their soul's stain
And essences of things, to speak in fervid strain.--

"Sage Agrigentine, shall we never leave
Our earth-born weaknesses?'--the youth began:
"Ages of thought, since Hades did receive
Our spirits, have elapsed, by mortal span,--
Still, from the great disciplinarian
Stern Truth, we slowly learn! A juggler's dupe
Thou art, ev'n now--thyself the charlatan!
Nay!--like an intellectual eagle, stoop
Upon thy quarry, Self-Deceit, with conquering swoop!

"Vainly, thou knowst, thou wilt seek worshippers
Of thy proud foolery, here. Before thee fall
No votaries; and thy erring spirit stirs,
In vain, her sovereignty to re-enthral
By harbouring old thoughts terrestrial:
None will thy godship own! Thy rock descend,
Laying stale follies by, and let us call
Forth from the mind the vigorous powers that rend
Fate's curtain; and our ken beyond these shades extend!'--

The younger Hellene ceased; and, while he spake,
The elder changed, like one who having quaffed
The maddening cup, up, from his couch doth wake,
And--told by crowds that old Lyaean craft
Beguiled him, till he skipt, and mouthed, and laught,
As one moon-struck,--now, ebriate with rage,
Dashes to earth the foul venemose draught;
So changed, from pride to ire, the thought-smit sage:
As if the soul now spurned her self-wrought vassalage.

Descending his imaginary throne
With haste, upon the rugged granite peak
He seemed to have laid his fancied godhead down;
For, like to glow that crimsons mortal cheek,
A glow of shame cae o'er the lofty Greek,
When, 'midst the grove, upon the mountain's sward
He stood, and, couched in phrase antique,
Poured forth his inmost thoughts. A rapt regard
Rendered the youth while thus discoursed the ancient bard:

"Cleombrotus, thou humblest me; yet I
Thy debtor am; fraternal chastisement
Our spirits need, even here--O mystery
Inexplicable! Vanily, on earth outwent
The mind on high discovery, prescient
Herself esteeming of her after-state;
For Ease, Pain's issue, here, is incident,
As to Earth's clime; and all unlike our fate
To what we did in mortal life prognosticate.

"Thou findst not here deep ecstacy absorb
With ravishment perpetual the soul;
Although Elysian dreams yon dreaming orb
Enticed thee to forsake, and flee to goal
Eternal. Neither do fierce fires control
Our thought with mystic torture, as they feign
On earth, who now affright, and then cajole
Poor trampled earthworms--picturing joy or pain
Ghostly, until the mind subserves the body's chain.

"Here, as on earth, we feel our woe or joy
Is of and from ourselves: the yearning mind
Her own beatitude, and its alloy,
Creates, and suffering ever intertwined,
She proves with error. Fool--I am, and blind--
Amidst my fancied widsom! What impels
The soul to err? If in the right she find
Her happiness concentred, why rebels
The will against the judgment till it foams and swells?

"A tempest,--aided by the raging blast
Of passion,--and the yielding soul is whirled
Helplessly into guilt's black gulf, or cast
On death's sharp breakers? What hath hither hurled
Thy bark and mine? Our senses' sails upfurled
We did esteem, by sage Philosophy,
Yet was our vessel caught were fiercest curled
The furious billows, and poor shipwrecks we
Were left--even while we boasted our dexterity!

"Thou, whilst aspiring after fuller bliss
Than earth affords, wert maddened with desire
To realise some pure hypostasis
Platonic dreamers fable from their sire,
The Academian: I consuming fire
Felt daily in my veins to see my race
Emerge from out the foul defiling mire
Of animal enjoyments that debase
Their nature, and well-nigh its lineaments efface.

"I burned to see my species proudly count
Themselves for more than brutes; and toiled to draw
Them on to drink at Virtue's living fount,
Whence purest pleasures flow. Alas! I saw
Old vice had them besotted till some awe,
Some tinge of mystery, must be allied
With moral lessons; or, a futile law
My scholars would esteem them. Not in pride
To Etna's yawning gulph the Agrigentine hied:

"I loved my kind; and, eager to exalt
Them into gods, to be esteemed a god
I coveted: thinking none would revolt
From godlike virtue when the awful nod
Divine affirmed its precepts. Thus, to fraud
Strong zeal for virture led me! Canst thou blame
My course? I tell thee, thirst for human laud
Impelled me not: 'twas may sole-thoughted aim
To render Man, my brother, worthy his high name!'--

So spake Empedocles; and him the youth
Thus answered:--"Mystery, that for ever grows
More complex as we, ardent, seek for truth,
Doth still encompass us! Thy words disclose
A tide of thoughts: and o'er my spirit flows
Wave after wave, bearing me, nerveless, from
My fancied height: as when, by acheful throes,
Self-castaway, the shelving rock I clomb,
The sea asserted o'er my limbs its masterdom.

"My chiefest marvel is that Wisdom's son,
Thyself, should, after ages have gone o'er
Him, and his race unto the tomb is run,
Still feels anxieties which earth's old shore
Convert to hell. Empedocles, no more
Mix palliation with confession, guise
Of fraud with truth! If, in thy heart's deep core,
Thou hadst not erred, why, by the grand assize
Of the soul's Judge, dost thou in Hades agonise?

"No longer from thy judgment seek to hide
The truth indisputable--that thy heart
Was moved, like every human heart, by pride--
That subtle poison which with fatal smart,
Man's spirit penetrates, and doth impart
Its hateful tinct even to his pearliest deeds.
Whence rise the spectrous forms that flit athwart
The mental vision here? Thy thought--why breeds
It still Pride's haughty plant, unless from earth-sown seeds?

"I question not the truth of thy deep love
For virtue, for man's happiness thy zeal.
Empedocles, thou knowst my soul hath clove
To thine for ages, in these shades: we feel
Our heart congenial while we thus reveal
Its throbbings to the core. Oh! not in hate
Or mockery do I once again appeal
Unto thy nobler thought. Though sad our state,
Let us from self-deceit the soul emancipate!'

He ceased . . .