Part 13 (1/2)

Master, we have all learnt that truth is learnt When the intellect's deliberate and cold, As it were a polished mirror that reflects An unchanged world; and not when the steel melts, Bubbling and hissing, till there's naught but fume.

WISE MAN

When it is melted, when it all fumes up, They walk, as when beside those three in the furnace The form of the fourth.

FIRST PUPIL

Master, there's none among us That has not heard your mockery of these, Or thoughts like these, and we have not forgot.

WISE MAN

Something incredible has happened--some one has come Suddenly like a grey hawk out of the air, And all that I declared untrue is true.

FIRST PUPIL (_to other pupils_)

You'd think the way he says it, that he felt it.

There's not a mummer to compare with him.

He's something like a man.

SECOND PUPIL

Give us some proof.

WISE MAN

What proof have I to give, but that an angel An instant ago was standing on that spot.

[_The pupils rise._

THIRD PUPIL

You dreamed it.

WISE MAN

I was awake as I am now.

FIRST PUPIL (_to the others_)

I may be dreaming now for all I know.

He wants to show we have no certain proof Of anything in the world.

SECOND PUPIL

There is this proof That shows we are awake--we have all one world While every dreamer has a world of his own, And sees what no one else can.

THIRD PUPIL

Teigue sees angels.