turn out false."

In that poem, love is definitely lifted by the poet to the level of
knowledge. Intellectual gain, apart from love, is folly and futility,
worthless for the individual and worthless to the race. "Mind is nothing
but disease," Paracelsus cries in the bitterness of his disappointment,
"and natural health is ignorance"; and he asks of the mad poet who
"loved too rashly,"

"Are we not halves of one dissevered world,
Whom this strange chance unites once more? Part? Never!
Till thou the lover, know; and I, the knower,
Love--until both are saved."[A]

[Footnote A: _Paracelsus_.]

And, at the end of the poem, Paracelsus, coming to an understanding with
himself as to the gain and loss of life, proclaims with his last
strength the truth he had missed throughout his great career, namely,
the supreme worth of love.

"I saw Aprile--my Aprile there!
And as the poor melodious wretch disburthened
His heart, and moaned his weakness in my ear,
I learned my own deep error; love's undoing
Taught me the worth of love in man's estate,
And what proportion love should hold with power
In his right constitution; love preceding
Power, and with much power, always much more love;
Love still too straitened in his present means,
And earnest for new power to set love free."

As long as he hated men, or, in his passionate pursuit of truth, was
indifferent to their concerns, it was not strange that he saw no good in
men and failed to help them. Knowledge without love is not _true_
knowledge, but folly and weakness.

But, great as is the place given to love in _Paracelsus_, it is far less
than that given to it in the poet's later works. In _Ferishtah's
Fancies_ and _La Saisiaz_ it is no longer rivalled by knowledge; nor
even in _Easter Day_, where the voice beside the poet proclaiming that

"Life is done,
Time ends, Eternity's begun,"

gives a final pronouncement upon the purposes of the life of man. The
world of sense--of beauty and art, of knowledge and truth, are given to
man, but none of them satisfy his spirit; they merely sting with hunger
for something better. "Deficiency gapes every side," till love is known
as the essence and worth of all things.

"Is this thy final choice?
Love is the best? 'Tis somewhat late!
And all thou dost enumerate
Of power and beauty in the world,
The righteousness of love was curled
Inextricably round about.
Love lay with