Be there, for once and all, Sever'd great minds from small, Announced to each his station in the Past! Was I, the world arraign'd, Were they, my soul disdain'd, Right? Let age speak the truth and give us peace at last! Now, who shall arbitrate? Ten men love what I hate, Shun what I follow, slight what I receive; Ten, who in ears and eyes Match me: we all surmise, They this thing, and I that: whom shall my soul believe? Not on the vulgar mass Call'd "work," must sentence pass, Things done, that took the eye and had the price; O'er which, from level stand, The low world laid its hand, Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice: But all, the world's coarse thumb And finger fail'd to plumb, So pass'd in making up the main account; All instincts immature, All purposes unsure, That weigh'd not as his work, yet swell'd the man's amount: Thoughts hardly to be pack'd Into a narrow act, Fancies that broke through language and escaped; All I could never be, All, men ignored in me, This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped. Ay, note that Potter's wheel, That metaphor! and feel Why time spins fast, why passive lies our clay,— Thou, to whom fools propound, When the wine makes its round, "Since life fleets, all is change; the Past gone, seize to-day!" Fool! All that is, at all, Lasts ever, past recall; Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure: What enter'd into thee, That was, is, and shall be: Time's wheel runs back or stops: Potter and clay endure. He fix'd thee 'mid this dance Of plastic circumstance, This Present, thou, forsooth, wouldst fain arrest Machinery just meant To give thy soul its bent, Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently im press'd. What though the earlier grooves Which ran the laughing loves Around thy base, no longer pause and press? What though, about thy rim, Scull-things in order grim Grow out, in-graver mood, obey the sterner stress? Look not thou down but up! To uses of a cup, The festal board, lamp's flash and trumpet's peal The new wine's foaming flow, The master's lips aglow ! Thou, heaven's consummate cup, what need'st thou with earth's wheel? But I need, now as then, Thee, God, who mouldest men; And since, not even while the whirl was worst With shapes and colours rife, Bound dizzily,-mistake my end, to slake Thy thirst: So, take and use Thy work: What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the aim! My times be in Thy hand! Perfect the cup as plann'd! 1st age approve of youth, and death complete the same! ROBERT BROWNIN Prospice. "Prospice," by Robert Browning (1812–89), is the greatest death song ever written. It is a battle-song and a pæan of victory. "The journey is done, the summit attained, And the strong man must go." "I would hate that Death bandaged my eyes and forbore, "No! let me taste the whole of it." "The reward of all." This poem is included in this book because these lines are enough to reconcile any one to any fate. FEAR death?—to feel the fog in my throat, When the snows begin, and the blasts denote The power of the night, the press of the storm, The post of the foe; Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form, Yet the strong man must go: For the journey is done and the summit attained, And the barriers fall, Though a battle's to fight ere a guerdon be gained, The reward of it all. I was ever a fighter, so-one fight more. The best and the last! I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forebore, And bade me creep past. No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers The heroes of old, Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears Of pain, darkness, and cold. For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave, The black minute's at end. And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that rave Shall dwindle, shall blend, Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain, Then a light, then thy breast, O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again, And with God be the rest! ROBERT BROWNING. Recessional. The "Recessional” (by Rudyard Kipling, 1865-) is one of the most popular poems of this century. It is a warning to an age and a nation drunk with power, a rebuke to materialistic tendencies and boastfulness, a protest against pride. "Reverence is the master-key of knowledge." GOD of our fathers, known of old- Dominion over palm and pine- The tumult and the shouting dies- An humble and a contrite heart. Far-called our navies melt away On dune and headland sinks the fire Lo, all our pomp of yesterday Is one with Nineveh and Tyre! |