The same stared in the white humid faces upturned by the flowers; The same worked in the heart of the cedar and moved the vine bowers: And the little brooks witnessing murmured, persistent and low, With their obstinate, all but hushed voices - "E'en it is so!" 1 so, Leave we the common crofts,3 the vulgar thorpes, Each in its tether Sleeping safe on the bosom of the plain, Cared-for till cock-crow: Look out if yonder be not day again Rimming the rock-row! 5 That's the appropriate country; there man's thought, Rarer, intenser, Self-gathered for an outbreak, as it ought, Chafes in the censer. Leave we the unlettered plain its herd and crop; Seek we sepulture On a tall mountain, citied to the top, Crowded with culture! All the peaks soar, but one the rest excels; No! yonder sparkle is the citadel's Circling its summit. Thither our path lies; wind we up the heights: Wait ye the warning? Our low life was the level's and the night's: Step to a tune, square chests, erect each head, This is our master, famous, calm, and dead, Borne on our shoulders. Sleep, crop and herd! sleep, darkling thorpe and croft Safe from the weather! He, whom we convoy to his grave aloft, Singing together, He was a man born with thy face and throat, Lyric Apollo! Long he lived nameless: how should spring take note Winter would follow? Till lo, the little touch, and youth was gone! Cramped and diminished, Moaned he, "New measures, other feet anon! My dance is finished!" No, that's the world's way; (keep the mountain-side, He knew the signal, and stepped on with pride Left play for work, and grappled with the world "What's in the scroll," quoth he, "thou keepest furled? Show me their shaping, Theirs who most studied man, the bard and sage, Give!" So, he gowned him,' 1 Straight got by heart that book to its last page: Yea, but we found him bald too, eyes like lead, "Time to taste life," another would have said, This man said rather, "Actual life comes next? Grant I have mastered learning's crabbed text, - and crop; Let me know all! Prate not of most or lease, Painful or easy! Even to the crumbs I'd fain eat up the feast, Oh, such a life as he resolved to live, When he had learned it, When he had gathered all books had to give! Sooner, he spurned it. Image the whole, then execute the parts - Quite, ere you build, ere steel strike fire from quartz, (Here's the town-gate reached; there's the market place Gaping before us.) Yea, this in him was the peculiar grace (Hearten our chorus!) That before living he'd learn how to live No end to learning: Earn the means first God surely will contrive Use for our earning. Others mistrust and say, "But time escapes! Live now or never!" He said, "What's time? Leave Now for dogs and apes! J Man has Forever." Back to his book then: deeper drooped his head: 1 Calculus racked him: Leaden before, his eyes grew dross of lead: Tussis attacked him. "Now, master, take a little rest!"-not he! Step two abreast, the way winds narrowly!) Back to his studies, fresher than at first, He (soul-hydroptic2 with a sacred thirst) Sucked at the flagon. Oh, if we draw a circle premature, Heedless of far gain, Greedy for quick returns of profit, sure Bad is our bargain! Was it not great? did not he throw on God (He loves the burthen). God's task to make the heavenly period Perfect the earthen? 3 Did not he magnify the mind, show clear Just what it all meant? He would not discount life, as fools do here, Paid by installment. し He ventured neck or nothing - heaven's success |