Line's struggle having so far reached its term: From the developed brute; a God though in the germ. And I shall thereupon 75 What weapons to select, what armor to indue. Youth ended, I shall try 85 My gain or loss thereby; Leave the fire ashes, what survives is gold: And I shall welgu the same, Give life its praise or blame: Young, all lay in dispute; I shall know, being old. 90 For, note when evening shuts, A certain moment cuts The deed off, calls the glory from the gray: A whisper from the west Shoots-" Add this to the rest, 95 Take it and try its worth: here dies another day." So, still within this life, Though lifted o'er its strife, Let me discern, compare, pronounce at last, "This rage was right i' the main, That acquiescence vain: The Future I may face now I have proved the Past." For more is not reserved To man, with soul just nerved 75. Its term.-Its terminus, proper end or limit. 100 To act to-morrow what he learns to-day: Here, work enough to watch The Master work, and catch Hints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool's true play. As it was better, youth Should strive, through acts uncouth, Toward making, than repose on aught found made : From strife, should know, than tempt Further. Thou waitedst age: wait death, nor be afraid! Enough now, if the Right And Good and Infinite Be named here, as thou callest thy hand thine own, Subject to no dispute From fools that crowded youth, nor let thee feel alone. Be there, for once and all, Severed great minds from small, Announced to each his station in the Past! Was I, the world arraigned, Were they, my soul disdained, 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 130 Match me: we all surmise, They, this thing, and I, that: whom shall my soul believe? 124, 125.-Was I whom the world arraigned, or were they whom my sou disdained, right? Not on the vulgar mass Called "work," must sentence pass, Things done, that took the eye and had the price 135 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 failed to plumb, So passed in making up the main account: All instincts immature, All purposes unsure, 140 That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man's amount: Thoughts hardly to be packed Into a narrow act, Fancies that broke through language and escaped: All I could never be, All men ignored in me, 145 This I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped. 150 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, 155 "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 entered into thee, 160 That was, is, and shall be: Time's wheel runs back or stops: Potter and clay endure. 152. That metaphor.-Compare the same metaphor, Is. lxiv. 8 and xxix. 16; Jer. xviii. 2-6; Rom. ix. 21. He fixed thee mid this dance This Present, thou, forsooth, wouldst fain arrest : Of plastic circumstance, Machinery just meant To give thy soul its bent, Try thee, and turn thee forth sufficiently impressed. What though the earlier grooves Which ran the laughing loves Around thy base, no longer pause and press? Skull-things in order grim 165 170 Grow out, in graver mood, obey the sterner stress? 175 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 needst thou with earth's wheel? But I need, now as then, Thee, God, who moldest men ! 180 And since, not even while the whirl was worst, Did I,-to the wheel of life With shapes and colors rife, 185 Bound dizzily,-mistake my end, to slake Thy thirst: So, take and use Thy work, Amend what flaws may lurk, What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the aim ! 190 Perfect the cup as planned! Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same! Memorabilia. This poem, says Mrs. Orr, "is a picturesque comment on the power of personal association to give importance to any incident, however trifling; and tends to show that, from this point of view, no incident is more trifling than another." The enthusiastic lover of Shelley has so idealized the poet that he can hardly believe him to be a man that can be spoken to like other men. For him a falling eagle feather, with its sudden suggestion of the ethereal poet, is enough to drive away all other memories of the moor, Aн, did you once see Shelley plain, But you were living before that, My starting moves your laughter! I crossed a moor, with a name of its own For there I picked up on the heather ΙΟ 15 |