years afterwards in a
Greek Conjurer's house in Constantinople, with Paracelsus writing down
the result of his work. And the result is this:

"I have made a few discoveries, but I could not stay to use them. Nought
remains but a ceaseless, hungry pressing forward, a vision now and then
of truth; and I--I am old before my hour: the adage is true--

Time fleets, youth fades, life is an empty dream;

and now I would give a world to rest, even in failure!

"This is all my gain. Was it for this," he cries, "I subdued my life,
lost my youth, rooted out love; for the sake of this wolfish thirst of
knowledge?" No dog, said Faust, in Goethe's poem, driven to the same
point by the weariness of knowledge, no dog would longer live this life.
My tyrant aim has brought me into a desert; worse still, the purity of
my aim is lost. Can I truly say that I have worked for man alone? Sadder
still, if I had found that which I sought, should I have had power to
use it? O God, Thou who art pure mind, spare my mind. Thus far, I have
been a man. Let me conclude, a man! Give me back one hour of my young
energy, that I may use and finish what I know.

"And God is good: I started sure of that; and he may still renew my
heart.

True, I am worn;
But who clothes summer, who is life itself?
God, that created all things, can renew!"

At this moment the voice of Aprile is heard singing the song of the
poets, who, having great gifts, refused to use them, or abused them, or
were too weak; and who therefore live apart from God, mourning for ever;
who gaze on life, but live no more. He breaks in on Paracelsus, and, in
a long passage of overlapping thoughts, Aprile--who would love
infinitely and be loved, aspiring to realise every form of love, as
Paracelsus has aspired to realise the whole of knowledge--makes
Paracelsus feel that love is what he wants. And then, when Paracelsus
realises this, Aprile in turn realises that he wants knowledge. Each
recognises that he is the complement of the other, that knowledge is
worthless without love, and love incapable of realising its aspirations
without knowledge--as if love did not contain the sum of knowledge
necessary for fine being. Both have failed; and it seems, at first, that
they failed because they did not combine their aims. But the chief
reason of their failure--and this is, indeed, Browning's main point--is
that each of them tried to do more than our limits on earth perm