Page:The poetical works of Matthew Arnold, 1897.djvu/260

222 But tell me, how hast thou persuaded him

In this his present fierce, man-hating mood,

To bring thee out with him alone on Etna?

PAUSANIAS.

Thou hast heard all men speaking of Pantheia,

The woman who at Agrigentum lay

Thirty long days in a cold trance of death,

And whom Empedocles called back to life.

Thou art too young to note it, but his power

Swells with the swelling evil of this time,

And holds men mute to see where it will rise.

He could stay swift diseases in old days,

Chain madmen by the music of his lyre,

Cleanse to sweet airs the breath of poisonous streams,

And in the mountain chinks inter the winds.

This he could do of old; but now, since all

Clouds and grows daily worse in Sicily,

Since broils tear us in twain, since this new swarm

Of sophists has got empire in our schools

Where he was paramount, since he is banished,

And lives a lonely man in triple gloom,—

He grasps the very reins of life and death.

I asked him of Pantheia yesterday,

When we were gathered with Peisianax;

And he made answer, I should come at night

On Etna here, and be alone with him,

And he would tell me, as his old, tried friend,

Who still was faithful, what might profit me,—

That is, the secret of this miracle.

CALLICLES.

Bah! Thou a doctor! Thou art superstitious.

Simple Pausanias, 'twas no miracle!

Pantheia, for I know her kinsmen well,